seo

business website
 by James Kemp

Tracking ROI: How Successful is Your Business Website?

I often have two questions for a business owner about their marketing.

How much do you spend to acquire a customer? 

How much is that customer worth over their lifetime with you?

Some can give real numbers. Most can’t.

Knowing those two figures makes a huge difference to a business.

If you know your numbers you can outspend your competition and take customers from them.

If you know your numbers you can get a higher quality of customer who will spend more.

If you know your numbers you can turn low spending customers into high spending ones just by knowing that they are low spending…

The good news is it’s never been easier to know those numbers and how they relate to your website.

Why are metrics critical to your business website?

As a website owner, you need to gather relevant data that gives you an overview for your campaigns. This is why metrics play an important role in improving the performance of your website.

During the 90’s and mid-2000, website owners did not have the means to track their own campaigns. Web analytics were not yet available to the masses. Only large companies could afford to setup it up. And it was tedious work.

In 2006, Google launched its own web analytics tool. They made it a free tool that everyone could use.

Using the information that Google Analytics provides you can get a picture of where you should be focusing your attention online.

What are the Most Popular Metrics To Assess

At present, more and more online marketers are using metrics to assess strategies. There are different types but here are some of the most popular ones used today:

  • Visits Referred by Specific Search Engine Terms and Phrases

This metric shows keywords or key phrases that are responsible for sending traffic to your website. Some of these keywords can come from any content that you published on your website.

This is good to track on a regular basis as it will help you identify new and profitable keywords. This can also help you understand the performance of your current content strategy and take steps to boost your search ranking, if needed.

  • Pages Receiving Traffic from the Search Engines

Are your pages getting indexed? This metric shows the website pages that are getting indexed through the number of incoming traffic. You can also track certain issues with your site like: link acquisition, site architecture, XML Sitemap, metadata and uniqueness of your content.

  • Conversion Rate by Search Query

What keywords or key phrases continually send visitors to your site and convert this traffic to paying customers?

Tracking this metric will enable you to dig deeper and find out the most effective landing pages on your site. You can also pretty much ballpark how you can tweak your strategy to address the pages that are not performing well.

Using Analytics Tools to Optimise Your Content

There are many types of analytics tools in the market today. For this segment, our focus are metrics in Google Analytics. It is perfect to use since it is free but very powerful.

Some of the most important data you can get from the behaviour report are:

Pageviews – The number of pages viewed by your visitors. This will include repeated views on a single page.

Average Time on Page – Amount of time viewers spend on a particular page on your site.

Unique Pageviews – This is the number of unique visitors who have viewed a page at least once during their visit.

Bounce Rate – This is the percentage of single-page visits to your site. If a visitor goes to one of your pages and exits the site from the same page they entered in. This action will be factored in into the bounce rate.

One other tool that offers real-time analytics tracking is Woopra. This tool is a desktop application that can feed live visitor stats. One awesome feature exclusive to this tool is its capability to chat live with individual site visitors. This is a great feature for e-commerce sites, but it would also be an invaluable feature for any type of business.

Key Takeaway

Metrics help you measure your success when doing online campaigns. If you have identified your buyer persona and know their online behaviour, you can make changes accordingly and segment your market. You can better address their pain points if you have a deeper understanding of how they behave when making selections and finally doing a purchase.

If you can clearly identify who spends more time on your site and on what particular content, when and where they enter and exit,  it can point you to the stage when your customer decides to purchase and give you an idea why they stopped at certain points.

Knowing these, you can already ask yourself the following questions and make adjustments based on your answers:

  • Do I need to change the format of my content?
  • What kind of format works best for my market?
  • What kind of information do I need to give out to my audience?
  • What information is lacking in my content that my audience needs?
  • What particular pages in my website needs adjustment?
  • How can I maintain the interest of my visitors to a particular page?

Enjoyed this article? Download a copy of our Google Analytics Metrics Guide  and get to know what metrics matter most to grow and improve your business.      

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You can also download a copy of our BOOK and get the exact strategy we are using to grow our clients’ businesses.

