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.

As I’ve posted in the past, I get daily notifications of my “Daily Challenge” – little snippets, sayings, quotes, ideas that keep me grounded and remind me that it’s not all about me.  Sometimes these little challenges strike a personal note, and sometimes they hit me professionally.  Today’s challenge can apply both personally and professionally.

“Choose to re-frame disappointments as challenges to help you grow.”

We would not be who we are without disappointment and growth, so this is a great reminder or push to learn from our mistakes, both personally and professionally.

If I apply this professionally, it is to take a web site that does not perform well, or has experiences failures in the ways of online sales and/or traffic and turn that around.  The disappointments in online performance are the things that push to dig deeper and find out what is not working and make it better.

I have one particular account that puzzles me – the site traffic grows month over month, the overall site bounce rate is low, the pricing on products is competitive and they are experiencing nice positioning in Google.  They are following all the steps in our marketing plan, yet the site does not perform as well as I’d expect it to.  It is rather disappointing.  BUT, this is now a challenge – to test the waters and look for ways to make it work.  We’ve just rolled out some changes that I hope will be effective, but again we continue to monitor using tools like Google Analytics to watch our changes take hold.

If not, I will continue to push to find the right solution as I attempt to do in all areas of my life.  My passion for my client’s success is what keeps me motivated.  At the end of the day, if their site is performing well and I am helping their business grow, then I’ve overcome just one more challenge.

As Joel Osteen once said  “Every setback is a setup for a great comeback…”

I continue to view failures and disappointments as opportunities for growth in all areas of my life.  It is those things that make us stronger both personally and professionally.

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!

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.

SEO back in the day was the latest and greatest thing.  People realized they could improve their search engine ranking through optimization of their site.  Everyone jumped on the SEOwagon.   It started with meta-tags, and people packing their sites full of invisible keywords to get ranking.  You remember – white text on white background that nobody but the search engines could see.  That just doesn’t fly anymore.