Benefits of Web Analytics for Businesses

Online marketing has become a massive industry over the past decade or so. Its importance for the future growth of companies cannot be overstated. As web traffic continues to increase, web analytics becomes an invaluable tool for business and marketing managers. Web analytics allows companies to gather useful data about the impact their websites and products have on their customers.

With some marketing strategies, it can take time to see relevant results that come directly from a specific promotion. As web analytics continues to grow and change, this problem begins to disappear. With different metrics and analytical methods, it is possible to quickly see what strategies are effective and which ones may need some tweaking. For example, it is very beneficial for improving one’s marketing strategy to see which pages have a high bounce rate or which have high average time-on-page measurements.

It is undoubtedly becoming necessary to have an online presence in the current business world. Through the use of web analytics, businesses can manage their websites effectively and with the highest profit from their investment. The bottom line is that web analytics can help any business grow rapidly, robustly and in a way that ensures they stay relevant into the future.

Web Analytics Trends for 2010

It is becoming increasingly important for companies to employ web analytics in their online marketing strategies. Web analytics is a continuously growing industry despite the recent tough times that many businesses are currently facing. This has made it obvious that web analytics is here to stay and can help companies to reinvent their brand in a changing business environment.

As analytical metrics become more advanced, the basic numbers behind web usage begin to say less than advanced information on the consumers that represent these numbers. A common trend in web analytics is an overall increasingly personalized content of the measurements. Through this approach, companies can have a useful idea of their target and actual audiences and this information is useful in that it can be incorporated into new and improved marketing campaigns!

Social media will play a growing role in the future of marketing, as well. Web analytics will track how successful different social networking sites are at sending buyers to a site; also, mobile devices are being used more and more to access the web, so the necessary web content formatting is critical. Web analytics has a growing impact on the way everyday business is done and the current trends show that it is a necessary component to successful business on the web!

Our Search Engine Optimization Trends & Vision for Businesses

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will continue to increase in awareness throughout 2009-2010. According to Small Business Trends, businesses will begin to move SEO in-house; however, Search Engine Optimization agencies will also continue to be busier than ever. Let’s not exclude the increasing volume of SEO scams that will continue to frustrate our customers.

The most critical information still reaffirms that relevant content is key. The trend should also include videos, blogs, images, and tweets. The search functionality will evolve due to additional role-over functionality on Bing. Local search and mobile search engine optimization will generate additional changes in the search engine landscape. The evolution of mobile device will have marketers focusing on mobile search and mobile search functionality.

The bottom line is that businesses should start to incorporate search engine optimization into their marketing plans. We don’t recommend that every businesses jump into SEO and hire an agency but we do recommend that every business have the basics covered. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing will continue to become more challenging for organizations that don’t understand the basics. New wrinkles will continue to appear in mobile search, search engine, and local search. Once you have the basics covered, you can start to tackle the larger challenges!

Search Engine Optimization Basics for Small Business

Search Engine Optimization can be difficult for organizations that do not have the skill set or knowledge to achieve better positioning. The best resource for small businesses would be Google’s Starter Guide for Search Engine Optimization. In addition, Google offers a number of free tools to help track the performance of your website & keywords.

Google is not the only search engine on the block. You should also visit Bing & Yahoo for their webmaster/explorer tools. These search engines can provide valuable insight on your search position. They provide information on inbound links, crawlers, and more.

Small businesses should track the progress of their Search Engine Optimization. In most cases, the search engine optimization should focus on the local markets. You will need to do the keyword/phrase research for your product or services. Remember to think like your customers and keep it simple. If you do not have analytics (Google Analytics) on your website, you should set-up an account to get valuable information on which keywords and sources are sending visitors.

Let us know if you’ve discovered any useful tools.

Small Business Internet Marketing: Identify Local Opportunities

It’s time for local small businesses to get on the internet marketing wagon. Just about every business has a need to identify internet marketing opportunities. It is not only for ecommerce, but also for brand awareness, lead generation, and reducing acquisition cost. It is just as critical for small businesses as any other company to be competitive on the web.

Generally, local customers would prefer to use local service providers or get products from a local store. It is easier for major corporations to compete for online or internet marketing space in major cities like Philadelphia, New York City or Chicago because they have the cash-flow to do it. They usually want little to do with small markets, what a surprise! Is that where small local business reside? Most small businesses operate in a 15-30 miles radius around their office location. This means that if your business is located in Reading, PA, you can curve out a respectable niche within the Berks/Lehigh markets with limited competition for the “major” cities. This is such a great way to increase your business and the internet should be utilized to its fullest potential as a marketing tool.

Not only is internet marketing effective for brand awareness, but it can also help to develop automated processes (efficiency = productivity). An example of this would be a contact form on your website. The contact form could the lead to your email database, completion of the form generates a trigger email (Thank you!), which populates directly to your email service provider tool, and you can continue to market & nurture the leads with a newsletter or promotions!

BCTV Interview

Our President & CEO was interviewed by BCTV on Friday, October 9th. Check out the footage and let us know what you think.



It will air again on Sunday at 7:30pm & Thursday at 4:30pm.

Carpe diem (Seize the Day")

Small business owners and entrepreneurs must "seize the day" and now is the time. Many large corporations are cutting costs, corners, and employees. It's a great opportunity to acquire new talent (freelancer or consultant), pick-up their clients that got lost in the crowds, improve internal processes, or get great bargains on supplies.


If business is slow, now is the time to review your marketing plan, metrics, website trends, strategy, key performance indicators, and overall marketing campaign performance. Reevaluate your strategic partnerships to see if these relationships still make business sense. Take a look at what is working and what is not working in your internet marketing.


It is generally less expensive to keep your current clients than acquire new clients. Talk to your current customers; it might be a great opportunity to up-sell, cross-sell, or ask for a referral.


Ask yourself this question: Are you going to be in the best possible position to increase sales, bring growth to the business, and market to your target audience tomorrow?

Strategies for Optimizing Press Releases

Press Releases are intended to highlight a specific event, announcement, or special information to be sent to the media in hopes that they will cover your story. It seems pretty simple; just write and release, but there have to be tactics to ensure that your press release is getting recognized.

Since press releases are not only being read by news reporters, but also another audience being the end-users utilizing search engines, it is especially important to make sure that these possible consumers are finding your press release. By putting links in your press release, it helps end-users to be led somewhere helpful if they want more information about your business. To target your other audience of reporters and journalists, it is crucial to decide on a distributions channel that will be most beneficial to getting your press release out there in the media and to come up in search engines. There are many news services that do this including: PR Web, PR Newswire, Business Wire, Marketwire, etc.

Another very important strategy that will help optimize your press release for online search is researching and defining the right keywords to help reach your target audience. It is a great idea to place these keywords in the headline and/or subhead of the release as well as in the lead paragraph of the release since these are the most important parts of the press release. Also, to intrigue readers, try to create a creative hook that will grab attention and encourage your target audience to further inquire about your release. Another strategy in addition to keywords is adding an image to your press release because this will set it apart from other press releases as well as increase its visibility in search engines as image searches are becoming more popular.

One more thing: do not forget to track the effectiveness of your press release by measuring results. Through Search Engine Optimization reporting, you can find out how much traffic was driven to your website from the press release as well as how many people are reading the press release itself!

What’s all the Buzz about Social Media?

With the way the Public Relations industry is headed, social media is sure to be a key player. As new technological advances are being made constantly, it is not surprising that individuals look to the internet for a quick and easy way to access information. Although social media is not exclusively an online outlet to spread information through messages, it is becoming increasingly popular. Social media may only be one form of PR; however, it is most definitely a trend that shows a great deal of impact on how individuals gather and learn about messages.

Simply put, social media is also known as user generated content that is usually found online or through some form of an electronic source. As opposed to traditional broadcast media in which messages are distributed directly to an audience from one source, social media allows for messages to be passed to and from many individuals, allowing anyone to utilize it without requiring any special skills. A perk of social media compared to industrial or broadcast media is that there is usually little or no cost associated with it. Social media is also very efficient in that it is usually available just as soon as, or in most cases sooner than traditional media, and it can generate responses almost instantaneously. Social media is also very flexible in that it can be altered by being edited or added to, and it is great for allowing other individuals to comment or respond as a way to increase the buzz on a certain issue or topic of interest.

It is evident that social media is expanding PR in this new wave of increased reliance and confidence in technology, and is an excellent way to create buzz or generate popularity on any subject matter. As traditional media is being put on the back burner, social media is a trend that does not appear to be going out of style any time soon! Could it be that social media is more of a revolution rather than a trend after all?

Social Media Marketing Tools

We wanted to follow-up our previous posting with a few tools to help our colleagues. Below are a few resources that we use periodically to monitor social media. In addition, we use this information to gain insight as to how other are using social media. As marketers and businesses owners, do not forget the fundamental concepts of marketing. Most of these fundamental concepts are still relevant in social media.

Let us know what tools you are using and what you think of these. Good Luck!

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/

http://www.addthis.com/

http://friendfeed.com/

http://secondbrain.com/

http://www.shoutlet.com/

http://www.pitchengine.com/

http://www.twhirl.org/

Changes in Social Media Marketing for Customers & Businesses?

In recent white papers on Social Media, many professionals are predicting a shift in the way customers & businesses use social media tools. There are several factors that will drive this predicted trend. The number of potential customers involved in social media will continue to grow with additional advances in technology and easier access to these technologies. In today’s difficult economic environment, it is a challenge to find and interact with customers. Thus, social media will become an increasing priority in the marketing mix as well as a cost effective channel for marketers. In addition, social media will gain acceptance across all demographic and socioeconomic groups.

As marketers, we will continue to be challenged to use social media by clients or management. We must be careful to develop guidelines around these practices and to ensure that we are implementing social media for the “right reasons,” not just because the competition is doing it! If we do not practice using social media properly, the customers will no longer see social media as their space but as a way for businesses to interrupt their conversation.

Email Marketing Metrics Report

According to the “Email Marketing Metrics Report” by MailerMailer, 12.5% of unique marketing emails were opened in the second half of 2009. The figured shown a .7% decline in comparison to the first half of 2009, then the open rate was 13.2%. The report shows that email open and click through rates vary by industry & the size of the list.

The report stated that for large email lists, the religious and spiritual organizations had the highest open rates. The report suggested that smaller lists may be better target email communications with more relevant content.

We would agree that smaller lists typically perform better in email blasts and campaigns. In general, the lists are developed through local networking, events, industry events or friends. The content of the emails is relevant to the local market or is usually measured with off-line and online sales/leads. This report demonstrates the importance of targeted, relevant, and measurable email marketing practices.

Let us know how email marketing is impacting your bottom-line & trending for your industry.

Email Marketing with Value Added Features

It seems like every organization under the Sun is using email marketing. The major question is “are they doing it effectively & efficiently? This is not just in regards to sending targeted promotions but developing, maintaining, and communicating on an ongoing basis.

We think that one of the biggest challenges is efficiency. Many businesses or marketers have a list and an email template, but are they organizing their websites, online forms, and other touch points to gather or verify the email list? In our experience, we do not see a collective effort to nurture or verify leads. Too many of the processes are manual and require numerous hours of work and manpower. It’s time to start integrating databases, email software, and verifying at every possible touch point.

The most effective way to do this is by using email/event triggers and online forms that connect your website with your email marketing tool. There are numerous email service providers in the marketplace that provide this feature. Be sure that when you are comparing email service providers that they offer email/event based triggers, online forms, and are connected to email marketing database or email list.

Don’t forget to Test!

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides businesses & marketers of all skill levels with the necessary information to track, measure, record, and react to various marketing environments. Google Analytics also offers training videos to help all users better understand how Google Analytics operates. There is even a Google Analytics IQ test that users can take after viewing the free training videos. There are a number of “Seminars for Success” that Google offers to help users improve their skills. Check out www.google.com/analytics for the tools, tips, education, support and the latest information on web analytics trends.

