Comscore has just released encouraging data relating to the start of the Christmas holiday season for online retailers in the US. Online sales on Black Friday, traditionally the start of the Xmas buying season in the States, was up by 11% compared to the same period last year.

See full Comscore press release.

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Google has just previewed its much anticipated upgrade to its search engine, codenamed Caffeine and promises that the new search tool will improve the speed, accuracy, size, and comprehensiveness of Google search. In an exclusive video interview with Web Pro News this week, Matt Cutts discusses how the speed at which your website loads looks set to become an increasingly important factor in how well it ranks in Google.

• Go to Web Pro News to see this interview

In the video Matt also mentions Google’s Page Speed tools, which you can install as an add on to Firefox, which enable you to analyse the speed at which a site loads and makes recommendations for improving it.

If you want to see Matt talking in more general about how Google have been refining their search engine, look at this video interview:

More WebProNews Videos

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There are a range of free, yet powerful analytical tools that any business can use to get a better insight into the effectiveness of their different internet marketing efforts. Not only can you tell from this where to direct most effort and marketing spend, but also you can see how visitors are responding to your website and make improvements with a view to increasing conversion rates.

I use a combination of Statcounter and Google Analytics as each tool has its own strengths.

Google Analytics helps you get an overview of your internet marketing campaigns

Google Analytics provides an excellent overview of how the various strands of your internet marketing are working over any set period. You can see which traffic sources – whether adwords, blogging, referrals from other websites, or natural search listings – are generating the most leads and get a view on the quality of the visits, based on bounce rates, average time spent on your site, and number of pages viewed.

You can also analyse results in terms of which keyword phrases are related to the lowest bounce rates. If the bounce rate is high for certain key phrases, it may be that you need to adjust your content relating to these phrases to be more rewarding to visitors, So, from the point of view of assessing the effectiveness of internet marketing over a particular period, Google Analytics is a useful tool that can help you direct your marketing spend most cost-effectively.

Use Analytics to help improve your conversion rate

From the point of view of assessing how to improve your conversion rate, Google Analytics can give some useful pointers. For example, you can tell which pages most visitors are arriving on, and by studying the exit pages, determine whether visitors are staying long enough to achieve their goals and your business objectives. Site overlay is another useful feature, enabling you to see which links on different areas of your web pages are being most often clicked. All in all, a pretty useful tool for working out how to refine your web pages and landing pages.

Statcounter gives a rich insight into the pattern of user journeys

Statcounter, on the other hand, is better at providing a detailed insight into individual user journeys. You can see pretty much in real time, where visitors are arriving from and see their path around your site. This can give useful insight into which web pages are proving to be engaging, and which ones appear to be causing usability problems.

Both Google Analytics and Statcounter are data protection compliant and do not enable you to see the personal details of the individual visitor.

Getting more from your site monitoring tools

If you are not already using these analytical tools, I recommend installing both on your site as soon as possible so you can start to be more scientific about your online marketing. The installation process is quick and easy.

If you do have these tools installed, hopefully this article has given you some further ideas on how to get the most out of them, although I have only been able to brush the surface.

For additional guidance on using analytical tools to monitor your website, contact me at Fen Digital on 01392 411363.

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Online video can be far more effective than words or static images for conveying key product features. This was proved to me recently when producing videos to explain two products – one was an innovative type of duvet, the other an enhanced design of clip on sunglasses. Two very different products, but both competing in crowded markets.

The requirement in both cases was similar – to convey quickly, effectively, and engagingly the unique features that set each of these products apart from their competitors. Even though the concept of each of the products was simple, it was not easy to convey concisely in words and we felt that having someone demonstrating the products in use was going to be far more effective.

In the case of the clip on sunglasses, it is important for customers not only to understand the benefits of the advanced design compared with the old fashioned flip up models, but also to learn how to select the most appropriate size and shape to fit their prescription glasses.

By creating a video covering the features and how to choose your clipons, our objective was to stand out from competitors and also to reduce product returns by helping ensure that customers selected the right clipons.

I would recommend video as a tool for any company that is looking for a simple, effective, and engaging way to explain how their product or service works. Check out these videos to form your own opinion.

Clip on sunglasses video

His and hers duvet video

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Blog optimisation makes the difference between blogging for its own sake and creating a genuinely effective marketing tool.

A well optimised blog gives a business a powerful opportunity to communicate its philosophy and USP to its target audience. At best it can help the business differentiate itself from competitors and bring valuable benefits in terms of visibility in search engines and social media.

How do you optimise a blog?

Before you even set up your blog, think carefully about you will engage your target audience and plan a communication strategy that you have the resources to maintain. Just as it is important to plan an effective information architecture for a website, you should think about how you will structure your blog so that you can develop several topic strands through a series of related posts.

How will your blog contribute to your search engine optimisation strategy?

Equally, you should consider how the blog will contribute to your search engine optimisation strategy. For example, will you launch it at a separate web address, or in a sub folder on your existing website? Which blogging platform should you use and which will give you the best control over optimising meta data?

Once you have set up your blog and start publishing content, you need to adopt a way of writing that engages the reader, with impactful headlines, while at the same time giving thought to search engine visibility.

