Google Analytics Provides Insight on Importance of Mobile Browser Support

You cannot go five feet down the street anymore without seeing someone immersed in his or her mobile device. They are making calls, texting, and as of late, surfing the internet or transferring funds between bank accounts. Even with this level of mass mobile usage, it still amazes me how many major companies and organizations have yet to add true mobile support for their websites via mobile-friendly versions of their site or applications. There are several key insights that Google Analytics can provide that can convey the positive impact a mobile-friendly solution of your site could have:

1. First, you can drill down through the total visits of your website to see how many of those visitors were using mobile devices. These numbers can often be surprising, even for smaller, informational websites. This drilldown can provide crucial information right off the bat.


2. In addition to viewing the number of mobile visitors you had to your site, you can also determine the level of interaction they had. This can be determined by looking at the average number of pages per visit. If you have a website that employs many graphics or Flash objects, you may notice that the number of pages per visit will be lower than those of standard computer users. Mobile devices often do not have the same bandwidth or processing capabilities of a standard computer, and as such they have a more difficult time loading and displaying this type of content.


3. The average time on site metric also provides a great look at site interaction. Though a higher average time on site is often a good sign, it may also hint at a poorly optimized site for mobile users. This can be determined when you compare the average time on site with the amount of pages per visit for mobile visits. If the pages per visits are lower and the time on site is higher, it may mean that they are spending a great deal of time waiting for the page content to load. In contrast, a high level of pages per visit and high average time on site may indicate a site better suited to being displayed on a mobile device.

The key to the success of any website is knowing how the website is being used, and who is using it. Monitoring this usage via web analytics can provide invaluable information to assist in growing your web presence.

The Strength of Social Media

Many Marketing Directors and business owners think of social media marketing as something less important compared to other internet marketing services. Not true. Social media is just as important as other forms of Internet Marketing. Social media is helping businesses to forge a new era in business transparency and engagement, creating both new challenges and opportunities. Social Media can not only help you strengthen the relationship with your customers but it can also help strengthen your internet marketing campaigns through complete integration. I believe that the foundation of social media marketing can be established by using the 4 C’s: create, collaborate, and communicate, and convert.

Create is referring to the intricate process of developing optimized content that is made to reach the customer and will also help with your SEO. Providing compelling content which caters to the interests of your visitors and you will keep them on your site once they have arrived; organize your content so that it guides your visitors through the conversion process in a simple manner, as well as motivating them to return in the future.

Collaborate refers to your social media efforts joining forces with all marketing mediums online and off. We have made it to the point where nearly all social media can connect with each other making it easier to communicate with your customers across all platforms. Those very same social media sites, using your optimized content, help influence your position within the organic search results. They can be placed, as buttons; in your email blasts so that after you communicate with them, they can communicate with you. This gives your customer the ability to quickly and easily give you feedback while they are there to see what’s new. You can also use your favorite social media site, i.e. Facebook, as a landing page for your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) or use a social media widget, i.e. “Like” box, so your customer can see who else thought your ad was helpful. Lastly, would be web analytics which you can use to not only track all of your other internet marketing mediums but also almost all of your SM. You can track your SM buttons, landing pages, widgets, PPC ads, conversions, and who, what, when, where, and how people communicate.

Communicate refers the public and private interaction that you have with your current and future customers on your social media sites. These interactions provide an open and transparent channel for people to interact with you and each other, without the pressure of response that comes with e-mail. Public interactions are a great starting point for engagement that never existed before social media, giving businesses the opportunity to build relationship and funnel customer to convert.

Convert refers to the “call to action” in online media to generate intentional outcomes. According to The Social Media Marketing Survey by R2integrated, over a third of companies surveyed (36.1%) say that they are converting traffic from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube into sales. This is what I think would be a company’s main goal and it is measurable which helps with most companies sole problem with social media….ROI.