Article Submissions: Valuable for SEO or Not?

The general purpose of an article submission is to increase the links to your website(s). If utilized effectively, article submission can help you increase the number of links; however, it is not the most effective method. Many article submission sites have limitations with regards to the type of information that can be displayed within an article. Article Submission can help to establish you or your organization as an industry expert. If you provide an article on a specific topic, there is a good chance that someone interested in that industry will come across it on the web and use it. Remember that relevant content is key when on the web. To maintain this relevance, be sure to include your username, keywords, content, your address, company name, phone number, and contact person for each and every article submission.

A/B Testing: Small Business Competitive Advantage?

We are aware of numerous companies that do not utilize A/B or Split testing as a marketing tactic. In some cases, smaller local businesses can capitalize on this opportunity. A/B testing, or split testing, is a method of testing advertising, in which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates. This testing method is often used to measure which single variable is most effective in increasing response rates or conversion rates. Many large scale corporations do not allocate significant resources to A/B testing within smaller local markets. By using A/B testing, local businesses are able to create a competitive advantage by testing and measuring online marketing tactics, such as banner ad placement, email campaigns, and pay-per-click campaigns. Simply running an A/B testing is not enough; the marketer should have a solid understanding of statistical analysis to determine the correct sample size, confidence level, and confidence interval. Check out www.sempo.org or www.webanalyticsassociation.com for additional details on A/B testing methods.

Next Generation of Web Analytics & Conversion Tracking

Within organizations, many of the departments work in silos to achieve a business goal and one department is credited with the success or failure. Unfortunately this silo mentality leaks over into the marketing channel distribution or communication that all Internet marketing tactics are separate interactions with prospects or customers. Generally, the last tactics prior to a purchase or lead is often associated with a conversion with no value associated with any other tactic to the prospects or customers. In reality, all the prospects or customers see is “ABC Company” marketing communications (i.e. email, banner ads, PPC, etc.). All Internet marketing tactics to prospects and customers have value and a cost. If you value your time and money, you should be measuring your interactions/marketing channel communications in a holistic fashion. This will lead to a collective understanding of your Internet marketing efforts and effective way to evaluate your online marketing campaign performance across multiple channels (Attribution Model).

SEO, Flash, and AJAX. How can they work together?

Effective design and SEO are both contributors to the success of an effective website. However two effective design means, Flash and AJAX, both conflict with SEO. Flash and AJAX are both in nature not friendly for SEO. Flash and AJAX cannot be read by search engine spiders, so websites purely based on Flash and AJAX will not do well in search engine results. However, a website that lacks an effective design will not engage your audience, and thus create a bigger chance of losing potential clients. So, how can you make a website that utilizes Flash and/or AJAX while possessing the ability to achieve high results in search engine traffic?

The most important thing would be to make your key content in plain text. Search engine spiders are very much like a text-based browser, they cannot read text embedded in flash or an image. Making sure your key content (which is the content that is relative to your website and search queries) in text format will allow search engine spiders to access your pages and index your content. Somewhere in your design should be text based links as well. They may not be the greatest design elements, however search engine spiders cannot read buttons that are images, Flash, or AJAX, so text links will allow spiders to explore your entire website. Limiting your use of AJAX would be advised as well, since content created by AJAX is created dynamically, thus not allowing spiders to index content created by AJAX. Overall, Flash and AJAX would be recommended for certain design elements while leaving key content in a text format, thus allowing great search engine results for your website.

Social Media-“Brandjacking”

As a form of proactive reputation management and protection, we recommend that clients claim their company name on the most critical social media properties. Similar to buying domains related to their company, claiming the company name on these digital outposts will ensure that you control the brand and reduce the risk the competition or an unhappy customer from “brandjacking” your identity. We recommend this step first in the social networking environment.

Just search the internet for complaints and customer feedback. A few of these unhappy customer have become dedicated to expressing their feeling about numerous brands. Don’t waste anytime, go protect the brand!

An example of unhappy customers (http://www.ihatestarbucks.com/).

