A simple concepts, and a bit of review…  Chances are, you’ve placed some content on your web site or blog and made it available for your users to download.  If that is the case, I’m guessing you believe your content to be useful to your audience (and it probably is).

Wouldn’t it be helpful to know exactly how many times your content is, in fact, downloaded?    Here is the simple code to install on your site (assuming you are using Google Analytics) to track the each download event of each file:

onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/downloads/_custom‘); ”

This code is placed inside the href tag and after the link file name.   The portion noted in red above ‘custom’ is your way of differentiating between types of content you may offer up on your site for more granular tracking.  (eg. white_papers, case_studies, etc.)

So a completed link might look like this:

<a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com” onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/downloads/white_paper’); “>

Things to think about if your download counts are low:

• Is the document download link strategically placed on the page or hidden within the content?
• Is the document link labeled appropriately (might consider a call-out)
• Is the actual landing page where the download is offered well structured and search optimized?
• Is the landing page buried several clicks deep on your site?

These are some areas for trial and error to improve visibility of your downloadable content.  Try to modify one of all of the above to improve exposure to your content.

Our web content should serve a purpose for our audience – that being said, we need to know how it’s performing.

Google Analytics recently rolled out the new “Intelligence” section of Analytics – adding more features to how we track and manage web conversions.  I thought I’d take a few minutes to show you the basics on how to set them up and why you might want to use them.

The more we know about our web site’s performance, the better we can plan for upcoming drops in traffic (based on past trends), or prepare for increased traffic with successful marketing campaigns.

Annotations can be an effective tool in placing reminders right into your analytical data that you can refer back to when pulling historical data.  A couple of examples of where you might do this:

• Large/Sudden drop in traffic due to perhaps a power outage – note the power outage so a year from now when you look at historical date you remember that.
• A jump in traffic could be due to an email campaign, press release, blog post, new product intro – note the specific event in your Google analytics account.
• When you are working with tools like Google AdWords you often make budget changes, create new Ad Groups, pause Ad Groups.  Creating an annotation is a good idea to track these events.
• Perhaps you launch a full site redesign that includes all new content that will need to be re-indexed by the search engines.  Create an annotation.

There are many reasons to create annotations in Google Analytics as they are quick ‘at-a-glance’ checkpoint when looking at your data.  Below is a quick snap-shot of annotations and how to create them.

The above image shows the same data point and how to view/create annotations.  Here’s the breakdown:

Image A shows the data point (date) where there was a jump in traffic.  Notice in the image the little thought bubble at the bottom. This is the indicator that lets you know there is an Annotation associated with that date.

Image B shows what you will see if you mouse-over the annotation bubble.  It shows you the date, how many site visits on that date, and how many annotations have been created for that date.  (If you have clicked on that, you’ll see your annotations just below this graph).

Image C is what you see when you click on the annotation bubble – this is where you get the option to “Create New Annotation.”

Once you’ve clicked on “Create New Annotation” you have the option to insert text associated with the event you want to track for that date.  (See image below)  It’s pretty straight forward – just put in a very brief description of the event you are tracking.  “BLOG POST:  Creating Google Annotations” would be the description I would create if I created one for this post.   Save it, and your done!

Creating Annotations in Google Analytics

I am finding Google Analytics Annotations to be a good tool to use when doing specific tasks related to Social Media tasks.  I know we use monitoring and tracking tools for Social Media, and Google Analytics was not built specifically for that, but often times customers want that quick ‘at-a-glance” view of how things are going, how a Facebook change may have been successful or generated new fans, if a blog post drove traffic to your site, etc.

I hope this was helpful.

Here’s a quick an easy “how to” on adding Google Analytics tracking code to your blogger site.

First – if you have  a main web site for your business that your blog is supporting – hopefully you already have an Analytics account set up for tracking your site traffic.

Assuming that’s the case you will be adding a new profile to your already existing Analytics account so we can track your blog traffic.   We covered how to add profiles in our post about applying IP Filters to our analytical data (which you’ll want to do for your blog also).

Got your profile added?  Now grab your analytics tracking code from Google Analytics (copy it into Notepad or some text editor) – and run on over to Blogger.   Under “Layout” in your Blogger account select the Page Elements option (which should like the image shown below)

See that “Add A Gadget” field along the bottom of the image?  That represents your blog footer and is where you’ll want to input your Google Analytics Tracking Code.

