Web Strategy

Google Analytics is a very useful free tool for tracking site statistics. For most users, however, it never becomes more than just a pretty interface with intersting graphs. The resources below will help anyone, from the beginner to those who have been using Google Analytics for some time, learn how to get the most out of this great tool.

1. Learn How to Adjust at Your Day Job 2. Understand How Social Media is a Risk and Opportunity 3. Use Online Networking Tools to Connect 4. Attend Real World Events 5. Always Be Looking For Opportunities

So now you can NOT ONLY read these influencer's blogs, but know what other blogs THEY read - and what's on their minds. Why wouldn't you do this? It's all about relevancy, recency and respect: by reading their own recent blog posts as well as their recent comments on other blogs, as a PR pro you show a true interest in your "target." You learn how to not waste their time.

I had the opportunity to do a podcast with Avinash to discuss some areas where marketers are doing things right and wrong but all of them are simple but extremely powerful uses of web analytics to make their websites and businesses better on the web. We also took some live Twitter questions as we were doing the podcast. But stop reading this and start listening to Avinash - its 25 minutes long but positively electric!

Build your network before you need it.

To survive, publishers have to let this one go. Digital (online and mobile) is the future; younger people have already adopted digital media as a lifestyle, and they're not going to miraculously start reading print newspapers in any significant numbers as they grow older. Print will continue to decline as its core audience ages. So put the future at the center of the company, not the past. Now, and not before it's too late.

Listening tools

Now, a new breed of companies is trying to tackle all of those options and determine what ad works for a specific audience. They are creating hundreds of versions of clients' online ads, changing elements like color, type font, message, and image to see what combination draws clicks on a particular site or from a specific audience.

It's fantastic that interest in social media is so high, but I'm alarmed at the number of brands and agencies that are ready to jump into social media to take "advantage" of audience concentration in Facebook, Twitter, and other fast-growth outposts. What's lacking in most social media programs is an actual strategy. If you don't know precisely why you're in social media, with whom you want to engage, and how you're going to measure success, you're not ready to start.

Think local. Depending upon who you listen to, somewhere between 20% and 40% of all searches have a local component-a place name, or some other inferred geographic qualifier. So, what's your catchment area, what are the towns, villages, locations, urban areas, landmarks, counties, states, and even countries that you're looking to serve? Add those to your list too

Incorporating video into emails - a simple enough concept that wasn't even possible two years ago - improves click-through rates by 2-3 times, according to a recent Forrester report.

How to funnel website visitors into leads and customers and track the entire process.

Today at Searchology, Google has launched a search results enhancement called "rich snippets" that uses meta data from web pages (from microformats such as hCard, hCalendar, and RDF) to display additional details (both content and meaning) about pages in the results. This initial launch supports reviews (with sites such as Yelp) and people (with sites such as LinkedIn). They will be adding more sites and categories over time.

There are three basic rules that you need to follow to have a successful Web presence: 1. Brand matters. 2. Usability matters. 3. Search engine optimization matters.

Great tips and tricks regarding lesser known Google Analytics features!

Last year I did a large post over-viewing most useful Google Analytics tips and today I am presenting them as well as adding a number of more important hacks to compile one mega-post on Google Analytics tips and tricks: