SEO St Louis

Archive for the ‘Web Analytics’ Category

When it comes to soccer, in theory it is pretty simple– you need to put the ball in the back of the net. When this happens it is usually the goal scorer who gets the most credit, but what about the defense who got the play rolling? In reality there is far more to a team’s scoring strategy than the person who gets the ball into the back of the net, in fact Paul Tomkins has devised a system to track the contribution of each individual player. This system creates a value of how they contribute to the team over a number of games.

“When turning soccer into numbers, there will always be problems. And when it comes to ‘assists’, this is especially true. How can you reward someone who rolls the ball eight inches from an indirect free-kick as highly as someone who beats seven men and puts the ball in the striker’s path in the six-yard box?”

Those in the Internet marketing industry may want to take the time to read Tomkins’ strategy in order to relate it to the website conversion attribution debate. When it comes to website conversion, each keyword searched or direct visit – which ultimately results in a conversion–is in most cases a hit from a repeat visitor, or from a visitor who is familiar with the brand name, and each step of your search engine marketing strategy can be seen as an assist that led that conversion goal to your website.
With the highly-anticipated World Cup right around the corner, here is an analogy of how the steps to scoring a goal in a soccer game are similar to making a visitor react a desired way on your website.

 Website Conversion = Goal
You’ve done the hard work, you’ve found a potential customer who is interested enough in your website that they return via a keyword (or direct visit) and complete a sale, give you a call or whatever your call to action may be. This is the same as giving a player a free shot with just the keeper to beat. You won’t always get a 100% conversion rate – but in both cases there’s a very good chance it will end up with a goal.

Second to Last Visit = Assist
Some players don’t always score enough goals (David Beckham for example) but if you take him away from taking freekicks, corners and crossing the ball into the box then you’re likely to see a noticeable drop in chances created and goals scored. This could be exactly the same with your complete online strategy, which is why it is so important to find those advertising channels and keywords which are contributing to the end goal.

Mid-Level Visit = Midfield Pass
If Liverpool scored a goal last season, there’s a good chance Xabi Alonso (player known for his high number of assist) was involved at some point during that move. This may not have a huge importance to the overall outcome, but if involved more often than not, then he is clearly having a positive impact to the team. This could relate to an email marketing campaign, social media campaign or a keyword which may rarely convert, but is often involved in an assist. Take it away and those conversion chances may start to dry up.

First Visit = Defensive Build Up
What got the ball rolling in the first place? In the case of a soccer game, it may start with a key pass by the goalkeeper. When online, perhaps it was a search at the early stage of the searching process, as far back as typing your search words into Google. After this happens there is still a huge amount of work to do in order to grab that conversion, but you need to start somewhere!

So in which stage does the importance lie? In tracking the performance at all stages you can really get a strong idea about how every aspect of an online marketing campaign (or professional soccer team) is performing. With this valuable feedback from web analytics, you can make informative decision (whether that decision be to change up your keywords or to trade your center midfielder) based on the actual facts and figures. All in all looking at every step of your marketing strategy, rather than just the end result, will tell you which components of your overall efforts are effective, and which ones could use some help.

Certain search engine optimization services are not optional. At SEO-St. Louis, we often talk about the technical benefits of search engine optimization.  The ultimate purpose for the search engine optimization (SEO) mumbo jumbo is to improve the bottom line. In this installment we’re reviewing four SEO services that the small business cannot afford to do without.

 

If your prospective target audience is unable to find your Web site, this is an indication of a misaligned web marketing strategy. The Net Impact, a St. Louis-SEO company, improves site’s search ranking by providing the following services:

 

• Keyword Research
• Meta Tag Analysis and Recommendations
• Optimization of Content for the home page and key landing pages
• Manual Search Engine Submission of your website to Google, Yahoo and MSN

Keyword Research — Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization. When consumers conduct searches via Google,  they enter keywords specific to their query. For obvious reasons, Web sites, hoping to generate leads, require keyword research to capture online traffic.

 

Meta Tag Analysis and Recommendation – Meta tag analysis is another component of keyword research. Based oo a site’s keyword research, meta tag descriptions, titles and headings should reflect the strategy. This is often referred to as “Google analytics consulting.” Moreover, other technical processes are involved in synchronizing a site’s keywords and meta tags to assure high online visibility.

 

Optimization of Content for the home page and key landing pages – Now once, your site is comprised of the appropriate keywords, it requires optimization. The step involves developing marketable content, which appeals to major search engines, and possesses the appropriate balance of keywords. In order to maximize a site’s traffic potential, each web page is treated like its own piece of Internet real estate, known as a landing page. These pages are quite important for marketing specific products, services and promotions.

 

Manual Search Engine Submission – Once the pages of your site are optimized for traffic, a manual submission  to major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) assures that sites are cached on these directories.

Read more about search engine optimization (SEO) services.

At one time, corporate America depended on advertising agencies to assume the role of consumer psychologist. Ad agencies, no longer have the ability to misconstrue the target audience. There’s no more manipulating the consumer data. Fortunately, search engine marketing delivered a brand new age of transparency: Web analytics.

Advertisers need not risk running an inept ad campaign, ultimately tarnishing the brand identity. These days, misaligned ad campaigns have a short shelf life. Thanks to Google web analytics, the era of advertising in the dark ages is over.

An essential component of Internet marketing, web analytics tells a compelling story. It conveys visitor behavior, presenting a site evaluation of the proceeding data:

• Keywords and search terms 
• Traffic referrals (which sites are directing traffic)
• Which pages attain the highest traffic and conversion?
• What is the most sought after information on the site?
• Which web page pathways are the most frequently traveled?
• Which pages lack visitor interest?
• How does site traffic navigate through the site?
• Which pages are of least interest?
• On which page do visitors tend to exit the site?
• How to convert more site traffic to ensure the greatest ROI?

Given a blueprint of the aforementioned information, web analytics develops an exacting composite of how to chart a site’s clickstream.

Clickstream tracking is the path of how visitors navigate through a website.

Without web analytics it is merely impossible to measure, evaluate and forecast website visitor behavior. With an accurate visitor analysis, profits and sales are almost a matter of precise calculations.

Contact the Net Impact for a free Google Analytics Consulting assessment!

If you’re shopping around for an SEO Company to man your company’s online presence, it’s important to understand which services are important to increasing revenues for growing the profit margin: affiliate marketing,  A/B Testing and website conversion rate.  Review the proceeding three-Web marketing terms, which impact the bottom line:

Affiliate Marketing – A referral program, whereby an advertiser or merchant compensates marketers for referring their products, resulting in a consumer designated action, such as a subscription, sales transaction or new customer lead. The referring agent or affiliate is paid a commission or revenue share, based on the terms of the affiliate program. Google employs a similar model to connect advertisers with publishers. Read more about the development of affiliate marketing program  for your organization.

A/B Testing – To ensure that a Web page or ad will command the best conversion rate, most search engine-marketing firms will conduct a series of tests, referred to as A/B testing. It’s the easiest way to analyze the marketability of headlines, ad content, design and landing pages. The test entails developing two versions of a page to compel the desired outcome. Companies, who provide these services, apply a myriad of experiments to improve a search engine marketing campaigns conversion rate. Learn more about A/B Testing for your Web site.

Conversion Rate – A measurement of how well a marketing medium (landing page, ad, newsletter) results in the preferred course of action (as in subscription or purchase). For instance, if you have a pay-per-click ad on Google, and 10 out of 1000 visitors result in a sales transaction, the pay-per-click ad has a 1 percent conversion rate. The average landing page has a seven percent conversion rate.  Read more about website conversion services.