Click on that “Add A Gadget” link and select “Html/JavaScript” (shown here)

Clicking on the blue “+” will open a window.  DO NOT enter a title in the Title field.  Simply copy your tracking code from NotePad and paste into this Content field of this pop-up window.  Click SAVE and then it should take you back to your layout screen and show now show an HTML/JavaScript item in your blog footer.

For good measure SAVE your changes on this screen as well and then go back to Analytics.  Lets verify that your tracking code is installed properly.  Click on “Edit” in your Google Analytics profile.  When the profile edit screen opens, look to the top right for a link that says “Check Status”  - once you click on that – Google Analytics will check the tracking code you just installed on your blog and will either deliver an error message, or tell you that your tracking code has been installed properly.

Those are the basics.  If you need help with setting up your blog in general, or are not quite sure how to get your Google Analytics Tracking Code – drop me an email.  I can answer any questions you may have about installing your tracking code, setting up your IP filters and so on.

Good luck and happy blogging!

Read more on IP Filtering through Google Analytics.

Title grab you did it?  That’s a common thing I am hearing from my customers coming off the holiday shopping season.  Well maybe not in those exact words, but here is what I am hearing starting off this new year…

“My traffic is way down on my site, what is going on?”  or “You are not doing what you said you’d do in marketing my web site.”

First of all… acknowledging that site traffic is down in December is only part of the picture.  The common misconception in using Google Analytics that I encounter with my clients is that they look at small snapshots of data without any reference to past trends and make major assumptions about their website’s overall performance.  In some circumstances that may be correct, however people tend to panic when perhaps they see a drop in traffic without looking at the big picture.

To many, this topic is seemingly adolescent – this being basic knowledge of using Analytics – but I write this for the small business guy who gets worried at the slightest change in traffic who maybe has a bit of tunnel vision.

So when you say to me – you suck – I say to you – chill out and consider this.

Yes – for sure your traffic was down in December of 2009 from November of 2009 – BUT your traffic is up 30% in December 2009 compared to your traffic in December of 2008.  Additionally, your site may have less traffic than last month, but of that less traffic, you converted more of it than you did last year.  Are you following me?   Here are a few graphs to demonstrate:

Comparing Traffic Trends Year Over Year

The green line above is showing site visits in 2008, and the blue shows site traffic in 2009.  This specific business typically has cycles of higher traffic and the traffic trends for the two years compared are almost identical, the only difference:  the average increase for each month compared to the previous year is up an average of 30%.  So while the traffic was down in December of 2009, it was still up from this time last year.

Next – take a look at your goal conversions:

Goal Conversion Comparison Year Over Year

Again – green is 2008 – so for this period of time, there was clearly an increase in site traffic conversions (completed goals) over the previous year.  This is a great measure of success for a site if the goals are meaningful and can be associated with revenue.

You can check the year over year comparisons (or even month over month) on a variety of data points using Google Analytics like Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, Page Views and more.  Simply select the “Compare to Past” option (shown here) when selecting your date range.  By default it will prefill the past date range to the previous period of time just before the current date range selected (so if I’ve selected a 30 day period it will default to the previous 30 days).

Usually by this time, the customer has calmed down and understands that their site has common trends when you compare specific time ranges over previous years.  Furthermore, when they see the increase in conversions they feel better.  One would think they’d be more aware of the conversions and revenue generated by their website – but in reality – many small business are a ‘one man shop’ and their method of tracking revenue is generally somewhat antiquated.

So I encourage you – the small business owner to have all the information before making any assumptions, and if you have a dedicated Internet Marketing Strategist – be sure to ask the right questions.

BTW if you are not yet using Google Analytics on your website – you should be.  There is so much to learn if you only listen to what your web site has to say.

Working through year end reports for some 30+ small to medium sized businesses, what is evident is those who had a successful 2009 online are the ones who were actively working their websites to grow their online presence.

The proof is in the analytical data.  I have completed about 25% of my year end status reports and time over time the ones not working their sites are showing little to no growth, and the clients who have put in the time are singing praises to their websites!