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ecommerce site
 by James Kemp

5 Quick Wins for Your Ecommerce Site

Optimisation has been a buzz word in ecommerce forever. We are all striving to get that little bit extra out of the traffic we have and the customers who already trust us.

Sometimes we just want to throw out the whole platform and start again. But this is expensive and often does not deliver the results to justify the investment. Sometimes it can deliver a worse experience that impacts revenue, as big ecommerce players like Marks and Spencer discovered.

Small changes can have a huge impact. At GrabOne we changed the design of a yellow box on the mobile site and improved conversion by $256,000 per year. Testing should be part of your culture but I want to hand you some quick wins that you can implement in the next 30 days.

Criteria I used to choose these:

  • Easy to implement
  • High upside, low downside – little risk
  • Platform agnostic – you can do all of these with what you have or simple tools

1. Chat

Online shopping inherently lacks the retail experience of having someone walk a customer through a purchase and deal with objections and questions as they come up. Chat is a way to improve engagement with the customer, discover frequent problems and hidden issues. I’ve seen chat linked transaction average double than those without. Anecdotally younger users use chat in higher numbers as its a more natural experience for them.

How: Olark only requires a single line of code and starts at $15 a month.

2. Payment options

Offering customers an alternative way to pay has been proven to boost conversions. Payments company SeeWhy analysed payment methods by platform and showed an increase in performance when offering customers more options.

How:  QCard

ecommerce marketing

Paypal has obviously gained market share but digital wallets haven’t really gained traction in NZ. The quick win I would recommend is you focus on payment solutions that increase your average transaction value. GrabOne’s implementation of QCard was successful in increasing transaction values.

How: Speak to QCard. It will seamlessly sit next to your existing payment gateway.

3. Social Proof and Urgency

Daily deal sites have some of the highest conversion rates online. They do this through a unique product but they have also been very successful in increasing urgency and layering social proof onto a purchasing decision. Displaying the number of purchases, how many have been sold, stock remaining or recent purchases can all be effective.

image01

Booking.com have always been my favourite implementation and I know they have a extensive conversion testing regime so ‘taking inspiration’ from them would be wise. Look at the daily deal sites for design ideas as well.

Two important caveats don’t create false urgency and don’t overdo it.

How: Userstats offer a lightweight tool from $18 a month

4. Onboarding

Customers who have already bought from us are far easier to re-engage than new customers. Getting a new user to a purchase and experience your product as early in the relationship as possible ensures the lifetime value is maximised. Onboarding them to let them know what they can expect from you and potentially incentivising them to purchase is a fast and simple way to do this. The art is nurturing them rather than chasing them.

Onboarding should:

  • Set expectations about how you are going to communicate with them eg email frequency
  • Start to build a relationship with them eg your company’s values and usp
  • Let them know about any other actions that would be beneficial eg mobile, app, account preferences

Generally onboarding is done via email but a thank you page post sign up can be a good early introduction to your relationship.

The next time a customer sees and email from you or an ad out there they will be slightly more likely to engage.

How: Fire up your email program and write an email (preferably from a person) telling them exactly what to expect from you and suggest some next steps in the relationship.

5. Cart Abandon

Are people really still not doing this? If it’s not the most profitable email you send in your stack then I will personally send you $11.50 which happens to the value per email of the last onboarding email I wrote.

Seriously just do it. The customer has got all the way through to the cart and left for some reason. Give them a nudge.

Test messaging sequences, frequency and content later but please start. FYI A two email abandon reminder seems to work best for most ecommerce types. But start with a single email and find out later what is optimal.

How: It is likely built into your ecommerce platform of choice but if you need a third party solution Salescycle offer this along with remarketing functionality.

Priorities are always challenging but if there are gaps in your strategy please fill them with one of the above ideas as soon as you can. I guarantee it will make you more sales.

Want someone to make these small but important changes for you? Check out Growth Advise. There’s a waiting list right now but register and I will let you know when an opening becomes available.

