When we spend time trying to optimize a web site to increase traffic, I find the need to check how our optimizations are performing.  There are two tools that I am addicted to, Google Analytics and Clicky.

Last week Google released a bunch of new features to their Google Analytics product.  I check our sites analytics just about everyday.  It’s interesting to see who visited our site, where they linked in from, what pages they viewed, how long they stayed and other juicy info.  I haven’t had much time to play around with the new features, but I am looking forward to the new custom reporting.

Here is how Google(http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html) describes the new custom reporting feature:

“Create, save, and edit custom reports that present the information you want to see organized in the way you want to see it. A drag and drop interface lets you select the metrics you want and define multiple levels of sub-reports. Once created, each custom report is available for as long as you want it.”

However, I think the e-commerce tracking is by far the most profitable feature with Google Analytics.  Using Google Analytics we can determine which links, keywords, banner ads, Adwords or other sources generate the most revenue. We can also see what visitors are trying to look for and if they are finding what they are seeking.  Then we can tell the percentage of customers who bail during the checkout process and at what point.  All very cool stuff.  All this info helps us to work with our clients to make their websites generate more revenue.

While Google Analytics has very powerful reporting tools, I have to wait until tomorrow to see today’s traffic. Not so with Clicky.  With Clicky I can see reports of real time traffic as it happens.  I find myself checking in two or three times a day. They even have an iPhone optimized version for the hard core analytics addicts.  The reports are great and I can drill down and see the entire session of each vistor.  Very nice.

Each of these solutions require a little bit of javascript on each page.   If you are a client of Aslan, please let us know and we’ll be happy to set your site up for analytics.

Your Newsletter was Sent but was it Delivered?

You spend hours crafting your marketing message but if you haven’t taken steps to insure it’s being received, there’s a good chance it isn’t.  Here’s some tips to make sure your message gets through today’s spam filters.

Building Page Importance

A good way to build up the importance of your website is to get other websites to link to you.  In doing so, here’s some tips:

Finding Quality One-Way Links is Best

Do something on your website that people will want to link to.  Create a compeling article, a glossary, top ten list, faq or make a free tool to help your customer base.  Spend a little time getting the word out on your new content.  Contact blog owners that discus similar stuff, post comments, talk in relevant forums.

Find High PageRank Websites That You Can Write On

Look for websites like blogs where you can post comments to someone’s article.  There’s tons of those sites but you want the 1 out of a hundred where the links back to your website are not marked as “nofollow”.

To help you see the nofollow links easily first get the GreaseMonkey Add-On for Firefox, then the nofollow display greasemonkey script. With this script enabled, all nofollow links in a page show up on a pink background.  This makes it very easy to see good links on a page that you may be able to add to.  The pages with less “followed” links will be stronger pages.Page importance is passed from the link page to you but is divided amongst all the links on the page, both external and internal.

Be creative in finding websites.  You can easily find blogs on lists like the do follow directory but I’d be afraid about using that too much.  Search engines already have the published lists of do follow sites.   They could at their discretion give less importance to these links across the board.  It’s a good idea to just put in the time to search for websites that may want to link to you or offer somewhere for you to put a link.

Don’t Overlook Backlink Anchor Text

I asked marketing expert and Mothers Jewlery specialist, Jeff Moriarty about the importance of backlink text.

If I’m going after the term Chicago Web Design, I assume the best thing to have in the link text is the term I’m going after.  But if I get a link that passes rank from a blog or profile, does that still have some importance?

<a href=”http://www.aslaninteractive.com”>Chicago Web Design</a>
<a href=”http://www.aslaninteractive.com”>Web Designer Guy</a>
<a href=”http://www.aslaninteractive.com”>Aslan Interactive</a>
<a href=”http://www.aslaninteractive.com”>Matt MacDougall</a>
<a href="http://www.aslaninteractive.com">
http://www.aslaninteractive.com</a>

Jeff replies …

Off topic anchor text can still help build up PR, but won’t help as much as having the keyword in the link text…but it does still help.

If my main term was “Chicago Web Design”, I would go after the following terms and this is why.

The following keywords were found using the ‘~’ tool. Put a ‘~’ in front a phrase and do a search in Google. Google will bold everything in the serps it thinks is a synonym of that word. Part of Latent Semantic Indexing. Because these are synonyms, you want to try to rank for them as well.

Chicago Web Designer
Chicago Web Designers
Chicago Website Design
Chicago Web Site Design

The next list of keywords are longer tail keywords that have your main phrase in them. This was found through the Google Sandbox Tool or any other keyword tool. This will still help you rank for your main term, but longer tail terms as well.

Web design in Chicago
Web design Chicago IL
Chicago Website Design

I would never created back links from your company name, it’s just not competitive enough to get a backlink for. Same for the exact URL. You should be able to rank for both of those without any links.

The current version of Google Analytics has been greatly improved since the buyout of Urchin a few years ago.  This web analytics package now has the capability of relating most any action on a website to dollars.  An e-commerce website can be linked to your internal search engine to see which search terms people use that produce the most revenue.  Your e-commerce site can also be linked to your landing pages bring in the most revenue.  Google Analytics also allows for adding up to 4 specific website goals.  Here you specify the paths you think customers will take to result in a conversion.   In an e-commerce site an obvious goal is to track what happens after a customer adds a product to their shopping cart.  Once a product is added, that customer should complete their order.  If an order does not complete, your Google Analytics goal will help you to figure out what went wrong by showing where most customers leave their carts behind.

Pick One Thing to Say

Write down one sentence that defines the one thing you want to accomplish on the page and write to that goal. If you have more than one goal, you have two pages.

Be Authentic

Readers know when you’re lying. Be a voice that either gives back or gets out of the way. Both are equally valid. If you’ve got something your readers would find useful, share it. When you’ve run out of useful stuff to say, stop talking.

Know Who You’re Talking To

Think carefully about who you want to listen to your message and write to that person. No matter who that person is, you can assume it’s one person sitting in front of a computer. They’re not an audience. They’re not captive.

Make Everything Simple

• Use simple words and sentences.
• Be careful with acronyms and adjectives.
• Being cute is a plague.

Repeat all these rules in your head, then let them go and start talking. You can always clean up your content later. If you try to have each sentence come out simple right away, you’ll sound like a robot.

Make Your Point in 3 Seconds

Your reader will decide in 3 seconds or less if they want to keep reading. You should have page titles and paragraph headings that are concise summaries of what you’re saying. These titles and headings are the most important thing you can write. It may help to write out all your paragraphs first. Now summarize each paragraph then summarize the page as a whole. If you have paragraphs with a redundant summary, maybe the whole paragraph should go.