Site Promotion

Web Statistics for Dummies (part 1: Sales)
 by: Shawn Campbell

Do you understand the numbers that your web site generates? Do you know how many sales your site actually generates? Do you know how you can apply that knowledge to your business and cause it to grow?

I will answer all of the above, and also discuss how to use statistics to enhance your web business through the use of sales, traffic flow, uniques, hits, click-through rates, and many other important business factors. Part 1 focuses on sales and traffic, while part 2 is all about where your traffic is coming from (and how to get more of it!). Part 2 will be discussed in the next issue of our newsletter - so be sure to stay tuned!

Sales

The most obvious statistic for many businesses is sales.

Here are 2 of the most pertinent questions every business needs the answers to:

• How many sales do you make per day/month/year?
• How much profit do you make per sale?

Not hard figures to find, but how many sales actually came from your Internet business? Often it is easy to gather this figure simply by looking directly at either online sales, or by asking your customers ("How did you find us?"). But sometimes the Internet is just one part of a very complicated sales process. You may make all your sales in person, but how many of your clients go home and research your products/services using information found on your web site?

These are the questions you need to find answers to in order to estimate how many sales were completed due to your Internet presence but not necessarily completed online. If you make sales online, the answers are easy. If you sell real estate or other "in person" products or services, then you have to ask your customers individually. Either way, it will come down to a concrete number that can provide insight into how you can grow your business.

Profits

>From the number of sales made per month, you can easily figure out your gross sales amount. Then you have to take your expenses per sale into account and figure out your profits. Only cost of sale expenses should be deducted and NOT one-time expenses such as overhead. On the Internet, this would normally be the cost per click of pay-per-click campaigns (such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Marketing Solutions), or the CPM (cost per thousand) for banner ads, and of course, your direct costs for the item or service being sold. Once you have these figures in hand, you can then calculate your profit per sale.

Traffic

So now that we know how many sales we make per month, and how much profit we're actually making off of those sales, let us take a look at how many potential customers walk through our virtual store. There are many different statistics for web site traffic: page views, hits, daily uniques, monthly uniques, etc Which one should you be using? From my own experience, I recommend using daily uniques.

Daily uniques measures how many unique visitors come to your site in a single day. By that we mean that no single user is counted twice in the same day even if they visit the store several times within a twenty-four hour period. Thus, if someone comes to your site four times on Monday, and six times on Tuesday, he/she would only count as two daily uniques.

Page Views measures how many times your page is viewed (usually including reloads). Page views are also counted for each page. Thus, if someone comes to your site four times on Monday and views eight pages each time, and six times on Tuesday (viewing two pages each time), you would measure (4 x 8) + (6 x 2), or 44 page views.

These statistics are usually available through your server's statistics program. Alternatively, you could also use one of a myriad of other statistics programs available on the Internet. For most of our clients we set up www.hitbox.com on their sites. With our daily uniques per month figure in-hand, we suddenly have some very powerful numbers to work with.

Conversions

Conversion is the measure of how many people who visited your site were subsequently converted into clients of some sort. Measuring how many uniques turn into buying customers is one method of conversion, but you could also measure how many visitors your site gets vs. how many visitors sign up to your newsletter, or how many of them go to a specific page, or how many send you an email, etc These are all measures of conversions, and simply use the ratio of sales (or sign ups, emails, etc) to visitors (or uniques).

Let us assume our site has the following statistics:

• Sales: 100/month
• Gross: $250/sale
• Average Profit: $150/sale
• Daily uniques: 12 000/month

In the above example, we have 100 sales per month, and 12000 daily uniques per month, thus our conversion ratio is 1:120 or 0.83%. Not such a bad ratio, especially for items that cost $250 each. Most markets would want a ratio of 1% or 2%, but of course each industry is different.

Analysis

Using our imaginary numbers (profit of $150/sale, gross $250/sale) we can then figure out how healthy the online business really is. At 100 sales a month, we are grossing $25 000 per month, and profiting $15 000 per month. At this point in our analysis, we can now see that there are three ways in which to improve the site:

1. Increase profit margin
2. Increase conversions
3. Increase traffic

1. Increasing profit margins involves lowering costs or raising prices, both of which fall out of the context of this article.

2. Increasing conversions involves optimizing the usability of your web site; usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. For more information on usability and how it can help your Internet business, go to www.useit.com.

