Whatever the purpose of your website, one of the most important things you need to do is monitor your traffic (assuming that you want traffic–if not that’s another thing):

You need to know:

• Where it comes from (organic, PPC, referring websites, affiliates)
• How much of it there is
• Are people finding what they’re looking for (indicated by bounce rate–or where they go when they land)
• And whether those visits produce the desired result for you and your potential customers. If your traffic isn’t improving your bottom line then there’s something wrong.

I asked two of my fellow marketers who consistently get it right how they monitor their stats and here’s what I got:

Google Analytics is my favorite stats program because I know it well and it is far more powerful than other, expensive solutions. I once worked with a company that charged $5,000 per month for their Analytics program and it was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever worked with.

The only drawback to Google Analytics is that it isn’t real-time, so I also use BLVDStatus (Premium) and let Clicky (Free version) for sites where I need to know what is going on at certain times of the day.

Glen from Viperchill.com

There are two basic ways to use analytics.  You can systematically monitor a variety of elements of your web pages,  making analytics part of your daily routine.  Or you can use analytics as a detective does, looking for clues.

I play detective.  Every now and then I snoop around.  Anything that is not as I would expect it to be is most likely either a warning or an opportunity.

For instance, let’s suppose my client’s website ranks at #2 for Keyword1 and at #7 for Keyword2, and both are expected to have the same traffic potential.  If I see that, despite a much lower ranking, Keyword2 is delivering more traffic, that makes me wonder what would happen if we focused more and ranking for Keyword2 – perhaps it has more traffic potential than we had assumed.  Or if Keyword2 has a lower bounce rate or keeps people longer on the site.  These are signs that we might want to change our focus.

In one case, I was noticing a lot of traffic from a country that had no interest in the site, so I was able to use a geographic filter to reduce spam by over 50%.  This was not the result of systematic application of analytics; this was nose-in-the-dirt detective work (the way I like it).

David Leonhardt of The Happy Guy Marketing

Personally, I am not so keen on Google for the simple reason that I’m wary of sharing all my entrepreneurial data with a search engine that aspires to complete superiority on the Web. OK I know they all do, but Google is closest to reaching that goal and for this reason I believe they’re dangerous: absolute power corrupts.

Here are a few stats monitoring services that are worth a second look:

Mint.com Mint helps you identify where the most interest is being generated and over what!

Webtrends.com Helps you target more effectively.

Awstats.com Although it’s free, Awstats gives you all the metrics you need to work out what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong.

When it comes down to it, the most important thing is that you’re monitoring. There are dozens of good web traffic monitoring programs out there. Choose one and use it remorselessly!

Let’s Follow the Yellow Brick Road, SEOs

A while back I read an interesting comment over at SEOmoz after watching Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday: it roughly, and rightly, stated that SEOs are tired of following Google’s latest algo change.

In his video, Rand asserts that all we’ll need to worry about in the future are the facts that backlinks will always count as votes of confidence and good content will always provide a satisfactory user experience. All true.

But what about the role of social media in the future of SEO?

Rand says that he doesn’t think that social is going to be as big as some are saying it will. I disagree. To justify his position he mentions that Twitter and FaceBook are easy systems to game. That’s true at the moment. But people are also learning that marketing through these social media without gaming them can actually be more successful than the unethical approach.

The face of search is changing and we detected a radical shift at least a year ago.

There’s even a new search engine called Leapfish that includes results on social media sites as well as traditional search engine results.

Interestingly a couple of years back when I asked Rand if he thought that Google included data on site traffic in the ranking algo, he said that he didn’t think so. That’s changed and now he says that Google will increasingly incorporate usage metrics to gauge the value of websites, to the extent that good traffic could even make up for not-so-good backlinks.

Rand also speculates that verticals will replace Google for some categories of search, such as Craigslist for apartments search, Kayak for travel search etc (those are his examples).

I would also venture that the comments over at Ad Age regarding Google’s treatment of SEOs and marketing people in general have served to create a general malaise over Google too. In plain language we’re all sick of Google moving the goal posts, insulting us, and outright calling us criminals when all we’re doing is providing a much-needed online service.

Is Google biting the hand that feeds it?

To read between the lines of Google algo changes and updates, you might be forgiven for thinking that today’s online marketers (including SEOs of course) are just mutations of yesterdays spammers and porno-peddlers. Naturally we’re all rankling at that–who wouldn’t. So in effect, Google sees itself as big enough and mighty enough to alienate a huge sector of the online community with impunity–and no compunction whatever.

