Does this sound like you?

Tracking whats happening on your website?

• You have a website with your products and services listed on it.
• Your website is listed on your business cards, signage, logos and advertisements
• You have some directory listings so people can find your websites when they search online.

While most business owners are savvy enough to have a website – very few know how to tell if their website is working.

Have you ever asked “How do businesses know if their website is working?”

The answer is simple: TRACKING!!! – If you have a website, you need to be tracking what is happening on it.

What kind of things should you be tracking?

- Traffic
- Newsletter sign ups
- Contact us form submissions
- Lead generation or quote forms submissions
- Sales
- Shopping cart drop outs

TRAFFIC: Most websites will come with some sort of analytics tool to help you track traffic.

Do you know how much traffic you are getting a month?
Where does your traffic come from? Do you know what percentage of traffic comes from search engines, direct visits, paid advertisments or newsletter?
How many people view your website from a mobile phone.

Knowing this information can help you review if your marketing budget is being well spent.
e.g.
A high number of search engine referrals means your search engine optimisation marketing is working.
A high number of direct visits means your print marketing and branding is working well as people are coming direct to your website.

NEWSLETTER SIGNUPS
One of the most powerful tools a website can have is an active list of interested people to email. By offering newsletter sign ups on your website you can build a list of targeted customers and start to build a rapport with them to keep them coming back again and again.

SALES
Got an Ecommerce Website? What is your websites conversion rate? What percentage of your websites traffic converts into sales.
e.g. If you are not converting your traffic into sales then you need to address the copy and structure of your website and its ability to sell.

CONTACT US/ QUOTE OR LEAD GENERATION FORMS

• How many people contact you using your website contact form a month?
• Generating Leads? How many people fill in your quote form a month?

Tracking this information will help you review your unique selling proposition ability to persued peopleon your website to contact you, sign up or take the next step.

I RECOMMEND GOOGLE ANALYTICS AS A TRACKING TOOLS
Google Analytics is a great free tool which can be added to the code on your website to track everything that happens on your website

• Where traffic comes from – countries, browsers, devices, times, search engines, repeat or first time visitor
• What traffic does – pages visited, keywords, time spend on site, ecommerce conversions, completing goals

AND SO MUCH MORE.

The real power is when you combine Google Adwords, Google Analytics and Google Web Master tools to create a detailed picture of how your website is working on the web.

Want to get a better picture of how your website is working?

I offer hourly consulting to help you set up tracking on your website so you can find out:

• What is working.
• What is not working and trouble shoot the cause.
• Make an action plan to get your website converting.

Call me now on 027 315 8672 and lets talk about how you can make your website your most profitable sales person.

Here is a great video I have just watched about your options when tracking a website. It covers the power of using the Google Trifecta to track your websites traffic, search engine presence and goals.

• Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Analtytics
• Google Conversion Optimiser

The basic idea is that you use:

Google Webmaster tools to make sure your website is being searched and loaded in search engines.

Google Analytics to track traffic and what it is doing on your website

Google Conversion Optimiser to track changes and see if they positively or negatively effect your website and its money making ability.

If  it is a little over your head and you do not “Speak Geek” like the people in the video, these are all tools I have been using for a few years, I can help you set up tracking and figure out how to make your website more profitable.

Happy Nerding!

On request from a few clients and friends I have decided to offer group trainings for business owners and everyday people.

I see a need for business owners to learn more about online marketing so they can have more control over their campaigns and budgets. By learning more about online marketing you can learn how to track your marketing efforts so that you know if it is working, what the results are and if you are getting a good return on your investment.

Watch this video to learn more about this service and why it is right for you.

Learn more about Online Marketing Lessons in Christchurch

ce

Content Is King

Just came across this really interesting article that highlights the importance of writing your own UNIQUE content.

“Google Search Formula Gets More Discerning”

I have been telling my clients for years that Duplicate content will get them blacklisted or kicked off google.

What is duplicate content you ask?

It is content that is copied directly from other websites and duplicated on your website

e.g.