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 by James Kemp

How to Put Your Website on the First Page of Google

“Just Google It” is a phrase that has entered our everyday conversation.

We search Google 3.5 billion times per day.

Over 2/3 of buyers user search when making a purchase decision. Often at the beginning of the process.

If you’re not there you WILL be losing out on business.

Having a website is the first step. Next is increasing your online visibility. Doing this requires SEO.

In fact, you need to understand the principles of SEO even if you are hiring an online marketing company to do this task for you.

The good news?

In little ole’ NZ it’s relatively easy to get your site ranking well on Google. Unless your in a highly competition category then following some basic steps can improve your rankings dramatically.

Higher rankings = better visibility = more enquiries

How does it work? How can SEO raise your online presence and give you an edge over your competitors?

These are common questions that come to mind when you hear the word SEO. There are tons of resources about it on the Internet. It is literally an endless rabbit hole you can fall into.

The web is full of clutter and you need to distinguish fact from fiction. In addition, you want a simplified guide about SEO so you can easily learn some tactics to use on your website.

What is the significance of SEO to your business?

Search Engine Optimisation is a tactic you can use to increasing your business website’s ranking. You can have the opportunity to rank on Google search’ first page if you know how to use this well.

Remember that you are up against a sea of websites. Your awesome content will remain invisible (no matter how valuable they are) if you do not employ the basics of SEO. You are practically non-existent if you are not on top of serps (search engine page results).

Though you need to understand, conducting an SEO campaign is not that simple. The web being in constant flux, Google has evolved since then. Its algorithm favours quality content over the spammy noise.

The name of the game today is earning Google’s “trust”. Proving yourself over time is the key. Though some can break the code, gone are the days when you can rank for a particular search term in just a matter of weeks. It is nearly next to impossible to manipulate the serps.

The Rise of the Three Algorithms

The Google Panda, Penguin and Pigeon are algorithms or formulas used by the search results for ranking sites. These algorithms will impose sanctions and penalise sites that fail to follow their guidelines.

The most common requirement these days is to have high quality and unique content on your site. We don’t discount the fact that having a website with exceptional user experience is always a factor in Google search rankings.

If you do not want to fall into Google’s bad graces, stay up-to-date with the latest guidelines. Usually, the updates are reported by the entire SEO community and discussed in several online forums.

If you want to know the latest on Google’s algorithm, check out Moz’ updates.

Getting started

Creating high quality content starts with good keyword research. This task will help you pinpoint the most ideal keyword/s for your content writing and optimisation efforts.

Note that the shorter the keyword/s, the harder it will be for you to rank it on serps. More so if your site is still new. It is advisable to target long-tail keywords as they are less competitive and far easier to rank.

How to find the right Long-Tail Keywords

You can find an ideal long-tail keyword through Google’s autosuggest feature. To use this, do the following:

  • Navigate to a search page for your country and type a keyword.
  • As you type the keyword, you will notice a drop-down box with some suggestions. Once you see the keyword suggestions, jot down all the keywords that you think is relevant to your content.
  • Choose at least 3 to 5 of the most suitable keywords you find in the autosuggest and head over to Google keyword planner. You can easily find this keyword tool by going to this link: https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner. It is advisable to create a Gmail account, so you can readily access the keyword planner without having to enter the Captcha code every time you use this tool. The keyword planner will provide you the following data:
  • Level of advertiser competition on your selected keywords
  • Amount of searches each keyword gets per month
  • Additional long-term keywords

An attractive primary keyword must have considerable average monthly searches. This is the average number of times people search for an exact match keyword based on their current location.

In Adwords tool, there is a column called competition. Each keyword is categorised as low, medium or high competition. Ignore that column because that is for advertisers and not search competition .

High competition keywords are usually more challenging to rank for in Google. Keep in mind that finding this type of keyword can take time, so be patient and conduct an in-depth search using the tool.

If you find Google’s Keyword Planner vexing, there are free keyword research tools out there. Try out Ubersuggest, SpyFu, SemRush, or all of them.

