analytics | Content for Biz Inc.

Is Your Website Content Working?

Your website content should increase traffic to your site, generate leads and links, and convert visitors to paying customers. Here are a few simple tools to help you determine if your content is serving its purpose.

Keyword Numbers vs. Keyword Use

Many companies build their content around “optimized” keywords to increase traffic to their site. Google’s Adwords Keyword tool is a popular way to search for the right words. Entering a generic search term like “construction” will provide a list of keywords. Construction company shows 1 million Global Monthly Searches and 450,000 Local Monthly Searches. These numbers reflect searches that include all sorts of other words such as “best” or “jobs” that were added onto the original term – construction company. To get true keyword counts from the Adwords tool, try this.

Under the keyword search box select:

On the left column in the Match Types box, change the default setting from Broad to Exact. Try it again by selecting Phrase. You will see the numbers drop to reflect the exact terms and phrases people enter into the search box.

These are the keyword terms you want to build your content with to increase traffic to your site.

Who is Linking to What Content

Some sites create content just in order to build links. Is anyone linking to your site? What about links on your competitor sites? Find out using SEOMOZ Open Site Explorer, a link analysis tool. Enter your URL or a competitor URL in the address box. Review link data on the Top Pages tab and Full List of Link Metrics tab.

Generating Leads With Content

Including links to blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, brochures, coupons and landing pages can give you quantitative data on the level of visitor interest.

Google Analytics will show how many new and returning visitors came to your site and how extensively they interacted with your content. But do you know which companies are visiting your site and what content is engaging them? From your Google Analytics account Select View Reports to access the Dashboard. From there select Visitors > Network Properties > Service Providers. You will see a list of companies visiting your site. Add filters to refine this list.

Convert With Content

Which pages have created the greatest conversions and on what pages did visitors act on the call to action? From the Google Analytics Dashboard select Content > Top Content to see how each of your website pages is performing. You will find the average time on site, page views, and bounce rate but also check out the metric under $ Index. This metric offers a way of ranking the content by page. Your page $ index will show what pages are converting. Create custom reports from the Dashboard using Goal > Total Conversions and Conversion Rate to get more precise information.

Content can be improved over time as you learn what works and what doesn’t. Knowing this allows you to make smart decisions when it comes to your website content.

How to Measure Social Media ROI using Benchmarks

Can you measure the results of your social media strategies? Marketers know that social media is a strategy within a larger communications plan. They look at both the quantity and quality of results based on a defined goal and time period. Still, the number one question asked by marketers according to a 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner is this: How do I measure the effect of social media marketing on my business?

The report findings were culled from a survey of 3,300 marketers. It revealed a surprising result: More B2B companies have been using social media longer (52.6% reported 1 year or more) than B2C. Time matters. Those using social media for a year or longer reported improved search engine rankings.

Set these four benchmarks and you are on your way to measuring results that matter.

1. Know Where You Stand Now

Before beginning a social media campaign, find current rankings on all sorts of online content. Get familiar with PostRank. It is one of the largest aggregators of social engagement data in the industry. Enter a feed URL and get statistics on the most popular posts based on engagement points. The site ranks RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, and news stories. This is quality and quantity data that can be used to measure throughout your timeline.

Use Google’s Feedburner and Analytics tools to help analyze your company’s blog traffic, subscriber count, keywords, and trends. Find even more useful statistics at Xinu. These tools are all easily accessible to measure where you are now with your Internet presence. Check them according to your timeline. What do you find? Interpret those results for your business.

2. Measure by quantity
These might include the number of fans, followers, subscribers and friends. Other quantities you might look at are twitter lists, groups on linkedin. Having this data will show you what sites to focus on. It also gives an idea on what topics are popular with your audience. The question is not only how many friends, followers and fans you have, but where did they come from? Present this data in a given period of time.

3. Measure by engagement
What level of engagement you measure depends on your business goals. How much activity is in your forum? Do you have stats on click-through rate to your product pages? How many subscribers to your RSS feeds? Do your fans, followers and friends make comments on blog posts and other social networking accounts? Are they sharing your content via the Facebook Like button or twitter retweets? Do they respond to surveys? Do they stay longer than people who came to you from other sources?

4. Bottom Line Results
By measuring your online presence, relationships, and increased sales you create a trail of data that leads to how each of these areas were enhanced by a social media strategy. Reaching a key audience and establishing meaningful dialogue may or may not increase sales over time. It is always good to know what is working and what is not. Use benchmarks to help you reach your business goals.

How to Improve Your Search Rankings with Keyword Research

You know that using the right keywords is critical to your online marketing success, but who is generating your keywords and how are they doing it? Keyword research is one of the most important steps in improving your search engine rankings. It takes more than hunches and common sense to identify the right keywords. It takes research. A number of free and paid research tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool, and Wordtracker can help.

Here’s an example of how following your gut instincts can lead you down the wrong path. A client recently suggested that we use the term “commercial real estate brokerage,” to describe his business. A quick search using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool revealed that this term was associated with only 1300 local monthly searches, while there were 14,800 searches for “commercial real estate brokers” and 9,900 searches for “commercial real estate companies.” Had I not researched this, the site would clearly not generate all the traffic it should.

Time and again, I am surprised by what these search tools reveal. Who would have guessed that “JCB Backhoes” generates six times the number of searches as “JCB backhoe loader?” Research ultimately saves you time, because you are able to write website copy with a purpose and avoid costly mistakes.

When deciding on keywords, consider not just single words, but also relevant phrases. While there will be fewer searches for longer phrases, these phrases generally lead to more conversions because the searcher knows exactly what he or she is looking for. This is especially true for phrases that indicate a buying intention. For example, someone searching to “Get a quote on business insurance” would generate more conversions than someone just searching for “insurance agent.”

Once your keywords and phrases are identified, do a quick search on Google to identify competitors – those firms that show up on the first page for the keywords you deem important. Identify their competitive keywords and phrases using Alexa or simply viewing the metatag data on their site. (right click on their home page and click “View Source”). This is valuable information you don’t want to miss.

Your own website statistics will also reveal the terms visitors are using to search for you. View your statistics regularly and identify popular search terms you can ultimately use in your website content.

Once your keywords are known, you are ready to take the next step: creating a fully optimized website.

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