ABOUT US      data center      network center SERVICES      web design      web hosting      e-marketing      compare plans      FAQ SOLUTIONS PORTFOLIO      web-sites      logotypes      flash      graphics      3D CONTACT      quick quote      order hosting NEWS How to Measure Your SEO Campaign Success? December 30, 2008 It’s no secret. The main objective of all SEO Campaigns is high organic search rankings. The higher you rise on those top 3 pages, the more successful you become. - Rankings: Yes, rankings are very important. They’re the reason we do SEO. They’re one of the most important factors of SEO. However, Rankings cannot justify the success of an SEO campaign alone. - Backlinks: Sometimes the industry or the keyword might be highly competitive with millions of competing pages for a single term. Thus, it will take a longer time to achieve visible results in terms of organic search results. How then can we know if we are making progress? In those cases, it’s always good to monitor the number of Backlinks. This number alone will say a lot about how a campaign is being carried out. Backlinks are the backbone of SEO so you must make sure that you have a positive velocity increase in the number of Backlinks. Backlink velocity is simply the rate of change or growth of the number of Backlinks. To compete effectively for high rankings, you must achieve a Backlink Velocity that is greater than those of your competition. - Conversions: SEO is defined as Search Engine Optimization. Unfortunately, rankings alone do not justify the bottom line of a company or an owner. Once implemented, make sure that your SEO Campaign creates results and conversions. Without conversions, all the rankings in the world do not mean much. Once you get the conversions, analyze, test and optimize for higher conversions. - Average Time on Site: Make sure that you identify which pages have very low average time on site. Keep working on making those pages better, more user friendly, and interactive. Anything below 60 seconds would be a flag for us here. We love any stats over 2.5 minutes. - Bounce Rate: Bounce Rate is recorded as a user coming to your site and leaving right away without navigating on the page. It’s a flag about that page. It’s either not performing well or it’s just a passage to another link. Bounce rate tells us a lot about a specific page, content, and how users interact with that content. Any bounce rate above 55% is a bad number for us. This also depends on the industry and the online content. Along with “Average Time on Site” they make an interesting couple. Most important of course is revenue. How much revenue are you generating? How many cents are you spending in marketing to generate a dollar of revenue? If you cannot calculate this after 6 months of SEO, you need to re-consider your strategy. In the meantime, please analyze the stats above or give us a call and we will do that for you. Design Matters for Increasing Sales December 25, 2008 While Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is very important so that you are found by those seeking your products, you still need to convert that visitor to being a buyer. If you are selling through an online store, conversion is easily measured … SALES. How do you know that your e-commerce site is generating all of the sales that it can? The answer lies in the statistics. Monitoring and analyzing your stats is absolutely critical towards the ultimate goal of maximized sales for your online business. You can almost count on, in every case, that you will find things in the stats that will indicate issues that are preventing you from achieving the best performance. Stats offer you a window into the user interaction with your shopping cart. You can see how effective and efficient the buying process is. Are visitors moving through the process smoothly? Do they seem to get stuck on a particular step or page? How many enter the checkout process? How many complete the checkout process? At what point is the checkout process aborted? Which products are producing the most sales … and the least? Compare the best sellers with the worst? Are there differences that can be attributable to the information and the way the information is displayed? Have you tested different designs, configurations to see which ones perform the best? There are hundreds, even more, factors involving color, font, positions, graphics that need to be tested to determine the optimum combination. Are you insuring that the visitor feels secure, confident and have the peace of mind that your site is secure, their purchase is secure? Do you offer guarantees, warranties, even money back guarantees? Do you offer customer reviews / comments to further promote a sense in confidence in you as a vendor and in the product itself? Not all e-commerce sites are created equal from an SEO point of view either? E-Commerce structure and internal software needs to be SEO-friendly in and of itself. The products need to be indexed through a well designed and structured relational database. Visuals are important as well; are you displaying high res / high quality images that can be enlarged? Are you offering more details / specifications … there are those that read this stuff so it needs to be made available. Your Back Office Your shopping cart requires active administration to: Monitor and manage your product line and all available options. Manage integration and options involving all of the major shippers. Dynamically update the site map to include all relevant updates so that Google has your products properly indexed for universal search purposes. Carefully review stats which is so essential as already said Customize CRM (Customer Relation Management) features to reflect current operations, products and policies online. Offer special pricing, coupons, promotions and other customer-engagement initiatives. There are hundreds of additional considerations depending on your particular situation. You