Web Strategy

Google Analytics tips - ESSENTIAL knowledge for an effective web strategy

So you've just gotten access to the shiny new version of Google Analytics? Here are the 27 essential features of the best analytics software money can buy (it's free, of course), and how to utilize them to your advantage.

Great social media strategies for resaurants

The financial crisis is likely to hit the fine dining industry very hard. Already there have been reports of exclusive London restaurants slashing their prices in order to maintain a steady flow of clientele and therefore subsequent cashflow. Competing on price, however, is never a wise, or usually profitable, strategy, so dining establishments need to look for alternate ways to bring in the customers. One easy way is to develop a social media strategy to connect with your customers and create a community of regular diners.

Bounce rate has these attributes: 1) It is really hard to misunderstand. It measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click! 2) It is available in most web analytics tools, including our own Google Analytics. 3) It is quick and easy to use. Bounce rate will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website in under an hour.

Great tips from Google on reducing your website bounce rates

SEO and analytics tools you may not use - and are priced very well... FREE!

If you've done much publishing on the web, you're probaly already familiar with Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. However, many web workers stick with the same small handful of SEO tools. There are quite a lot of them available online for free, and testing keywords and looking at analytics across multiple tools can make a lot of sense, especially since optimizing them is an inexact science.

An example of bad email marketing...

Let's start with the subject… They used the horribly generic "Newsletter" in their subject. What most people don't realize is the easiest way to fail at email marketing is to use generic, non-descriptive subjects in their emails. A subject must be compelling, brief, and indicate the content of the message. This fails at all three and it doesn't even indicate a brand. This will be passed up in most users' inbox.

The days of a long-standing, static website are over. Start a blog (preferably integrated with your website) and start leveraging the power of these tools to bring fresh content and high-relevance to your website.

In 2009, an active blog at the centre of your Web presence says that you are ready to have an engaging conversation with your ideal guest today. As such, your blog needs to become the centre of your online Web presence, and that means it's time to prioritize your marketing efforts in the new year.

New Paypal Developer portal, with forums and lots of new goodies.

An intro to Diigo Groups and a call to join Diigo if you haven't yet. Oh.... and join the Web Strategy Group...

If you are a Diigo user (you *have* to be if you do Social Bookmarking) - check out the group I made today - Web Strategy. If you are interested in Web Strategy, Social Media, Internet Marketnig, etc… you are advised to join the group to share great articles and get in on the Web Strategy discussions.

Twitter is a great resource for doing research...

Twitter search for Web Strategy

If you've read this post thus-far, you know that Target can join feedback loops (though not for Gmail) and clean its list, which it's already doing. It can also look into optimizing its HTML design for "images off." Beyond this, Target can also: 1. Become authenticated 2. Segment non-responders and market less frequently 3. Segment non-responders and attempt to re-activate them through a "win-back" email, otherwise remove them from the list

Great points on getting your emails past spam filters. Our suggestions... Don't be too flashy.. Be succinct.. Use only Opt-In Lists... And Use aWeber!

If you use software like aWeber you will get great statistics on whether your email was opened and if they clicked on anything... If you are getting a low read rate chances are you need to modify/tweak your Subject Line.. aWeber does a great job of cleaning out your lists when email becomes inactive.. Checking into these statistics is important to keep your email marketing campaign fresh. This post has some details on "reactivating" your *dead* lists.

How many email messages did you send out in your last campaign? Really? That many? Wow! Now, how many of your recipients actually opened or clicked on your email? Yeah, that's a different story. Remember that with email, size doesn't really matter. Performance is what counts, not just for your email program and its bottom line but also for your sender reputation. A reactivation campaign is the answer here, and it's just as important as any acquisition campaign. It will help you clean out the dead wood, re-energize your list and reclaim some of the money you spent acquiring and engaging those addresses in the first place.

A great guide on trying to get more user interaction with your blog or website. Comments are the first and easiest way to start a discussion... Discussions with your community are KEY to an effective web strategy.

But even when your blog software hands you all your commenting capabilities, there are other things you can and should do to get people to comment. So here it is: the 7 step guide to getting more comments.

You typically have to create some number of social interactions to leave the trail of signals of quality to make Google want to trust a site enough to put it in front of a large traffic stream, especially if you are starting a brand new site and are trying to operate within Google's guidelines. As Bob Massa says "search engines follow people."

There are two points in this post that I want to emphasize... First off SEO is an ongoing process. There isn't a magic trick that pushes your site to the top of rankings. It takes work.. Rinse & Repeat. Analyze & Tweak. Secondly there is a great point that if you hire an SEO expert you will get your site in front of the thousand other relevant people in your niche. This is very hard and takes a lot of work. So, you should create Outposts. Creating outposts is part of a content marketing strategy where you distribute your content among various networks to build up multiple sources of traffic... Great quote from Bob Massa explains it perfect!

Some of these *really* do work.. I'm testing others on GetANewBrowser.com

Some of these are re-hashed but it's a great review on ways to optimize your website to increase RSS subscribers

Great post on content strategy

I encourage clients, associates and even friends to create content-rich sites for whatever they specialize in with the purpose of building an audience and forging relationships. The type of content aside, the way to create a popular web property is to slowly grow larger over time in an organized, attractive layout with uniquely useful material focused on your niche.

success story of using social media press releases

be a long slog. But I've also often said that its Web-friendly, social nature will put the SMR on "the right side of history." Experiences like Beth and April's are further evidence that change is a'foot.

Some great quick tips on SEO.. This answers many "beginners" questions...

To show you what I mean, here's a list of SEO questions that I get asked all the time, along with what the answer depends upon, and then a quick answer based on the various factors that might be involved:

This topic is constantly coming up... How can you measure the ROI of social media?

It is easy to predict that we will be talking a lot more about social media measurement and ROI in 2009. The question of ROI becomes more important when there is a market transition from an established form or investment (i.e. traditional media) to an emerging form like social media. Even though the ROI of current or traditional investments may be no less certain, the test is always a higher one to justify a change.

A list of great post from Jeremiah Owyang - THE web strategist

Great tool for bigger Search Engine Marketing campaigns

Clickable's immediate activation and intuitive user experience make it easy to manage pay-per-click marketing across all major ad networks. Powerful recommendations and reporting make you more efficient, effective and confident with your search advertising - even at first login.