So aside from the fact that most of us see Google’s monopoly as a huge danger, particularly with the development of ‘the cloud,’ (How the cloud can be a danger to us is a subject I’ll be covering in a post shortly), we will also be anxious to adopt the first real alternative to the Google empire simply because of the bad feeling that Google itself has created.

I started writing this post several months back. Since then many online marketers of all stripes have  joined the growing crowd who see Twitter as playing an increasingly important role in online search and more. Already, as I predicted in a guest post over at Search Engine People back in March, users are looking to Twitter for instant gratification. Just a few minutes ago, I found myself searching Twitter for Google Wave invites (Ironic I know). You can see the result when I searched Google here. While this is the result I got for a Twitter Search for Google Wave invites.

As you can see, if you’re looking for a Google Wave invite, Twitter is the place to go! Those results just prove what I’ve been saying for months. Twitter poses a serious threat to Google as The New Search Venue. In fact, if I were a Google exec, I’d be much more worried about Twitter than Bing or any  possible search engine combination.

For many of you this will be revisiting the basics. We could all do with a little refresher course on what’s important in SEO now and then.

It’s common for SEO clients to pick and choose what they want included in their SEO campaign. Many SEO consultants will, often against their better judgment, agree to a scaled-down campaign that suits the client (or rather the client’s budget). If you’re thinking of saving money on SEO, you should be aware that if you leave out certain elements you may not be negating the entire campaign, but you will certainly be limiting your scope for success.

Here’s a list of what absolutely cannot be left out of your SEO campaign:

1. Check domain integrity and canonicalization issues to ensure that, basically, there is only one version of your home page.
2. Elimination of any inadvertent Black Hat elements such as invisible text, cloaking, or keyword stuffing, or any links that could be construed as paid links in any way by Google.
3. Thorough keyword research to ensure that you are optimizing for the phrases that exactly match what your customers will be searching for, and nothing else.
4. Website audit along with competitive analysis to ensure that you are in a position to compete with websites presently at the top of a search for your chosen keywords.
5. Page title tags. These have to be perfect for each page because they are critical to your Google success.
6. SEO content creation. The goal is to fill your pages with content that will impress Google and entice your customers.
7. Link building. Without sufficient quality, incoming links you cannot compete. Be careful of purchasing links because Google has ways of sniffing them out and will penalize you decisively.
8. Monitor results of your SEO campaign for all you’re worth. This is key to future SEO work. If you dispense with this step you might as well give up and settle for failure.

I hate to admit this but…

This is going to have to be one of my occasional posts about me. If you’re not new here, you may have noticed I haven’t posted for a while.

I’ll be painfully honest with you: I’ve been thinking seriously about what it’s all about online, with social media and everything.

You know how sometimes you get all introspective and start comparing yourself negatively with everyone? That’s where I’ve been this past week.

You see, from my perspective, and despite the fact that I know as much as any social media expert, everyone seems to be having a far better time on social media than I am. Social media has become a chore, notwithstanding my truly outstanding connections. Here are a few of the reasons why.

I may have mentioned this before, but FaceBook is driving me nuts with all those phony-feeling applications. And I’m totally not surprised about the recent revelations that FaceBook quizzes can be dangerous, by exposing too much about you to those with criminal intent.

FaceBook? Yep. I feel so bad. I want to go down that list of stuff waiting for my attention and click ‘ignore, ignore, ignore….’

It all feels so fake. Same with my Twitter account. I loved it to start with, and I am reluctant to part company with my precious Twitter account. But now I get this awful hollow feeling from reading tweets that don’t interest me from people I don’t even like in some cases. And yes, I do unfollow. It feels as if we’ve all missed the point of social networking.

Digg–so many people never even bother to try and network: all they want is my Digg. Same with Mixx, although it’s still more friendly over there.

Experts have been telling us from the beginning (well the genuine ones anyway) that we need to make our social media connections count. It’s all about being mutually relevant and having a good feeling about those you interact with.

Applications like TwitterGrader, while they certainly have a place in social networking, have also contributed to the negative feelings that many of us are experiencing. Far too many Twitter and FaceBook users, along with users of most of the other social media sites out there, are wildly connecting all over the place, sometimes with people they’ll never even interact with once, in order to get a better grade. Where’s the logic in that?

I despise the fact that some people are proud of having connections with 30,000 people. What for? To me it’s missing the point altogether.

If you think I’ve lost it, look here: Seth Godin is saying the same thing here:

I’m going to take a deep breath and ignore all the social media grading applications out there from now on. I want to get back the sincerity of my social media networking: networking because you like the people, because you can be of sincere help to each other, and because overall you’re contributing to making the Net a better place.