  • When you have completed your analysis, choose a primary keyword that you will use on your content. However, make sure that you have spent some time in analysing the keyword. It should be a keyword that you can compete for on the SERPs.

Creating and optimising your content

When you are creating content for your website, you must ensure that you meet the baseline specifications for a good optimised content. These specifications are as follows:

  • It must have one primary keyword and one or two secondary keywords
  • If it is an article or blog post, it should contain 500 words but a 1000-word article is recommended
  • It must be unique, well-researched and provide value to your readers

Another thing to consider is the on-page optimisation of the post within your site. Make sure that the primary keyword is in:

  • The page at least once
  • The title of the content
  • The URL of the page
  • The meta description
  • The alt title of image that you will use in the content

Now, what about the keyword density (KD)? Is it still relevant in 2015?

Most SEO specialists will tell you that 2% is the ideal KD; Others will justify that 5% has more weight in the eyes of the SERPs.  In reality, it all comes down to the amount of content on the page.

A 100-word article with a 6% keyword density will look spammy. For a 1000-word article, it is the ideal density for good rankings. The most important thing is that, it should be used in the most natural way as possible.

If you are using the WordPress platform, you can install an SEO plugin to make your job easier. You can use Yoast WordPress SEO plugin. It is free and contains several features that can aid your on-page optimisation efforts.

Quality Link Building

Moving your rankings up on search results require quality links. A word of caution, it is harder to rank highly for a particular keyword if you are competing against sites that have more quality links than yours.

Why is this? Links are the currency of the web. Every time your content gets linked to, it means that you provide massive value to Internet users. It is why links are such a strong factor in Google’s algorithm.

How to acquire quality links?

The general rule when it comes to link building is to avoid “spam tactics.”

Here are a few dos and don’ts to follow.

  • Do try to acquire links naturally, even if it takes time.
  • Do build your links consistently and organically, which means you should schedule your link building efforts and follow it by heart.
  • Do not use link farms or link directories in your campaign.
  • Do not use any automated tools that lets you build thousands of links in just a short period of time.
  • Do not be tempted to buy links or you will be flagged by Google. All your efforts will be for nothing if you get too impatient.

Where to get the link naturally?

To get quality links for your site, you can follow these link building strategies:

  • Guest Posting

What about Google Penguin 3.0 which is geared to penalised manipulative link building or link schemes? Guest posting is considered by Google as a link scheme. Matt Cutts openly declared it as dead.

Can you still consider it in your campaign?

Yes you can, if you use no follow links.

It is still the best way to acquire referral traffic from popular and relevant websites. Try to focus on creating quality content since you are reaching out to other website owners. Having quality content increases your chances of getting into high-authority and credible site.

  • Link Baiting

This is another effective method of building powerful links on a large scale. Is it as simple as producing valuable content? No, but you hit the right spot if you understand what people want.

To start off though, it must be free and shareable. It must be so valuable that people would be willing to share it.

There are different types of link bait and this can include the following:

  • Infographics
  • Beginner guides
  • Breaking News
  • Industry reports
  • How to guides
  • Top lists
  • Article Directories

Article submission is one of the most popular ways of building back links then. This is still useful as most article directories are authority sites. You can focus on creating multiple quality and unique articles and spread them out to different directories for best result.

  • Broken Link Building

This is a new but powerful effective link building strategy. With this strategy, you can reach out to quality sites and use it as an opportunity to ask the site administrator to fix those broken links with a link to your site.

  • Video Link Building

YouTube is surpassing Google search in terms of monthly searches. If you want to capture visitors from YouTube, create a compelling video with a link on the description that points back to your site. Make sure that the video and your description are related. Also, it does not need to be a long; a 3 to 10-minute video will do with useful information about your topic.

Tools to Assess Your SEO Campaigns

To get the result of your current campaign, you can utilise free online tools like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. Once you created a Gmail account, you can use it to access these tools.

We have made a step-by-step guide for you. Showing you how to setup Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. These are essential in tracking your goals and showing progress in your SEO efforts.

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