Cost-effective blog optimisation for small businesses

Fen Digital offer a cost-effective blog optimisation service aimed at small businesses who have neither the time nor skills to set up a blog effectively. We are confident that our service will make the difference between a mediocre blog and one that brings your business lasting benefits.

Our blog optimisation service includes:

• Helping you plan an effective blogging strategy and blog architecture
• Setting up your blog and launching initial content
• Providing one-to-one training on how to:
  • use the blogging software to format and publish articles
  • set up your blog’s RSS feed
  • optimise content and meta tags for maximum user response and search engine benefit
  • publicise your blog using social media

For more information, contact John Waddington on 01392 411 363.

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It’s become almost impossible for businesses looking to outsource their internet marketing to identify the good companies from the bad, and I feel for them.

A lot of the blame can be attributed to the unprincipled and aggressive SEO and link building companies that are bombarding ordinary businesses every day with unsolicited calls and emails. Without doubt these dubious practices have given the internet marketing industry a serious shot in the foot.

If you’ve received unsolicited email about SEO – bin it!

My recommendation is that if you’ve been emailed or called by a company making wild promises about how they can boost your profits through SEO and link building, then either bin it immediately or report it as SPAM.

Why? Well any professional internet marketing company worth its salt gets business through word of mouth from satisfied customers or from new customers who have been impressed by what they have seen online.

Whereas any company that relies on sending out bulk emails or aggressive telemarketing campaigns to get SEO projects without taking time to find out a businesses actual requirements is, in my view, highly suspect!

Link building companies are missing the point

One of the emails I received today that offered bulk link building services was amazingly enough headed “Make your links appear Natural”.

I would acknowledge that inbound links to a website are one of the factors that affect ranking in Google. However, buying links in bulk is contrary to all best practices, it brings no usability benefits to your website users, and is likely to result in your site being blacklisted.

I urge any businesses that are looking for internet marketing support to check very carefully the background, experience, track record, and approach of potential providers before appointing them.

User goals should dictate internet marketing

When I started Fen Digital in 2005, I came from 20 years’ experience in user-centred planning and design. As a result I was determined that our approach should be based on identifying what information the customer needs and designing communications that met their requirements.

In 2009, the challenge for businesses wishing to promote themselves effectively on the web remains the same as in 2005. Put simply, how do you stand out from the competition in the face of such severe information overload?

With the advent of social media channels, the options for internet promotion are more wide ranging, but the key principle remains the same. Any information that you publish on the web, whether on a website, blog, forum, or social media channel, is only going to get the response you want if it is perceived as useful, relevant, and engaging by the target audience.

So if you want to separate the good from the bad in internet marketing, I suggest you start by seeing whether the potential consultancy bases their approach around what is best for the user rather than applying techniques that attempt to trick Google into ranking your website higher.

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The school holidays are nearly over and it’s back to work for many small businesses. A key priority for them in this key trading period running up to Christmas will be how to make their internet marketing more effective.

Deciding where to allocate your internet marketing spend

With the emergence of social media adding to the confusing array of internet marketing options now available to businesses, it can be really confusing to decide how and where to allocate time and marketing budget.

Fortunately, free tools are available that can give you an independent and detailed view of the effectiveness of different strands of your internet marketing. If you haven’t already done so, I recommend that you install Google Analytics on your website and use it to monitor both how visitors are getting to your site and their pattern of online behaviour when using your site.

Check the bounce rate for each traffic source

Key parameters such as the bounce rate, average number of pages viewed, and time spent on site can tell you a lot about the quality of visitor traffic you are getting.

You can analyse these parameters by traffic source to get an independent view of whether your best quality visits are coming from people who know your web address, or from sponsored links, directories, your organic listings, or from social media pages. This can help you make an informed decision about which strands of your internet marketing are most cost-efficient and focus your time and budget on those.

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When I produced the online video for Fen Digital and embedded it on our website, I was very interested to see how it would affect visitor response rates. After just a month, the results from Google Analytics speak for themselves, with around double the number of clicks going to the web video compared to the next most clicked link on our home page at www.fendigital.co.uk.

This supports the findings of a range of internet marketing studies that show that online video finds a captive audience among an increasingly savvy online audience looking for interactive content rather than words.

The overall data for the growth in popularity of online video since the widespread use of broadband in the UK is impressive. For example, in January 2009, 8 out of 10 internet users (29.6 million people) accessed web video.

Time to start planning how your company can use online video to communicate more effectively to potential customers?

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Small businesses can really benefit from having a blog. Research just published by HubSpot shows this conclusively.

They looked at data from 1,531 of their customers, roughly half of which who ran a blog. The results showed that the companies who ran a blog had:

* 55% more visitors
* 97% more inbound links
* 434% more indexed pages

However, blogs come in all shapes and sizes! Unless your content is well planned and targeted and hence valuable to your audience, your business will not maximise the benefit.

Fen Digital advises small businesses in how to plan their blog, set it up, and optimise the content to engage your target audience and rank well in the search engines. For more information, speak to John Waddington on 01392 411363.

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