Going through all my social media accounts and pruning them will return me to sanity. It will cut hours off the time I need to spend servicing those accounts at present. It will make those moments of true networking, the ones that carry you through a bad week, inspire you to move upwards and onward, and generally make you feel it’s all worth it after all, far more likely to happen. and that, after all, is why we’re here. Isn’t it?

I hope that you’ll agree with me and decide to at least take a step toward doing the same thing. Let’s make social media meaningful once more before it’s too late.

Ever heard that you need a plan to get ahead? It’s sometimes exceedingly tricky to formulate a plan though isn’t it? Luckily, in online business it’s really easy to formulate a plan to get ahead in your niche–whatever that is.

Finding Your Niche Competition

First you need to identify those websites that are ahead of you in the search results for your chosen keywords. You can do this by doing a search on Google, Yahoo and Bing (and whatever other search engine you’re interested in) for the words and phrases you want to be searched for. Take a look at the top 10 results for each one. Check what other keywords/phrases these sites are using because you can often come up with some interesting new search terms you hadn’t thought of by doing this.

Comparative Analysis

Then you do a comparative analysis on each of the top three, and you’re away. You will have an itemized roadmap that will take you exactly where you want to go, and you will be able to implement it at your leisure-whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Let’s take a closer look at the criteria:

1. Search terms (we’ve already covered that)
2. Title tags (what you see in the top, left-hand corner of your screen for each page). This is arguably the most important item of optimization. It dictates a large part of how the search engines see you. If you have fabulous content, but your title tags say ‘welcome to (your name)’ you will be sunk. Don’t miss the opportunity to put to or three of your major keywords in here, starting with the most important.
3. Your article/post title should also include at least one of your major keywords.
4. Look at the images your competition is using. Learn from this, and try to get bigger, more interesting images onto your pages, not forgetting that there is a balance: make the images too big and you’ll make your pages slow to load. Oh, and don’t forget the alt-text because this does matter for a number of reasons.
5. Make sure that your web content is far and away more readable, and more informative than that of the competition.

It will help if you arrange your results in a table for at-a-glance assessment.

Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket…

Don’t rely too heavily on a competitive analysis though. Nowadays off-page activity can have a major impact on your ultimate traffic and visibility results. Social media is a must. Don’t overlook Twitter, in particular, as a tool for networking, getting the word out, and even getting valuable links for your website.

…must we all keep hanging on his every word? He is, for sure, a very helpful, and very friendly guy. But just look at what he does for a living will you?

Now before I go on, let me stress that this is not a personal attack against Matt: He’s a nice guy with an exquisitely difficult job. But the facts remain.

I got thinking about this subject after a reader commented on my recent post on duplicate content issues over at Search Engine Journal, It seems that Matt said something to the effect that we don’t need to worry about duplicate content issues at SMX Advanced. I personally didn’t see footage of that, but I can tell you that I, and many of my SEO colleagues see evidence that we do need to worry about duplicate content every day.

Simply put, Matt Cutts is Google’s front man.

Many times, Matt has given us hints that he can’t tell us all we want to know, in this statement he made on AimClear Blog:

It’s sort of like the credit card companies, you can’t really tell all the penalties you really have without giving it away for the spammers

Now why would anyone think that Matt would be prepared to give away all Google’s secrets? He’d be fired straight away if he did.

Take an objective look at this excellent You&A with Matt Cutts. See? It’s more-or-less common knowledge that Matt Cutts can’t just come right out with it. We know it and he knows it.

Now if you’re rather follow what Matt says to the letter, that fine. But we have years of collective experience and we think we’re entitled to differ with what Matt says when it’s necessary for the sake of our commitment to great SEO.

Track Your Business to the Top

An important aspect of getting your website optimization right is tracking results and monitoring visitors and how they move about on your site, to make sure you’re getting targeted traffic (relevant for your product) and that your visitors ‘convert’ when they get there: that’s tech-speak for they do whatever it is you want them to do!

To make sure you get the mix right, a vital component of your website equipment is efficient tracking tools. The more accurately you can monitor who visits your website, why, and how satisfied they were, the more successful you’ll be online. Simple equation. You will be able to spot trends, and identify problems or areas where your system is coming up short with ease if you get your tracking right. This will make it so much easier to make changes that bring real results.

It’s sometimes difficult to gauge which tools you should be using though. There are so many web tracking applications out there and they all differ wildly, terms of complexity and price.

It occurred to me (OK, I was having a flash of inspiration! Are you done laughing? Then I’ll continue….) that the best way to pick the best tracking applications would be to monitor what other successful websites are using in the way of tracking devices.