A snapshot of a website with no growth:

Below is actual Google Analytics data of a client who’s new website launched in mid 2009.  This client has done little to no work on their web site and their site traffic remains stale at around 100 visits per month – that equates to 1 visit every 3 days people – and this is an e-commerce site…

Inactive website showing little no growth 4th quarter 2009

On top of the lack of traffic they have made one very small sale since the site launched.  Below is the Google Analytics Goals data for this same web site for the same period of time:

Google Analytics data showing goal conversions on inactive website.

In the marketing plan were tasks such as product description optimization and enhancement, content development, and addition of new products.  Needless to say, little to no content was developed and no products have been added since the site launched in mid 2009.  I should note that this site is very competitive in it’s pricing and has thousands of products they could be selling online.  At the current time they maybe have 150 products active on their e-commerce site.

A snapshot of a website continuing to gain momentum:

The second example below is a site that only launched in September of 2009.  I should note this site has less products than the site shown in the first example.  This small business actively looks for ways to improve the site and add other methods for goal conversion and lead generation.

Google Analytics on an actively worked website.

As you can see from the start, site visits continues to rise.  This customer actively writes new content for their site, and enhances the current site content and product information.  New service offerings are being added on a regular basis based on their brick and mortar business in ways that make sense to their online customers.

Below is the same period of time for the active customer and the goal conversions on their web site:

Google Analytics Goal Conversions on an active site.

When the site launched in September there were 3 ways to convert traffic.  Online sales and two other lead generated activities.   This actively worked website now has 13 goal conversion types being tracked online, each of which is a lead generator.

I should note that this second example probably puts in an hour a week on their website.  (maybe two hours).  Compare that 1-2 hours of effort per week on a website in traffic and conversions to the customer who spends 0 hours per week on theirs.  Image what 4-8 hours per month could do for your business.

These customers are selling very different products and reaching unique audiences, but across the board I am seeing the same trend in my year end reports.  Sadly, this is not a new trend.  I refer back to my post in March of 2009 “Define Your Website with Content”.  Nothing has changed since I wrote that almost a year ago.  This is not the Field of Dreams and where your website is concerned the phrase “If you build it they will come” does NOT apply!

Please resolve yourself to dedicate 10 hours per month to your online presence.  Look for ways to generate new leads and drive traffic and sales to your site. Not sure how to write new content?  Use your analytical data to drive you.  Google Analytics can be your best friend if you use it properly and listen to what it’s telling you.

I wish you a happy and prosperous 2010!

eCommerce sites tend to be a bit easier to monitor and rate success with online goals being sales.  Sites that are not selling online still need to generate business – otherwise what’s the point of being online right?  Hopefully you are using Google Analytics to set goals for your site and to monitor their success.

If you don’t have goals set up – take a look at your non-eCommerce site and look for areas for generate leads.  A few examples of leads might be:

• Email Opt-In
• Online Conact Form Submission
• Online Quote Request Submitted
• Online Survey Completion
• Document Downloads

Each of these actions can  be tracked separately in Google Analytics and can provide valuable insight into how your site is performing.

Assessing an existing goal and working to improve coversions

Having goals set up for a website doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be a successful goal with regular conversions.  Through Google Analytics we can ascertain what is working and what isn’t.  Here’s a real time example:

Company X is a USA manufacturer who does not sell direct online.  They do however offer to quote out every product they sell and work directly with their online users.  This is a means to be able to sell direct and not upset their distributor networks.    After the site was live for several months we decided to add a quote request form to offer up this service and generate leads.

We added a quote request form to the site and featured it on the site’s home page.  We then monitored the site’s goal conversion rate over a few months and found that while people were starting to submit quote requests – they were few and far between.

We took it a step further and created a call-out for this quote request and placed it on the top and bottom of every single product page.  Below is a real-time screen capture of the change in goal conversions for these quote requests – showing two months before, and one month after this very simple change was made.

Note that in June and half way through July they were lucky to get 1-2 quote requests per week.  Once we made that simple change of adding this quote request callout to every product page, the number of quote requests they are now receiving has greatly improved.  One simple change can make a huge difference.

