KISS DESIGN & SEO

By now you have read more than you could ever regurgitate back to anyone about Web Analytics and what tools would most likely work best for you and so on. Do you know, however, how to change those poor numbers you are getting into great numbers that drive profit? Where do you start? There are so many variables that could effect a website and it’s success. I have put together some tips to getting better numbers, from the basics of design and SEO to the less simplistic, ironically, KISS, a quick trip through a few of the more critical variables for an extreme website make over that will begin the turn around of your website.

SEO

I would like to start at the beginning, content. SEO is an extremely dynamic and progressing variable in your ever search for more traffic. Search engines like Google changes their algorithms more often then most girls change outfits before a hot first date! Google changed their search algorithm more up to 40 times(1) just during the month of February 2012. Therefore it will no longer satisfy to simply add keywords to your content, or lead generation through multiple different landing pages and countless other techniques that used to be the tried and true methods to getting SEO to work. It is critical to built SEO campaigns on solid foundations meant to drive traffic over the long haul, and not simply 40-yard dashes. Here are a few things(2) that every SEO campaign needs to stash in a roadside ditch.

1. Article Marketing. Instead of simply making quick links in the blog networks you need to build relationships with the blog authors and their followers. Become a guest author, engage the blogs followers and don’t forget to follow up with the conversations that ensue after your guest post. It is important that you take the conversation further and respond back to the comments, not just on the blog but in the social media outlets as well. 
2. Thin Website Content. As stated above, it will no longer suffice to re-write the content so keywords are used. You need to speak to your audience. Make your content speak to those who will read it, but optimized for search engines. Content can be rich and still be accessible and indexable by search engines. 
3. All your eggs in the Google Basket. Great you have well-written and rich content. Don’t bank on your traffic to come from Google. You have an excellent opportunity to reach out and drive traffic from many sources such as direct traffic, news sites, social media, webinars, videos and more. 
4. How did our Goals perform last month? So you are using an analytics tool and you have set your goals and things are good right? No! Your web analytics tool wasn’t designed by Ronco, you can’t “set it and forget it!” You need to follow up on it just like your old school oven. If something isn’t working your analytics tool will show it. Don’t be afraid to make a change and get your traffic coming.

DESIGN

A design isn’t finished until somebody is using it! (Brenda Laurel) OKAY, so your analytics tool has been set up and you are following up with it, your content is now in order why would you want to go back to your designer how is the artistic rendering going to make a difference? Here are 5 reasons that may change your mind(3).

• Turn Me On. You only have one chance and that chance exists for maybe 2 seconds after I visit a website. This is important that you and your designer understand so test multiple versions and don’t forget to continue to check your analytics tools ability to do A|B testing that will help you make your decision. 
• Happy Landings.  Your home page may seem like the most likely place for your customers to begin browsing your site, but did you know that less than 40% of visitors enter any website from the home page? In other words, don’t blow your wad with your designer all on your home page. Make sure you turn to your analytics tool for landing pages to see where the majority of your visitors are landing and make sure you put a little TLC towards those pages to ensure you keep your visitors turned on. 
• The bottom line. Just because you are trying to turn them on and make for a happy landing, don’t forget that your site still needs to make money. If your design doesn’t help the website achieve it’s financial purpose then more than just the business will suffer. What ever your sites commercial intent is it is important that each visitor has a pleasurable experience. This is where KISS8 comes into play. Keep It Simple Stupid. Sometimes less is more. It is important to not get carried away, just remind yourself and your designer form follows function. 
• Equal Opportunities. The market is being flooded with devices of all shapes and most importantly sizes, that are capable of browsing the web. Make sure you utilize your analytics tool to determine that your designs for multiple sized devices are effective. Fitt’s Law explains this in great depth.
• Divide & Conquer. It is vital that you segment your visitor market. Make sure you know the different type of visitors your website is receiving. Knowing your audience and their differences will be vital to your website design. Remember what we can learn from Steve Jobs, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works,” so make sure it works for all of your visitors.

It is critical that as you approach your web designer that you make sure he or she is aware of these 5 important principles. You see below just how important the design is in the overall website production.

CONCLUSION

I have only shown you the tip of the iceberg. Don’t hesitate to look into it more. I have provided more than a few extremely beneficial links to sources that will continue your education on the topic. Now go out and give your website an extreme make over and watch the difference with the increase in traffic!

Resources:

1. http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/02/search-quality-highlights-40-changes.html
   
2. http://www.seo.com/news/link-seocoms-newsletter-january-2013-2/
3. http://www.netmagazine.com/features/five-essential-google-analytics-tips-web-designers
4. http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/mobile/responsive-web-design-and-web-analytics/
5. http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/
6. http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/3-key-software-principles-you-must-understand/
7. http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/11/26/website-design-practices/
8. http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/3-key-software-principles-you-must-understand/

How Do I get the Traffic to Analyze?

     I have an ecommerce site (musaoutdoors.com). I have products to sell. I have social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+) with followers in each. I have a few blogs. What I don't have is traffic to my site. This article is to summarize the information that I know and have tried, verbalize what I have not yet tried, and hopefully get some advice and feedback from the experts who read this.