likely will need an E-Commerce Design Specialist with demonstrated results both in Internet Marketing / SEO and Conversion Optimization. Both sides of the success formula, visibility on Google and the highest conversion rates on the site itself need to be addressed by a fully integrated Internet Marketing Services Company. The wide array of specialties and sub-specialties dictate the need for top-level expertise. The opportunity cost is huge without a dedicated company that is focused and skilled in all of these areas. The key, as with everything worthwhile, is being fully committed to the ultimate success of your website and your shopping cart in particular. Ten reasons to redesign your website December 12, 2008 Long gone are the days of simply building a website and expecting visitors to come and use it. Like all promotional tools, a website needs some tender loving care to get the most from it. If your website was built one or two years ago the following ten reasons might help get it back on track. 1. Stay ahead of the competition The power of the web allows people to find information at the drop of a hat. It is possible for new customers to find your website from anywhere in the world. The down side is that they can also find your competitors just as easily. It is important to make a good first impression and stay ahead of the competition. Failure to do so could lose you valuable customers. If your website is comparable to your competitors’ consider a timely redesign to make sure you are leading the pack rather than following. 2. Align with current/future market position Organisations need to evolve to ensure they can deliver what customers need today. If your website was designed a couple of years ago and has not been updated since, it is possible that it does not reflect your organisation’s current market position. A website redesign is a great opportunity to evaluate where you are today and where you want to be in the future. 3. Out-dated content Websites date. It is an unfortunate fact for organisations that websites show their age if left unattended. Considerable damage can be done to your reputation if customers discover that information or products on your website are out of date. Worse still, incorrect. If your website is out of date consider using some kind of content management system, appropriate for the job, to keep it fresh. 4. Manage the content yourself and keep the site fresh The beauty of the web is its immediacy. You don’t have to wait for the current batch of printed brochures to run out. With a website a quick update can get the latest product information out to a global audience. The theory is great but in practice many websites forget about their content and it soon becomes out of date. There are a few reasons why this might be but often it is because the website can only be updated by one person, probably the original designer. If you struggle to keep your website content fresh it might be time to consider a redesign, allowing people within your organisation to keep it up to date. 5. Make the site more usable and give the client what they want How many times have you visited a site and not been able to find what you needed or tried to buy something online only to find that it is out of stock? Problems like these can be avoided with some thought in what your customers are trying to do on your website. Resolving the problem might be as simple as improving the the signposts to key sections or pages but a redesign allows you to listen to your customers and create something that will be easier to use. 6. Attract more visitors Just because you have a website doesn’t mean people will automatically find it. Competition for the top slot in search results is fierce. Making your website ‘search engine friendly’ will improve the chances of it being found. Building a ‘search engine friendly’ website, that conforms to web standards, from scratch is more effective than trying to adapt an existing one. In doing so you can insure that it appeals to both customers and search engines alike. 7. Increase your online sales The Holy grail for all websites. Websites are often designed with no thought on how organisations can harness the power of the web effectively. The wrong message in the wrong place can result in a website failing to meet your organisation’s expectations. Developing a web presence is relatively straight forward but developing one that meets your organisations expectations and goals is a little more complex. Are visitors being channelled to the right sections or the site to make a purchase? Does the design promote your current brand? Are people signing up to your newsletter? Is the copy right for the site? If you suspect they may not be then it is time to get your website to work a little harder for your organisation. 8. Create appropriate content for the web Web content is different to print content. With the immediacy of the internet it is not appropriate to use the same copy as your print material. When reading web pages users scan for information relevant to them. If your content is not presented in a way that delivers that information swiftly you run the risk of losing customers to your competition. 9. Promote an event or product launch The launch of a new product or event might be the catalyst to consider a website redesign. If your current website fails to do an event or product launch justice you could damage its success. A website tailored to the needs of the event/product launch is far more effective than trying to shoehorn it into your website. 10. Communicate with your customers What better way to raise your organisations profile than by announcing a new improved website delivering what your customers want in a clear usable fashion. The launch of a new website is a great excuse to contact your customers and strenghten your relationship with them source: Nick Tatt, HotelMarketing About Us   |   Services   |   Solutions   |   Portfolio   |   Contact