Link Building Tips

Search engines place a high value on links from quality sites and use these links as part of their algorithms to determine how high in the rankings a site will appear. For this reason, it is a crucial part of the overall SEO effort.

We recommend the following methods for link building:

1. Ask webmasters to post direct links to pages of relevant content.

2. Offer webmasters text-based content with embedded links for inclusion on their own sites.

3. Requests upgrades of existing for association, affiliates, and partners.

4. Upgrade your directory listings with your URL.

Blogging Can Help Your Business!

Search engines have put high emphasis on blogs that tend to stay on a specific topic or subject matter. We recommend that our clients leverage all of their news worthy information onto their blog. It may establish a pattern of posting and help keep the search engines coming back on a regular basis. It’s also a good idea to take the time to optimize the blog. Most blogs do not have many pages so it would take as much work as the website. The blog postings should grab the reader’s attention, but are easy to identify in the archives. Remember blogs are a tool to drive traffic and build your brand in order to communicate to customers and prospects, and to get their feedback on products, services, and company information. Most importantly, leverage the information that your organization obtains via the blog and communicate the comments to sales, R&D, and marketing. Your organization may discover some useful information. Listen to what your customers and prospects are saying. Then take action!

Negative Keywords

In Search Engine Marketing, the most underutilized tactic is the usage of negative keywords. We have noticed that numerous clients neglect to use negative keywords in the pay-per-click campaigns. According to Google, negative keywords are a core component of a successful keyword list. The adding of negative keywords to an ad group or campaign means that the ads will not show for search queries containing the specified negative term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help marketers reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI.

There are several reasons to make a keyword negative such as zero conversions, bad brand association, not relevant to a user, or to improve search quality. Most search engines will allow 250 up to 10,000 negative keywords per ad campaign or ad group. There are a few tools to help you identify negative keywords such as WordTracker, Keyword Discovery, and Epiar Negative Keywords.

Be sure to implement negative keywords in your next ad campaign. Let us know how these tools work for your campaign.

http://www.dabrianmarketing.com/

Paint the Picture for Your Online Marketing Programs

We are continuously surprised by the lack of measuring and testing of online marketing campaigns. We’ve worked with organizations of all types and it continues to be a reoccurring theme. As marketers, it is up to us to “paint the picture” of how our campaigns support the business objectives. It is just as critical to demonstrate that value of online marketing campaigns by tracking, recording, and measuring the effectiveness of our campaigns. Without measuring our campaigns, it’s difficult to implement A/B or multivariate testing to improve marketing efficiency and reduce the cost over the long-term. Be sure to translate how your online marketing programs equate to management or ownerships metrics. Remember to KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid), not everyone in your organization is a search engine marketing expert or understands web analytics.

Paint the Pictures, Demonstrate Value, and Translate the Implications on Business Objectives!

DaBrian Marketing Group

http://www.dabrianmarketing.com/

2009 Web Analytics Snapshot

Check Out the Latest 2009 Web Analytics Outlook provided by the Web Analytics Association.

About the Survey Participants
Total of 653 web analytics users

Job Functions:

1. Online Marketers (25.4%)
2. Web Analyst (20.7%)
3. Other: Product Management, Business Development (11.4%)

Company Size:

1. 5,000+ employees (15%)
2. 1001-5,000 employees (11%)
3. 501-1,000 employees (7%)

Finds:

1. 52% of organizations are planning to increase their investment in web analytics in 2009.
2. 38% of the companies surveyed are planning to invest in consulting.
3. 44.3% of organizations use more than one web analytics solution.

Organization’s Purpose of Web Analytics

1. Optimizing web site functionality/conversion
2. Analysis of past performance
3. Optimizing marketing performance/conversions

Areas Organizations What to Improve

1. Measuring Web 2.0 Technologies
2. Targeting and Segmentation
3. A/B and Multivariate Testing

Top Initiatives

1. Business Decisions Driven by Analytics
2. Best Practices Implementation
3. KPI Development

Challenges in 2009

1. Funding
2. Executive management awareness and support of web analytics
3. Business Decisions Driven by Analytics

Introduction

Welcome to the DaBrian Marketing Group blog.