Tag: Google Analytics

Bad Websites Create An Invisible Audience

Bad Websites Create An Invisible AudienceIt’s inevitable to know that bad websites will create an invisible audience. Most people believe that if they can just get a website online, then their business will start to bloom. Well chances are, that if your website is not giving the potential customer a call to action, then you won’t earn customers. If your website is horrendous, it’s going to serve as a direct representative of your actual work. Don’t be a victim of bad websites, you want to have a website that not only looks good, but has a healthy conversion rate. Let me explain.

What’s The Point of Having a Website?

Granted if you’ve paid for something as a business, then you want to see a return. It’s an investment right? Understand what you are getting a website for. What is the actual need? Why is it important? What should my website do for me to create revenue for this business? These are questions that I ask myself every day, and these are questions that you should ask yourself, when you are in the market for a website. Even if you already took the website adventure, and you’re in the market for a redesign, do your homework. Having a website means that you have an online representation. Once you have a website online, you have just given your business an identity, a heartbeat. It’s alive. Be careful though, because as easy as it was to make it alive, it could lose its life without the proper maintenance and continued vision for the website. You have to nurture and care for your website like it’s your baby. Technically it is your baby. It’s your job to make it grow, or work with your web developer so that he can make it grow. Your web developer will serve as your professional gardener. The smart thing to do for your website, after you’ve developed the vision for your website, and have put that vision into code, is to now re-evaluate your website on a regular basis. Capitalize on the good that you see coming from the website, and make changes to tackle your efforts for damage control.

Nobody Hits the Ball Out of the Park the First Time!

By reevaluating your website regularly, you’ll be able to see and to know what has worked and what hasn’t. Do yourself a favor, and scan your competitor’s websites. See how they are advertising. How do they draw attention to their prices? How do they introduce their products or services? If you study the people that have done things before you, then you are most likely not going to make the same mistakes as they have. You want a winning formula, so study those that have a winning formula. Work with other entrepreneurs to see how they manage their business through their website, and take notes. No matter what field it is in, business is business. As your website grows, continually add to it, build it up like it’s a strong tower, because again this is the identity of your business. Before a potential customer calls you, they are most likely going to scout your business through the internet. A bad website is like not having one at all. Matter of fact, it’s probably better not to have a website, then to have a bad website. At least, if you don’t have a website, then you can gain customers through good word of mouth, but bad websites will deter customers from using your services because of the quality. The quality of your website should measure the quality of your actual work.

How Do You Track Your Website Efforts?

There are plenty of tools to track your website efforts. I prefer Google Analytics because with Google Analytics it will show you where your traffic is coming from, what links they clicked on, what operating system their using, what countries their coming from. Google Analytics is the best free tool out there to track your website efforts. It talks about bounce rate? Your bounce rate is how long a visitor stays on your website. It tracks new visitors to returning visitors. How many pages are visited per visit. It tells you how many actual page views you have, and it will break down the actual source links for you so that you can know where your traffic is being driven from. If you don’t have google analytics attached to your website right now, you are missing out on a vital part of your business. In order to evaluate your business, you have to be able to have a measuring point to compare it to. Google Analytics gives you this measuring point so that you can track your success or lack thereof.

Conclusion

Bad websites will murder a company’s internet marketing campaign. Make your website work for you. Partner with your web developer so that they can help you strategize to attack your target market. This is a war, and you are at war against the search engines. In order to win, you have to put in the work to manipulate the search engines to bite on your Search Engine Optimization efforts. If your SEO is in place, it will make your website a lot more successful. Allow your web developer to help you with this, so that you don’t get stuck trying to manage your website, but you become the brains behind the strategy.

God Bless!

Traffic Jams & Social Media Gridlock

Traffic Jams & Social Media GridlockIn order to have Social Media Gridlock that means there has to be some kind of workflow stoppage. Is social media working for you? Are you seeing an increase in page hits on your website because of Social Media? If the answer is “No”, let’s identify the problem. There are probably going to be 5 Main Reasons that Social Media Gridlock occurs, let’s discuss them!

1. Simply Not Taking Advantage of Social Media

Just by opening an account on Social Media alone can increase the opportunity for more website traffic. Once you open up an account, then you are immediately qualified to submit information to millions of users. Take advantage of it, you will never know how much it will help you, if you never try it out.

2. Posting Irrelevant Information to Your Followers

Think about yourself, are you going to read something that has nothing to do with you? Neither are your followers. When you are posting information, no matter what social media platform it is, make sure that your information is relevant to your followers. Nothing is worse, then being spammed with a whole bunch of information that has nothing to do with you. Find your outlets, if you are posting information that might not be relevant to all your followers, so up some kind of follower list or group, so that it can only be seen by those who would be interested in your post.

3. Engaging with Your Followers

When you have a group of followers the most courteous thing to do is follow them back. At least they feel valued enough by you, that you followed them back, if not, your follow list will continue to be low and shallow. Be interesting. Don’t just post your agenda. As a business, you might have a post schedule, Good! You should. Don’t just post your blogs or your marketing post and expect to see some kind of response. To tell you the truth, the public can care less about your product or service. If a person doesn’t feel comfortable with you as a person, then chances are they’re not going to do business with you anyway. Relate with your followers; engage with them in conversation, talking about issues that interest them. As you do this, take a mental or physical survey, how people feel about certain topics so that you can measure what interest your followers and what doesn’t, so you can continue to post topics that draw the attention of your readers.

4. Posting Without Links Back to Your Website

If you’re posting posts that don’t have direct links back to your website, then you are wasting your time on Social Media. As a business, your time is valuable; you don’t have the time to just randomly post remarks that do nothing for your business. As a business the best way to bring traffic back to your website is by writing blogs, and posting these blogs on a regular basis. You guys have heard me say this before, but it is vital. If your posts don’t contain a back link to your website, then your time spent is pointless. The whole point of Social Media as a business is to drive traffic back to your website. If you are not accomplishing this with your posts, then you should be re-evaluating. You might ask, well how can I know where my traffic is coming from. There are plenty of free services out there that can help you with this. Google Analytics is an excellent and specialized tool that will not only tell you where your traffic is coming from, it’ll tell you what pages they clicked on, what browser their using, what country it’s coming from, it’s an incredible resource, I recommend it to all businesses that are trying to track their traffic.

5. Being an Absentee

As a poster, you have to be consistent. Don’t post an extreme amount of post one day and then disappear for a week. It doesn’t do anything for your social status. If you know that you are going to have a busy day or busy couple days, then schedule some relevant post with free programs like www.timely.is, at least to make it look like your available. Not posting is a good way to lose followers, and to lose the interest of those who choose to still follow you.

Conclusion

If you can follow these 5 simple steps, I guarantee that the traffic on your website will start to increase. Don’t be satisfied with the traffic you already have, there can always be more. Be aggressive in your attempts to bring traffic to your website, and however you choose to do it, be consistent. If you don’t have the time, hire a content manager to take on these tasks for you. You will be amazed at the results, and you’ll start to see that traffic is starting to turn into income.

God Bless!

Ramirez Creative Solutions