• Taking free articles from article directories to add content to your site.
• Using brands exact product information when describing a product.

Google wants to see websites have something interesting to say about any topic/product or service. They do not want to send their search visitors to the same content on 10 different websites.

So MAKE IT COUNT!

While you will may want to include some of the information of brand websites such as
e.g. ingredients, uses, colours, sizes

You also want to put your own spin into the copy. Make it unique by adding
e.g. Staff reviews, customer reviews, frequently asked questions, shipping details and times etc.

Make each page on your website unique and relevant so that the search engines will want to rank you and send you traffic!

Interested in getting more traffic to your website? Give me a call today to talk about search engine optimisation.

After the Christchurch Earthquake your google local business listing is more important then ever. As you may know every business can claim their free google local business listing or “google places” page. This is a place where you can update customers and potential customers about up coming events, changed hours, relocation and when they can use your services again.

"Restaraunt Beckenham" Search Results for Local Business Listings

If you already have control of your page GREAT – this means you can use it to update:

• Change of address if you have had to shift premises.
• Opening hours if you are operating with light staff.
• Post updates to let people know if you are open, the date you open, if you are waiting on a green sticker or if you are in the process of relocating.

If you have never claimed your google local places page then this requires a little more work:

You need to first find your business on google places and claim it

This can be done by googling your business name, address or phone number.

OR

If it is not listed on google places yet you need to start a google account and add your business listing.

Fill out all your current details and after you have done this you have to verify your listing by punching in a pin code. This can be done in one of three ways if your business was already listed. You can receive your pin code by:

• Post Card – 2-3 weeks
• Phone – instant
• Text Message – instant

OR if you had to add your business name and details manually, postcard is the only way.

After this is verified by entering a pin code,  it has to be approved by google.

What Next?

Once this is all done then you can use it as a important business marketing tool.

For help setting up Google Places & Local Business Listings I have set up the following package where I help businesses claim their page then get it onto the right page so people can find it.

Give me a call today Lucy Ross – Online Marketing Consultant – 027 315 8672

Yesterday I asked myself  “How do my search engine optimisation services stack up?”

What better industry to show my ability to perform search engine optimisation than by demonstrating how my own website ranks in relation to other search engine optimisation and online marketing agencies.

Here is a quick video I put together on how my site performs against other search engine optimisation companies.

This requires:

• Conducting keyword research to see what keywords people are using online to find goods and services like yours.
• Conducting competitor/industry analysis to see what keywords the competition is using.
• Making sure the website is structured in a way that search engines will like and will find easy to index.
• Editing the code using your keywords
• Optimising the copy using your keywords
• Make sure the website is structured properly for s.e.o

You may be able optimise the your own website or alternatively you could pay for a search engine optimisation services.  (I have been optimizing websites for 7 years and worked on over 50 websites during my career with every website ranking in google for relevant keywords).

Every website should have an analytics package of some sort (Which measures how much traffic you are getting and what keywords are bringing traffic to your website) Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that provides PRICELESS information about what visitors are doing on your website.

Use Analytics To see:

• What keywords used to get to your website
• What pages they are visiting
• Where your visitors come from (direct, search engines, ad campaigns, email campaigns).

How Do I Know If It Is Working?

You can use google analytics to see the amount of traffic you are getting from the search engines. A search engine optimisation campaign should increase the number of visitors using keywords related to your niche/business that visit your website.

The process of getting your website into google is called Search engine optimisation.

Website Optimisation

To get your website into Google you must optimise its keywords, content and code in a way that Google can read, whilst still making it make sense for people to read.

Search Engine Submissions

After this you will you also need to consider which google search engine you would like to rank in e.g. google.com, google.co.uk, google.co.nz, google.com.au.  Then you can submit your website to the appropriate search engines.

Tracking Results

I recommend using an analytics program (like google analytics) to track the results of your search engine campaign. You can use it to see how much traffic you are getting from teh search engines.

For Search Engine Optimisation Services to get you into the search engines call Lucy 027 315 8672