Choosing A Folder That Sets You Apart
 by: Phoebe Manti

There is more to the word folder that those little icons that clutter your computer desktop. Not very long ago all anyone understood by the word was a container for important papers that was built from cardboard, paper, plastic or even leather. Though we still use them, these real folders are largely neglected. They deserve a second thought however, since you can use them to get your product or company better known.

Here is an example - say you are hosting a conference or large meeting, what do you think the guests are going to do with the papers and cards that form the basis of the meeting? On one hand they could use a simple, uninspiring but cheap foolscap pouch that you bought in boxes of 500 at a discount store... On the other hand you could furnish your delegates with a customized wallet, smartly printed with your company or product name and a message. This option can be a well priced route to getting your message right at the front of everyone's thoughts both during the conference and for a long while afterwards.

There is a wide variety of choice available when thinking about custom printing folders. You can do more than print your logo on the side. Due to the flexibility offered by the Internet market you can get something designed at a really good price. It is true that the customer has a lot more power due to the availability of suppliers on the Internet. Choosing between companies from all over means the competition is hotter. This has meant more than just prices being tightly controlled - also it has encouraged an increase in tailor made products.

Another advantage of using these Internet companies is that for any of the printed products they process, folders in this example, you are able to create your design online. This process normally takes the form of making choices about style from the templates on offer to which you then add your text. If you want to upload particular electronic images of your own like a photo or your logo, this is possible in many cases too.

If you want to make the most of the marketing chance offered by giving out folders at conferences or with any information you choose to give away, then you should look to get a decent quality product. A flimsy bit of card that is folded into shape will probably not last the day. Instead you could find a well made plastic folder, or even one of those made with plastic backed fabric. They will cost a bit more, but you will find that they are used for a long time, and this means increased exposure for your message.

RSS... and WHY Its Being Considered The Newest Player In The VIRAL Marketing Game
 by: Cory Threlfall

I have a quick question to ask you... "Are you sick and tired of hearing about RSS(Real Simple Syndication) and how it can take your online business to New levels with VERY little effort on your part?"

If you answered 'YES' to the question above then stop reading this article Right Now!

If you answered 'NO' then your going to love what I'm about to reveal to you about RSS and WHY its being consider the newest player in the VIRAL marketing game.

But before I do I think its important you understand the mechanics of each(RSS and VIRAL marketing) and what there role is so there's no confusion.

RSS by definition -- RSS stands for 'Real Simple syndication or Rich Site Summary' and is used to syndicate news or information and is usually associated with Blogs because blogs use an RSS feed to distribute their content.

Next...

VIRAL Marketing by definition -- is any form of advertising and/or marketing techniques that "spread" like a virus without you having to do anything.

Now that you have an idea what the two mean and the roles they each play it's now time to tie it all together.

I have another quick question...(As you can see I like to ask questions.) "What do all website owners and portal sites need on a 24/7 basis to keep their visitors/readers coming back day after day?

If you answered 'Content' then give yourself a pat on the back because your absolutely Right!

And what do RSS feeds contain that update on a 24/7 basis?

CONTENT! Whether its News related or Articles.

And where do website owners and portal webmasters go to find these much needed RSS feeds?

You guessed it... 'RSS Directories' where hopefully You submitted your RSS feed(s) to.

The great thing about 'RSS Directories' is they are all categorized making it easy for whomever is looking.

And if your RSS feed catches their eye, guess what? They'll add your feed to there website where You'll gain all that FREE exposure at their expense.

Now, just imagine if 100 or 1000 website owners picked up your RSS feed.

Your traffic to your website would start to Explode effortlessly without you lifting a finger.

And the cool thing is all you had to do was set it up once.

The more 'Quality' RSS feeds you have out there the more opportunities you have of getting picked up by webmasters.

Do you see Now how RSS is being considered VIRAL? And this all happens while your sleeping.

It gets better So hold on.

Do you publish your own Content/Articles?

If you do you are also in for a real treat because guess what other directories are starting to incorporate RSS into their directories?

That's right, 'Article Directories'.

By submitting your articles to the TOP 'Article Directories' the same effect will happen as I outlined with 'RSS Directories'.

Remember this, people come online primarily for Information that will help solve a particular problem they are dealing with.

Websites contain 'Information'.

Website owners need Fresh 'Information' on a 24/7 basis to feed their readers needs.

RSS feeds deliver content, whether its News related or Articles, on a 24/7 basis or whatever frequency the website owner chooses.

How can you take advantage of this Right Now if you haven't already?

