Make sure your home page is working as hard as it can!

In the lead up to probably the busiest sales period of the year it's important that, particularly if you are an online ecommerce site, you're ready for those visitors looking for gift ideas, especially when in their hand they're holding their credit card.

Tags: Landing Page | Behavioural Targeting | Promotion | Analytics | Ecommerce

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Making the most of every visitor on- and off-line!

Depending on the type of business or market segment it is sometimes an advantage to seek to attract site visitors to your "bricks & mortar" stores.

If you are an online business that sees an advantage in face-to-face interaction there are a number of challenges and issues to be faced and addessed to enable that process.

Tags: Conversion | Analytics | Behavioural Targeting | Search Marketing

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Eye tracking now available for all web sites

Testing web site useability has always been a valuable exercise to undertake but in the past has always been prohibitively expensive.

As such eye tracking analysis was only really available to the larger online business owner as it involved sophisticated tracking devices and the availability of test subjects similar to those being targeted as potential customers to get a actionable set of data to implement.

Tags: Analytics | Web Optimisation | Conversion | Google Analytics | Ecommerce

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Is Google Pagerank dead?

Now that the dust has settled on the debate, the concensus appears to be that dead or alive it doesn't make a lot of difference and as a metric didn't provide the average site owner a great deal of relevant information as to the performance of their site.

It certainly would be nice to see a big solid green block in the Google Toolbar, indicating a high pagerank (PR), but what does it actually mean. Unfortunately, Google, as it does with almost all its search algoriths, doesn't make it explicit, leaving it up to the imagination.

Tags: Analytics | Conversion | Search Engine Optimisation | Google Analytics

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If you can't measure it, don't do it!

... as Peter Drucker, regarded as the father of modern business management practice is noted for saying, "if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it".

And if you can't manage it you can't control its effects or impact on what you are trying to achieve.

I would go one step further and say that "if you can't measure it, don't do it!". Unless, of course, you are prepared to make, at least, some small effort in the attempt.

And, I would add, that it should apply to every form of marketing activity regardless of the medium.

Tags: Analytics | Conversion | Google Analytics | Advertising | Internet Marketing

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Website optimisation - what good can it do?

Two sides of the same coin

SEO and WSO are two sides of the same coin! Both work to ensure your web site is successful but in different ways.

SEO builds traffic and drives visitors to your site and WSO converts them to paying customers & clients.

Tags: Web Optimisation | Google Website Optimizer | Copywriting | Google Analytics | Analytics

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Track email campaigns with Google Analytics

If you are not tracking the success of your email campaigns then you are missing a huge opportunity.

Assuming that you do have Google Analytics installed (if you don't then do it now!) you can measure the interest different offers have on your email recipients.

By tagging links in your email campaigns Google Analytics can segment the clicks each link gets and you are able to monitor the conversion rate and success of each.

Tags: Analytics | Conversion | SEO

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How many web sites, once built, are almost abandoned?

What do I mean?

How many web site owners ignore the potential to communicate effectively with their visitors and Potential Customers.

Every visitor, well, almost every visitor, is a potential customer. Why would they have taken the trouble to search you out or click on your search result in Google or any of the search engines?

• Do you know what they were looking for?
• Do you know if they found it?
• Do you know what search engine they used?
• Do you know what they did on your web site to try and find it?
• Do you know what actual keyword or phrase they used to find your site?
• Do you know what pages/content they read?
• Do you know what pages or content they find of most interest?
• Do you know how long they stayed or how many pages they looked at?
• Do you know if they ever come back?

If you answer no to any of the above then you've abandoned your site, albeit unintentionally.

Tags: Analytics | Web Optimisation | Conversion | Google Website Optimizer

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Amazon - Progessive and incremental changes for higher conversion

If you've been on Amazon.co.uk recently you will have noticed they are celebrating their 10th anniversary. How many can remember what Amazon's site looked like 10 years ago?

I can't remember either but I know it looked nothing like it does today!

Amazon UK's big brother is three years older being launched in 1995 and this is what it looked like when it first arrived on the scene (on the right):-

Amazon re-design or Evolution?

Today is looks a lot different (below) and looks like it's gone through some major re-design since first being launched when it just sold books.

Tags: Analytics | Web Optimisation | Conversion

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