Be sure to monitor your site traffic regularly and look for areas to improve conversions.  Work to develop ways to convert online traffic into real business and get creative.  Adding a survey to your site is a nice way to generate leads if you are not currently quoting custom products.  Email signups are another great way to generate leads.  Start thinking outside the box – especially if you are not selling direct to your online website visitors.

As a side note – if you have more than 4 goals you want to track, and are using Google Analytics – you will need to create a duplicate profile.  Each profile in Analytics only allows for 4 goals.  (See post on creating duplicate profiles.)

Good Morning my internet friends!   It’s time to stop and talk about the importance of growing your website traffic versus the importance of improving your site content to increase conversions (Yet Again).

If you are the proud owner of a new website – and by new I mean less than 18 months old – then I hope you are working on improving your website and listening to what it’s telling you.  This is an area of internet I am very passionate about, and also very frustrated with why people don’t get it!

During the infancy of your new website – you should be watching your top landing pages and their bounce rates.  You should also be looking for ways to grow your conversions. Depending on your website, a conversion may either be an online sale, or an online quote requested, or even just a contact form or survey submission. Every online business varies in what they are trying to accomplish.   While your website is ‘young’ the traffic will be less, so you’ll want to work on converting more… then as your traffic grows – your conversions should increase accordingly.

Google Analytics does a fantastic job of letting know how people are finding you, where they are entering your site and where they are exiting your site. Your bounce rate can tell you a lot about why people are not buying or converting on your web site. If your top performing keyword and it’s related landing pages have a bounce rate or 90% – you have to take action. This means that 90% of the users visiting under that search term are NOT converting!    Why would not want to try to grab a hold of some of that traffic.

I find that people get wrapped around the axle about meta tags and “SEO”.   Let me again reiterate – search engine optimization is only a SMALL part of effectively marketing your website. STOP! Furthermore the common theme I get from customers is “I just need more traffic”. NO! You need to work on improving your site so you convert your existing traffic – as you make these improvements, your traffic will naturally increase.

You can have all the traffic in the world, if it’s not converting and your web site is not an effective sales toolfor your organization – your traffic is useless.

You gotta work your web site people! You have to listen to it, and be willing to constantly improve it. If you do that – you can reach markets that you might have never otherwise enjoyed.

The internet can and will help you grow your business, if you are willing to grow with your website. This post may sound like a rant, and it is. I just want you to get it! Stop focusing on traffic and seo, and start worrying about what matters!

Google Analytics Tip for this week.  Use the filter tools to exclude traffic from certain IP addresses to your Analytics reports to get a better (and more realistic) picture of your web site’s traffic. Here are few key things to remember when doing this, and some basic Google Analytics set up instructions.

Filtering IP addresses can be a useful tool if you are working with a 3rd party web developement or internet marketing firms.  You will want to filter out specific IP address, as chances are your internet vendors/partners may access your site often.  In addition, you may want to filter out your own company’s IP address so you are not tracking internal visits to your site.  If your staff is using your website as a sales tool, or every employee has your website set as their default home page in their web browser, this can skew your web’s traffic and visitors data.

REMEMBER: If you apply a filter to an account, the information that get’s filtered out of your Analytics web reports cannot be retrieved. Filters delete the filtered data.  You will want to create a duplicate profile for your website in Analytics and leave one profile completely unfiltered to maintain all of your web stats in one profile, and then apply filters to additional profiles to segragate your information.

Under the Analytics Settings screen, once you have created your main profile, you can create a duplicate profile to apply your filters by clicking on “Add A Profile” and then entering the same domain setup information.   (Your tracking code should already be installed if you have successfully created your main profile.)    Tip:  When you name the duplicate profile name it something that will help you easily distinguish what you are filtering.  For example a profile with IP filtering might be “Profile Name – Filtered IPs”.

Once you’ve got your duplicate profile set up, you can now apply your filters.  From your Analytics Setting screen, select the profile you want to filter, and click on “Edit”.

Click on “+ Add Filter” (shown below).

On the filter setup screen you’ll name your filter, and select “Exclude all traffic from an IP address” (shown below).  If you need help finding your IP address, use http://iplocation.net.

I hope you find this information helpful.  You might be suprised how much internal traffic is being logged for your site, giving you a false sense of a high traffic web site.  Additionally, this IP filter will give you a much better sense of your top performing site pages, and your page specific bounce rates.