Discovering the Targeting Abilities of Search Engine Marketing

As someone, who has recently made the transition from the classroom to the office, I am just discovering the depth of the power of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, specifically that of Google AdWords. Any good marketer, or marketing student, can tell you the importance and benefits of having highly focused ads reaching a specific target market. However, figuring out how to practically do this in an efficient and effecting manner is not an easy task; at least not until now. Using Google AdWords, one can easily customize the targeting setting to tightly focus on a specific target market. Some of these targeting options include:

· Keyword Targeting

· Geographical Locations (National to City level)

· Placement Selections (specifying certain websites)

· Language(s)

· Ad Scheduling (selecting Seasons, Days, and/or Hours)

Combining these targeting capabilities to the Conversion Tracking and Budget settings, which are also available with Google AdWords, one can now more easily create, manage, and maintain a marketing campaign, or at least a Search Engine Marketing Campaign.

Forget to Measure the Impact of your Web Design or Website?

Where’s the accountability on the part of web design companies and traditional agencies? For the most part, they both position themselves as being able to design the website or execute on the marketing after the launch. Most internet marketing companies generally focus on everything related to internet marketing or online promotions. Don’t get me wrong, many of the traditional agencies do very good work. The challenge is that our clients rarely hold the web design or advertising agency accountable for the performance of the website. In this day and age, the website is a critical element of both traditional and internet marketing promotions because customers and prospects review the website for information.

For web design projects, most clients have specific goals and objectives that they would like to accomplish with the launch or redesign of a website. The design of the website should focus on achieving the client’s goals and objectives; however, the majority of the web designers or traditional agencies ride off into the sunset with the client’s money and on to the next project without evaluating whether or not they helped to achieve their end goals. This is an injustice to the client and any other projects that involves promoting the website!

We wouldn’t know about your clients, but we can tell you that our clients want value and for us, as their internet marketing company, to demonstrate return-on-investment. We would have to say that as a business owner, we agree with the need to show value and ROI. But, where’s the value and ROI of the non-functional and that “Web -2.0 thing” your agency or web designer calls a website? We have worked with, for, and partnered with numerous “BIG Name” agencies in the Philadelphia and Cleveland area, but we’ve yet to see or hear of any agency coming back for an end of year evaluation to measure the success of the web design project.

While on the other hand, internet marketing companies, such as ours, are continuously forced to show value and ROI for our search engine marketing and search engine optimization, as well as provide monthly reports. It’s a good thing that demonstrating value and showing ROI through web analytics is part of our culture! The question is when will demonstrating value and showing ROI be part of the web design evaluation process for ad agencies or our clients? We have worked with clients and prospects with long-term MSAs (master services agreements), over $250,000 web design projects, and no web design metrics whatsoever, are you serious? With the advances in website design technology, there is always something that the agency or web designer could be doing cheaply, quickly, and effectively to show value or help clients to achieve ROI. Instead, they’re the first one yelling “show me the money” for the next project that they won’t measure or the client won’t require them to measure. It’s time to stop wasting money on high priced unmeasured web design and marketing initiatives.

Conclusion

Let’s be clear; we have an appreciation for the services that web designers and advertising agencies provide. We just don’t believe that an agency or designer wants to tell the client that they made a little mistake with your $250,000 web design project, and by today’s standards that their website is inadequate! So, how do we change that? Here are my top 5 ideas:

1. Get the metrics for the web design project in writing and as part of the Statement of Work.
2. Schedule a date and time to evaluate whether or not the web design/agency delivered on the goals and objectives.
3. Identify any variables that would have hindered them from accomplishing their goals and objectives that were out of their control.
4. Hold your web design or ad agency accountable!
5. Get feedback from your IT team, SEO consultants, and/or internet marketing company. They can usually see technical, search, and performance issues that would impact the ROI of their initiatives.

We will continue to work with prospects and clients to identify proven web designers and ad agencies. In addition, we’re going to continue to educate our clients and the public, measure results, identify website issues, and turn the heat up on over-priced and ineffective website design projects, that prevent our prospects or our clients from achieving a greater impact through internet marketing.