Web analytics is a tool used to measure, collect and analyze internet data.  Today’s analytics do more than just tally up how many visitors come to your website each month.  Analytics can tell you where your visitors go, how long they stay there, and whether or not they complete the sale, sign up or achieve whatever conversion goal you have in mind.

Your Internet marketing efforts can benefit from learning as much about your website visitors as possible.  Analytics can show visitor traffic increases or decreases after the launch of new advertising or promotional campaigns.  It is perfect for tracking trends.  Analytics can help you see if changes to your website impacted your sales and conversions.

If your site can make the visitor feel the experience was natural and easy, then you’ve connected with them in a way that will grow your business.  They will visit more often and recommend your site to friends.  Analytics can help you make your site do this by giving you feedback to changes that improve your site.  And improve your bottom line!

Website analytics can help the marketing executive determine which online ad is the most effective, which keywords lead to conversions, what traffic trends do visitors respond to the most. 

Analytics can also point the weaknesses in your site such as visitors leaving the site before taking action, or abandoning their shopping cart in the middle of a purchase process.

Your business wants valuable, loyal customers and website analytics can provide you with enough information to find them and, more importantly, to keep them.  Comstar has experts on staff to talk to you about your analytics options.  We offer both server-based website statistics and  website based Google Analytics.  Visit www.comstar.biz or email Bryn at bkirk@comstar.biz.

A recent report from comScore,Inc. called “Digital Omnivores”, revealed that nearly 7% of digital traffic in the U.S. is driven by smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.  The report says that digital media consumption is exploding and the impact on online visitation is tremendous!

The term “digital omnivore” is defined by the report as “a consumer who accesses content through several touchpoints during the course of their daily lives”. 

The report goes on to say that, “…in order to meet the needs of these consumers, advertisers and publishers must learn to navigate this new landscape so they develop cross-platform strategies to effectively engage their audiences.”

According to the report, half of the total U.S. mobile population uses mobile media and those mobile media users grew 19 percent to more than 116 million people at the end of summer 2011. Almost 54% of tablet owners use their tablets to research information before making a purchase.

What does that mean for your business website? It means you need to have a mobile presence for a connected device (phone or tablet) in addition to your current web/internet presence.  If your website is not optimized for mobile devices, now is the time to act!

Interested in learning more about making your website mobile compatible?  Please give Bryn a call at 262-953-6025 or visit www.comstar.biz.

The Web Genius Summit has just concluded the first set of 12 interviews.  You can read about the first six sessions in the previous post at Web Genius Summit Update.

This current post will give a recap of the final six interviews of volume 1…

The second half of the series kicked off with Erik Stafford.  Erik is an internationally recognized expert in internet marketing and building easy website sales systems.  He took us back to some of the internet marketing basics to help you build a stronger online presence for your business.  His program Faster Webmaster is still available.

Kyle Battis showed us the power of teleseminars to teach others, create a following, and add additional revenue to your bottom line.  Much of the Web Genius Summit teleseminar series was based on the things that Kyle told us about. You can learn about teleseminars through the My First Teleseminar series.

Then we had Susan Hill.  Susan learned to create opportunity in a small niche by employing experts at various tasks using Elance.  You can use Susan’s experience and advice to propel your business forward too.  She has a book called Elance Made Easy available for download now.

Ben Mack, marketing strategist extraordinaire, taught us the benefits of thinking and planning ahead, not just one step but two.  How do you take your customer or your business from where it is at right now and move it to where it will be?  Thinking two products ahead, two sales ahead, two promotions ahead helps you capture more money in a systematic way.  This call closed out with an invitation for ecommerce owners to start planning Cyber-Monday with Christmas in July.

David Deutsch is an A-level copywriter and one of the top direct response marketing consultants in the U.S.  He told us several million dollar marketing secrets and how you can Think Inside the Box! to generate profitable new ideas for your business.  Did you get in on million dollar secret #3?  If not, click the link at David’s name to see how you can grab his ideas system and get the out-of-print book with 20 different secrets as a bonus.

The final episode of Web Genius Summit volume 1 was carried by Brian McLeod.  Brian is a direct-response copywriter, sales trainer, and creative marketing consultant who helped to bring all the pieces of the Web Genius Summit together, showing how you can integrate your offline marketing and your online marketing efforts for maximum impact!  Not only that, but he also introduced masterminding as a way to add a new profit stream to your business. 

While you’ve already missed these interviews you can register now to be invited to participate at no charge in volume 2 starting later this year.  In the meantime, upon registration, you’ll have the option to purchase volume 1 so you can get caught up on all these great lessons.  Details at www.webgeniussummit.com.

Let’s say you’re going to get a brand new website.  You might decide to create it yourself, hire your nephew, or have it built by a professional firm.  (I know which of those three you should choose, but that’s for a different article.)  Regardless of your choice, when will the website be done?

On the due date, before the due date, some time after the due date?  You’re thinking you’d like it done, all wrapped up and under the tree before the due date, right?  Keep dreaming.

I didn’t ask when your website should be published!  I asked when it would be done.  The correct answer is NEVER.  The proper website for your business is never completed.

Now you’re probably thinking that I might have gone off the deep end.  Maybe I should take a vacation, clear my head?  Well, let me put this in perspective.  Typically we see two different types of client mentalities…

  1. “The website is done and perfect when it’s published.”  This idea is that you’ve paid a lot of good money getting a site developed.  You might have even paid extra to get those developers that understand your industry (I have an opinion about this too) so gosh darn when it’s published it ought to be perfect, ready to start cashing in.
     
  2. “We can’t publish yet because it is not perfect.”  The idea here results in constant futzing, with never a website to show for it.  Since it is believed it will be perfect when published, like in mentality number 1, and yet it is perceived not to be perfect, then the client continues to request changes or stall until they can figure out what perfect will look like.

Here what should happen…  The original specs are met and the site is published.  Now the work really begins.  No one knows in advance whether the site will properly convert visitors into customers, so once it is published you can measure the real conversion rate.  Then change something and see what happens.  Did performance improve, great try something else.  Did performance go down, bummer, but try something else.

You see a new website just puts the stake in the ground.  Once its there the test phase begins.  There is no end to testing unless you get to the point of converting 100% of visitors.  If you get to that point then there’s nothing left to improve.  But until you get to that point, odds are good that you can get better results than you are today.  So, the site is never done.  It is always waiting to perform better.

Who’s going to test your site once it’s published?  Who will change different elements?  Are you going to do this?  Is your nephew?

As you are putting together your 2009 website plan you need to consider how you are going to make your website even more useful to visitors.  Here are some questions to ask and some tips to help you plan.

First, write a plan for how you are going to have visitors move through your site.  Actually map it out or walk through it yourself and see how effective your current site really is.  Next, determine what the navigation buttons should say and where they should lead to.

The most important element of making a website useful is to figure out how you are going to get someone to take an action on your site.  You need to make it as easy as possible.

2009 websites must be interactive!  How are you going to communicate with your visitors?

For more details and ideas, we recommend the book Call to Action by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg.  They give real examples that you can use for your site.

As always, if you find this type of thing technically overwhelming, just give us a call and we will be happy to meet with you and help you plan.

Happy Planning!

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