Good luck and happy web analyzing!

Search Keyterms (or key words) are still a primary focus in web site search engine optimization and do continue to contribute to higher search result ranking.  While search rank should not be a primary focus, it should one of many internet marketing goals.  However, there is no point in achieving high search result ranking if the landing pages that are ranking well are doing nothing for your website conversion rate.

To put it another way (and to be blunt), if your content stinks and your landing pages lack the organization or information your visitors want or need, all the rank in the world will do absolutely no good for you.  In fact, it will drive business elsewhere.

If you are using Google Analytics (or other similar analytical tools), you should be watching this information and making adjustments accordingly.  Let’s review a real-life example. Customer “X” sells a particular type of gloves online.  Of the top 20 performing web site keyterms, 6 of them are related to a paticular type of glove which is not selling well.  Out of those 6 search terms, 5 of them rank in the top ten positions in Google (or display on Google Page 1 search results).   When looking at sales, these gloves are just not selling.   This lends to the question… why?

Why are these gloves not selling if most of our web traffic is coming from those search terms and they have great Google search rank?

We dug in a bit deeper and checked out the keyterm bounce rate for Google traffic and the associate landing page specific bounce rate.  Here’s what I found…  The average bounce rate for those 6 keyterms was over 80% – Not Good.

The above graph is showing those top 6 performing keyterms and what the individual bounce rates are for each.  With that average bounce rate being almost 84%, we quickly realized there was an issue with the content related to those search terms.  To take it to the next level we can dig in to each of those keyterms and review the top landing pages for each.

The above graph shows that the top performing keyterms from the first chart has 2 associated landing pages.  We can then dig into those associated landing pages.  In this real life example, we learned there was a gross pricing error on their site, which made their gloves appear twice as expensive as their online competition.  No wonder they were not selling anything!

We were able to take real data and make sense of the fact that even though search results were fantastic, the site just wasnt working.  The product descriptions had errors that were causing customers to go elsewhere to buy the same product.

If your bounce rates are high it could mean several things (Read “Does Your Website Have Static Cling?“).  If it’s a product page, review the product description, pricing, shipping information.    If it’s not a product page, review the page layout and content.  Find out what your users are looking for when searching on those related terms and adjust your page content accordingly to improve conversions.

Please don’t ignore your bounce rate.  There is so much it can tell you about your web sites performance if you only just listen to what it’s telling you.

How many guys are out there searching on Google for cool and unique ways to propose marriage to their girlfriend?   How about this idea?  Plan a dinner or a summer picnic, barbeque – whatever, and order a carved watermelon centerpiece for your table that is hand-carved with the message “Will You Marry Me?” on it.    Add your girlfriend’s name for just a few bucks more!

So why am I blogging about these on an Internet Marketing Blog? Simply because the message is that you need to listen to what your web site is saying to you, and if you listen properly it can take you in directions you may have never thought about – that could grow your online business.

I have a client who has been selling watermelon boats and custom carved watermelon centerpieces – which in itself is a great concept!  Send them your logo and they will carve it on the face of a watermelon for your corporate event or whatever the occaision may be – whatever your message may be.

As we began to watch their traffic trends and site conversions, we found that they were getting quote requests for the custom watermelon carvings – which in truth I must tell you, is an area I did not think would be their primary focus.  But in looking at the numbers, I quickly realized there’s a lot of potential here to grow their website and online product offerings –  they have added some standard watermelon carvings options to their online store.  The Will You Marry Me marriage proposal carved watermelon is just one of those ideas.

We’ve listened to what the website was telling us through Analytics data, and what their visitors were looking for, and we’ve added products that answer that call.  The plan is to now develop a strategy for marekting these products and driving traffic to the website for these hand carved message watermelon centerpieces.  We’ll be posting on other blogs such as party and event planning blogs, engagement blogs, motivational and creative/crafty blogs and getting the message out about these “Message Carved Watermelons.”

As we begin to work the content for these new products, we will again need to listen to the web site and what it’s telling us…  We’ll be watching the bounce rate on these pages, which keyterms are working for which products, how many conversions (sales and/or quote requests), and so on.  Through doing this – we may even come up with more ideas for more products in the future…  We’ll be listening.