So that’s what I did.

Google Analytics–Leader of the Pack

No surprises that Google Analytics came out on top: it’s free, it’s accurate, easy to install and what’s more, it tells you most of what you need to know. The trouble is, as far as I’m concerned, is that when you have Google Analytics installed, the largest search engine on the planet also has access to all your traffic information. Think about that. Obviously the same drawbacks exist for newly-launched Yahoo Analytics.

In the table below you’ll see tracking companies used by several top SEO firms as well as a number of the most successful websites. This is relevant, although the websites are nowhere near as big as CNN, for example, the keyword ‘SEO’ has to be one of the most competitive keywords ever, so I make no apology for including those first. After all, we should watch what the professionals use no? I’ve also included the most successful blogs ever, headed up by the Huffington Post because, let’s face it they’re doing something right with millions of visitors every day.

Like me, you’ll probably notice an interesting two or three applications that come up again and again. And, not all these applications are strictly tracking applications: it’s interesting to see how many different companies/techniques successful websites are using to improve their traffic and bottom line.

Here’s the list in no particular order, and I’ll just mention that I threw in a couple of web analysis companies that I know are used a great deal by online businesses, and therefore shouldn’t be discounted. I daresay I’ve missed a few, but this should be great food-for-thought for anyone considering how best to monitor what goes on with their online business. I’m kicking off with Google Analytics because of it’s overwhelming popularity:

• Google Analytics
• Index Tools (recently acquired by Yahoo Analytics)
• Mint
• Enquisite
• Quantcast
• Doubleclick
• Omniture
• Web Trends
• Awstats
• Technorati
• Lotame
• Tribal Fusion
• SiteMeter
• Google Custom Search
• YahooBuzz
• Revenue Science
• GoingUp
• Crazy Egg

Tracking is important, but only insofar as it can help you to increase conversions. Don’t get obsessed with it: just observe and do what you can to get your website running as smoothly and effectively as possible.

Choosing the Right WordPress Plugins

It can be difficult to decide just which WordPress plugins you should install. We’re spoiled for choice and that’s for sure. If you’re just starting up with your WordPress blog I suggest you don’t go installing plugins right and left, since you can slow your site and there’s no sense installing plugins you really don’t need.

However, there are five that I would recommend for everyone:

1. WP Super-Cache
2. Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress
3. G-Lock Double Opt-in Widget
4. WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud
5. Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

WP Super-cache for Speed

WP Super-cache plugin is essential because it speeds the load time of your site. It actually lightens the load on your server. If your site gets heavy traffic, and if you’re hoping for an appearance on Digg’s front page, or to go viral on Twitter, then you need this if you want to try and avert a server crash from the traffic spike.

Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress

Failing to provide a convenient way for visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed is a serious mistake. Feedburner has its advantages and disadvantages but it does allow subscribers to choose how they will receive your feed. You will obviously need to create an account with FeedBurner for this too.

G-Lock Double-Optin Widget

The G-Lock signup form allows you to collect your readers’ emails so that you can use them in the future: the first rule of internet marketing is get connected with your visitors so you can forge a relationship.

WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud

You might wonder, when i’ve just finished telling you how you shouldn’t be gung-ho with the plugins, why I’m telling you to install a flash tag cloud. But WP Cumulus isn’t just any old flash tag cloud. I find it one of the most useful widgets of all for the sidebar. First, it reassures visitors that they are in the right place by displaying all your keywords–both the main ones and the long-tail, and it makes it easy for them to find what they’re looking for with a click.

But I have found another use for it. You know how when you’re writing a post it’s difficult to make sure you’re including links to all your relevant past blog posts? Well this tag cloud makes that so easy. You simply click on related keywords and you get a list of all the blog posts that use the keyword. Now tell me that’s not useful to you!

Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

It is vital that visitors to your site have a safe, reliable way to contact you. Nothing drives away business more effectively than failing to give your readers a way to connect. Joost de Valk’s contact form allows you to control its appearance through CSS (don’t worry he shows you how). You can also alter/add fields, and it even allows you track where the visitors are coming from and if from a search engine, what keywords they used. This neat little form also prevents spam, which I’m sure you’ll be relived to hear.

SEOs for Self Regulation

I’ve been trying to get things going on the self regulation front for several years now. After approaching a number of big-name SEOs hoping they’d help by taking up the cause, I finally reached the point where I felt if I didn’t do it no-one will. So I decided that I’d start some kind of grass-roots movement myself.