Content
     The most common recommendation to drive traffic to your site is content, content, and more content. Repeating something three times usually means that it is important, but further more content must be relevant and useful. Types of content are what seem to be changing and most interesting. Here is a nice, short article from Inc. describing 5 Tricks to Drive Traffic to Your Website all content related. They are: 1. Pay a little for YouTube views, 2. Be specific on Twitter, 3. Run on Groupon, 4. Launch a Kickstarter campaign, and 5. Write a counterpoint blog post.

     I find two of the suggestions very interesting. First is paying for YouTube views. I did not know this was possible (virool specifically targets YouTube viewers). This can be done by targeting your market through social networks, apps, and blogs. The second interesting suggesting is launching a Kickstarter campaign. The article mentions this method is increasing. Not that you even intend to finish the campaign but with the growth of crowdfunding traffic, you can reap the benefits of many curious users.

SEO
     The obvious suggestion to increase traffic is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are many tricks that I can do by myself, others that are built in to my ecommerce suite, and even more that can be paid for. SEO basically increases your page rank. The Google Toolbar has a feature that will tell you the PageRank of any site. Pageranks range from 0-10. In my industry, Amazon ranks as a 6; my site is a 2. It is almost impossible to reach the rank of a 10.
Refer to this blog for ALT attribute information for SEO.

Social Media
   Two things are important about Social Media to help drive traffic to your site. The first and most important - and obvious - is having all the social buttons on your site. Buttons for all your products provides users easy access to share what they like. The second important thing is specifically answering the questions that those in your industry are asking. An example of a good specific post is this from Snowshoe Magazine. It explains the basics of snowshoeing without overwhelming you with information.

So What?

     I am told to be patient and keep working. I have shifted my focus from the site, to the other methods mentioned above. I will be more involved with the blogs, creating more videos, and getting more involved with social media. I am interested in any feedback on our video, blogs, or website.


References:

http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/5-ways-to-drive-traffic-to-your-website.html
http://www.clicknewz.com/633/traffic-tips-for-new-sites/
http://upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/advice/2012/12/26/20-ways-to-get-more-web-traffic.html?surround=etf&ana=e_article

    

How to track Online Impact due to Offline Campaigns

Have you wondered how offline campaigns like TV, radio and newspaper ads impact the online traffic? Can this impact be measured? In Web Analytics 2.0 [1], Avinash discusses some options that can be used to capture the relevant metrics. Below are the few tips from his book.

Metrics such as number of visits/clicks or the conversion rate increase/decrease due to an offline ad campaign can measure the impact on the website. For example, what is likeliness of clicking your company banner on a website after the user saw the ad campaign on TV or in a newspaper and can this be measured.  

Useful web analytics data can be obtained only with customer’s primary key, which is not readily available and one might need to adopt few work around methods to obtain it. Refer to Occam Razor blog for better understanding of the primary key. Using vanity URLs (also known as redirects) is the oldest trick in the trade to obtain this data. Vanity URLs or the redirects are short and easy to remember web addresses when entered in the URL links to the original site’s address. For illustration purpose, the vanity URL for my blog (if I had one) will be www.websitedoesnotexist.com/~yellai instead of www.websitedoesnotexist.com/1256789/2013. When you run an ad in newspaper, you will print the vanity URL of the company instead of its actual address. When the user visits the company site using the vanity URL, web analytics tools can be used to track the customer information. Since, this vanity URL is printed is newspaper/TV ads, one can track what the conversion rate is for these channels.  To get better granularity, vanity URLs should have a tracking parameter. For example, an ad in Sunday Times can have parameter tracker called sundaytimes in its URL which make the URL to look something like this www.websitedoesnotexist.com/sundaytimes.

                                (image ref. http://www.datareign.com/category/social-media/google-plus)

The other trick to find out the impact will be to use unique redeemable coupons and offer codes. Avinash uses Dell and 1-800-Flowers to explain the effectiveness of unique codes. For example, you are going through a catalog and a product caught your eye and would want to buy it online.
One can go to the advertiser's site and locate the product on the website by simply entering the unique code which is again tied to catalog’s geographic location, edition of the catalog, etc. 
Based on the entered code, the company will be able collect the user information pertaining to location and other details. This will help the company to identify locations that are interested in buying the product and also the channel to market to potential customers.

In addition to the above two methods, surveys can be used to find the impact of channel to generate the website traffic. Basically, a survey is sent out with questions like where did they hear about the company or the special offer. This data can be used to generate the website traffic metrics. 

The last one is to correlate the website traffic patterns with time of the offline ad campaign. For example, one can correlate website traffic patters such as spikes, trends to a Super bowl ad campaign or a print ad in a famous news magazine.

As mentioned before, these simple tips can provide great insights into the impact an offline ad campaign is creating on your website, like the conversion ratio for radio vs. TV vs. newspaper ads. This information greatly helps marketing professionals to focus on the right channel to reach their target customers.

Reference:

1.     Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity (Kindle edition), Avinash Kaushik

2.     http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/tracking-offline-conversions-hope-seven-best-practices-bonus-tips/

3.     http://www.ittrium.com/vanity-urls