Simply set up a Blog at Blogger.com -- http://www.blogger.com -- and start posting to it on a Daily basis with your Articles, Product Reviews or News related postings related to your target audience.

Then go submit your Blogs RSS feed to all the top 'RSS Directories'.

Here's a link to a list of Top RSS Directories that you can submit your feed(s) to.

Go to: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Once you've done that you'll want to Ping your Blog to get the Search Engines to come visit and start indexing your Blogs pages.

You can do this by using this Free service called Ping-O-Matic.

Go to: http://pingomatic.com/

Well there you have it in a nutshell.

I hope you see the true Power of RSS and more importantly... "WHY Its Being Considered The Newest Player In The VIRAL Marketing Game".

How To Improve Page Relevancy...
 by: Manish Patel

You need to do enough exercise to keep your site properly indexed with search engine.i am providing some tricks that can help you in improving page relevancy.as perhaps you know that only Google page rank is not important for search engine ranking-Page relevancy also important.if you can do some exercise than you can improve your traffic.

1. Your Web pages with content should be interested in reading.

As content is king for search engines content in your site should be both unique and interesting.this can improve your impression.

2. Content should be highly focused with keyword phrases. rather than phrases that are too general and competitive

Specially when there is more competition.

3. Optimize your Web pages for at least three to five keywords at a time

You should optimize your page for minimum three keywords-for three keywords your page should be highly relevant.for that you need to choose better keywords,choosing keywords is not a game of guessing.it is one science.Write your site's content using the keywords for which users search, and you'll literally be speaking the same language as your visitors.

Useful sites:-Nichebot.com and Wordtracker.com

4. Use regionally specific keywords, when applicable.

if your target is regional than try to choose keywords that are regional.

Example:-you can choose 'loans in new york' rather than just 'loan in USA' that's why you will get highly targeted visitors and improve your visitor to sales ratio

5. Use the most commonly used variations of your keywords, with keyword research

Don't choose keywords that are highly competitive(specially when your page rank is low.) You can choose their synonyms etc.as per i said you need to do some research work for that.also consider some variation that can occur due to typing mistake etc..

6. Each optimized page should contain a unique title.

It will some time meaningless if you will choose same title pages more than one.title tags are very important and perhaps you know that searcg engine give lots of weight to title if title of your page will different. than you can get more traffic for more keywords.this is important.

7.Use multiple keywords in your title tags when appropriate.

Choose better title for every page using synonyms etc..so that you will probably also get traffic for that keywords too.but don't go overboard.

8.Most important keywords appearing above the fold and throughout each optimized page.

First few lines are very important for search engine page relevancy.so write that with special care and using your all main keywords.also include your keywords in other part of page too.

9. Using keywords in hypertext links, whenever possible.

if you will use keywords in hypertext links than your page which you link will improve its page relevancy automatically

10. Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag description.

Some search engines still give more weight to meta tags so like title meta tag should be different for each page if possible.

11. Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag keyword list.

The Google Triple Punch.. .How Do You Rank?
 by: Mark Klein

What do you need to get top rankings on Google? What's the secret sauce of success? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

1.) Keyword relevant copy and content.

Whatever the keywords you want to get found under, be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific word. Which would give Google a reason to rank you in the first place. If for example, one of you priority keyword is "computer training software". Create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and "density" that search engines are looking for.

Additionally, by including on this specific keyword page either articles, pdf files or news items about your keyword, will help you improve your chances of a better ranking. Give google a reason to rank you at the top. He with the most relevant copy wins .so make it rich and deep. 2.) Can the search engines read and "crawl" all the pages and content on your site?

Probably the biggest surprise to most marketers is that the search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If they can't read your copy, then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

As search engines basically read html, sites which are either "dynamic", or created in other formats such as cold fusion, asp or php often can't be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, they often can't navigate it properly or just bounce "off the walls" as there are no specific links or site map on the site to tell the proper sequence or where to go next

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to http://www.gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go and type in your website name to see how many of your pages are being seen by Google.

3.) Links... why they are so important?

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will place in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is.

In essence the search engines are saying" we're going to give top ranking to sites that have a lot of other important and relevant sites linking to them."

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and placing a link to those websites on yours then asking them to link back to you, i.e. link building is done through link exchanges or reciprocal links; the process by where both websites link to each other and bring mutual benefit to each site.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual product category you compete in and how many links your major competitors with the top rankings have. At a minimum, you will at least need 25-30 relevant links.

Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement but it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you.