Internet Marketing Toolbox / Social Media Blog

Understanding Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most comprehensive web traffic programs available on the internet. Sign up for your free account by visiting www.google.com/analytics. Once you sign up for an account, you will be given a few lines of code. This code must be placed inside the body tag at the bottom of each page on your web site. Once your google code is installed, it will begin to collect data from your web site. This data is placed in various categories that describe where visitors came from, what they did when they entered your site, what type of browser they use, what page they exited from and much more. Knowing how many visitors your web site has received is not enough to make any real assessment of how effective your web site is. You need to know what pages keep the visitor's attention, how the site flows and if the structure of the site is meeting your business and marketing goals. The first page on your Google analytics page is the Dashboard. The dashboard gives you a "big picture" summary of what has been happening on your web site for the time period that you specify. Visits: The total number of people who have visited your web site Pageviews: The number of pages that have been viewed within your site (this number is often called "hits" – but it is an overinflated number and does not represent the number of people who have visited your web site). Pages/Visit: How many pages the average visitor looked at while on your web site. Bounce Rate: How many visitors came and immediately left the web site. Average Time on Site: How much time the average visitor spent [...]

What is Satellite Content?

Satellite Content is content you post outside of your regular web site on MySpace, Facebook, Squidoo and other 3rd party social marketing sites. This can supply steady stream of long term targeted traffic to your web site. On all sites that you post on, include links back to the page on your web site that speaks to the content you are talking about or to a well designed squeeze page advertising your product or service. If you are writing about email marketing, the link should go to your email marketing page, if you are writing about how to use word of mouth marketing effectively, then your links should point to your word of mouth marketing page. Include photos, audio or video in your satellite content to create more interest and maintain the visitors attention. Imagine putting a video on youtube.com, then inserting that video into your Squidoo lens. You just created 2 streams for incoming traffic into your web site... See how easy that was?

Top 10 tricks to help your webmaster

I can't take credit for this - but I thought it was great http://www.haineault.com/blog/28/ "In my last blog post I listed a top 10 things that bugs webmasters. I'm not sure if it's because it was laughable and true or simply because social bookmarking users likes top 10 lists, but it was undoubtedly the post that got me the most traffic (20000+ hits!). Obviously I'm not the only one having these issues :) But stepping back reading my post again I though that as funny as it might be, it was not very constructive or helpful. So I decided that I would try to make a similar top list, but instead of moaning, I'll list 10 things that can be done to make a webmaster's life easier. It's not just about making someone's life easier, if the interaction is good it will directly and positively affect the end result. And now the top 10 things to do if you want your webmaster to be happy; 1. Do your homeworks. Giving quality content is important if you want a quality website. If you don't have time to sell yourself, it's perfectly understandable. Time == money. That's the time to hire a marketing firm to do it for you. Some company offer text composition, spell check and translation in house, consider asking for it. Composing text and design for the web is not really the same game as for the print, or anything else. It's a whole other media created and consumed differently in different context. This leads me to point two. 2. Be open minded. As I said, the web is not the print, as it's not the television. It's a media on it's own and [...]

Setting Your Web Site Goals

It’s traditional to approach the New Year with a list of goals. We set goals for our health, our fitness, our relationships and our finances and business. When thinking about your business and financial goals consider how a web site can help you achieve them. Here is how to set clear, definable, trackable web site goals: What do you want to gain from your web site? Are you looking for increased exposure, increase sales, get more connections, send out a clearer message? Know what you want from your web site. Try these on for size: My web site will bring in 20 new coaching clients by the end of the second quarter. My web site will sell 10,000 copies of my e-book by July 1st. My web site will clearly show my services to 20,000 new people by the end of the year. My email list will have 6,000 new sign ups by March 1st. My membership web site will have 1,000 new members by November 15th. Who are you looking to attract? What does your audience look like? What are their income levels, profession, age? What are their feelings surrounding e-commerce or technology in general? The WHO will dictate how the web site is laid out, the language you use and the graphic appearance. An online clothing store for children will look, feel and sound very different from a site about a self-help ebook. A site to attract customers for your cleaning services will be vastly different then a site to attract businesses that are looking for marketing help. How can you help your audience? What is it you offer that will prompt your web site visitors to take [...]

Social Networking in Plain English

This YouTube video explains online social networking better then any words ever could! [youtube 6a_KF7TYKVc]

Are you on YouTube?

Do you have digital camcorder? If so, put it to work for you! A 2 or 3 min. video will let your potential customers get to know your face and voice. Talk to them, share your insights with them and reap the benefits of “putting yourself out there” in public. If you do any presentation or seminar work, put the camcorder on a tripod and tape it. Upload portions of it to YouTube. Again - people now have the opportunity to see and hear you… talk about making a connection! Go to youtube.com, create an account. Now take it one step further - create a channel. Make sure you come up with a good user name, something that reflects your business or videos as it will be used in all references within YouTube. Once your channel is set up - put your videos in the play list. You now have your own url to direct people to from your web site. See mine here http://www.youtube.com/melward. Good Luck! Here's an excerpt from a presentation I did at SCORE in Albany [youtube 5sn9uJPzE1Y]

Is Your Host Blacklisted?

When you’re on a shared server it’s important to find out if anyone else on your server has been blacklisted for spamming. Why? Because on a shared server you’re IP address and their IP address will be the same, and it does not matter if your domain name is different, you’ll still be blacklisted along with every other person on that server. If you’re building an email list this will affect how your email gets handled by the major ISP… probably banned. One way to check and make sure you’re not getting blacklisted is to look up your IP address that your site is hosted on here: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx?AG=GBL That will tell you what’s going on with your shared server. If it’s got a lot of listings you might want to find a another host before attempting to build an email list.

Shoppers ditch long lines for Web

Washington Business Journal - by Gillian Gaynair Staff Reporter While eager shoppers cram into stores, fight over bargains and wait endlessly in lines Friday, a growing number will avoid the mayhem. That group will buy from home. And they'll probably be in their pajamas. Nearly 60 percent of the nation's shoppers will purchase gifts online this holiday season. In the Washington region, 66 percent of them plan to do more than 75 percent of their shopping that way, according to Helen Malani, chief shopping expert at Shopzilla.com, an online comparison shopping resource. You can read the rest of the article here http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/11/19/daily27.html?b=1195448400^1555102&ana=e_abd

Social Media Optimization

Most Internet users have heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEO) but the new "buzz word" in the Internet Marketing world is Social Media Optimization (SMO). SMO tactics are used to drive large amounts of people to a web site through new channels. Google and Yahoo, while still major players, are not the only sites that push traffic anymore. The basis of Social Media Optimization lies in creating a community that brings interested users together. Wikipedia describes social media as... "The online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs."

The Death of Email Marketing

You’ve probably seen more than one of those “Death of…” reports lately… but there is one method online that will never die. Email marketing. You see, all the guru’s talk about the ‘changes’ taking place online and how a lot of methods that worked a few years, even a few months ago (!) don’t work anymore… well… I agree, things are definitely changing but…. … how are they delivering those “Death of…” messages to you? By email. Sometimes those message get you to click on a link to a blog or special report etc… but the way they get that link to you, the delivery mechanism, is STILL email. If anyone tries to tell you that email marketing is “dead"… watch out and keep your hand on your wallet! If you read your emails and can’t wait for them to arrive, that’s proof positive it still works!