Why high-profile SEOs don’t want to be involved…

The high-profile SEOs I’m talking about (no I’m not going to name them), asserted quite firmly that they didn’t want to be associated with any kind of regulations for the SEO community. Here’s why (my deduction):

They are obviously making a lot of money from SEO: fabulous sums, some of them. And for sure they have their secrets about getting a site onto page 1 of Google faster than the rest of us. Maybe they’re using Black Hat, maybe not, but because they’re so successful all eyes are on them. They know that.

They also know that if they’re a member of some self regulation community then people will be watching them all the more closely to see if they’re breaking the code.

So it’s not difficult to see why they feel the way they do. If I ever want the conversation to dry up, all I need to do is bring up the subject of self regulation with a major SEO.

The Plight of SEOs With a Conscience

But for the rest of us things are a little different. Our plight was brought firmly home to me last week when I heard that Matt Cutts of Google had, once again, referred to the entire SEO community in a denigrating way (he has called us all criminals in the past), I felt indignant. It’s a fact that there are some very bad people lurking in the dark recesses of the SEO community: some Black Hats definitely verge on the criminal. But that doesn’t mean to say we’d all sell our souls for a link. Or that we’d break the law for a large check from a grateful client. I object strongly to being tarred with the same brush.

SEOs in general have a difficult time of it: they would like to join some sort of community that will reassure clients of their abilities and their purity of intention, but none exists. And this is where I come in.

I’ve done the deed and created the SEO Self Regulation Community. I even bought the domain name, but give me a few days to find the time to slot it into the Ning account.

I know a lot of people disagree with what I’m doing, but hey, if you can’t be true to yourself then you’re a big waste of space right?

My vision is that as a self regulating community we’ll gain traction in the business world by proving that our members provide solid, reliable SEO services. In return for complying with the regulations we agree upon, and a small fee, full members of the community will be accorded the right to display the community logo on their site, and their name will be listed on the roll of honor on our website (all in the works).

If you agree that this is a good idea, then please go over to the website, join, and help us draw up the regulations for our community.

As Seth Godin says in his book Tribes, we don’t need to seek permission to change our world!

I
f you’ve been hesitant about launching a full-scale online marketing campaign up till now you may be ready to make the move given the present economic climate. Online advertising and marketing can be both more effective and a lot cheaper than the real-world equivalents.

As far as I’m concerned it no longer makes sense, either, to have all your eggs in one basket. At the very least, an online marketing campaign could open up your market to segments you’ve never considered before.

Moving Your Marketing Online

You can save a lot of money by drumming up more business online. Ian Lurie helps you avoid some pitfalls if this is your aim.

Below is a graph showing the comparative costs for getting your message in front of 1000 people. There’s no doubt that marketing online can be next-to-negligible when you compare it with magazines and TV.

It costs nothing but time to network on sites such as Twitter, StumbleUpon, FaceBook and Bebo (just to give you a few examples) but the rewards can be tremendous. Successful networking can mean your posts are read by hundreds, if not thousands of people. Intelligent networking is sincere networking that comes easily to you as you engage with people of your choice, yet it will do more than perhaps anything else online to project the image you want for yourself and your company. Yes, you really can use Facebook, Bebo and Twitter to grow your business at very little cost.

Proactive Reputation Management

People don’t realize, often to their cost, that what you say on Twitter or just about anywhere else online can get indexed by search engines and therefore may show up in a search for specific keywords. It’s important to bear this in mind when you engage: don’t lose your temper and don’t say anything anywhere online that you wouldn’t want the whole world ot see–the whole world may very well see it! you can read more about proactive reputation management here.

Placing Ads

To begin with–or until you get some serious networking going–you might want to consider placing ads on these huge social media sites: YouTube and FaceBook are great for this. You can purchase ads that target your main keywords and only pay for click-thrus, which is where someone actually sees your web page and not the ad itself, as with offline advertising.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click marketing can be highly effective when used in conjunction with expert on-site SEO. However, Google Adsense and other forms of PPC marketing are easy to understand but not quite so easy to get right from the beginning, so until you’re confident, I’d recommend hiring a PPC marketing company to help you get the mix right to start with. Otherwise you could end up spending a great deal for badly targeted clicks which is easy to do if you get your search terms wrong. Don’t discount PPC because you fear that margin for error though: the rewards can be astounding when conducted professionally.

To back that up, here’s a quote from Aaron Wall of SEObook:

It is scary to think how reliant many businesses have become on search, but search is big business. Google pulled in $5.19 billion in revenues in the 1st quarter of 2008, with $3.40 billion from Google’s websites. Advertisers would not spend that much unless they profit from it.