Symptom
"I don't have enough information about my website performance. How visible is my website compared with thousands of competitors' websites? How many people visit my site? Who visits? When? Why? Most importantly, what is my online marketing return on investment?"
Recommended medications
Ivan: Wow. It looks like you're due for a regular website health checkup. Fortunately, there are lots of tools that can help you measure website performance. The Internet provides plenty of opportunities to track, analyze and improve your online performance, which is the whole idea behind "website analytics."
Cyri: Exactly. We used to spend a lot of money to gain insights about our customers' preferences or behaviour, and now most of this information is free. No wonder Google CEO Eric Schmidt once said that the Internet "will transform advertising because of its trackability, not its beauty."
Ivan: Here are some options for your website analytics. First, we recommend setting up proper website traffic analytics with Google Analytics:
(1) visit Google.com/analytics;
(2) open an account there;
(3) copy your unique short code provided by Google; and
(4) have your designer insert the code into the HTML pages on your site that you want tracked, usually the home – or "index" – page.
You can also do this quite easily if you have access to your website files and can upload edited versions using a file transfer protocol (FTP) tool.
Cyri: Google Analytics will enable you to analyze lots of data, such as how many people visit your site and when, who is visiting your site (e.g. from what regions or countries), what pages they visit most, what their most common path/click stream on your site is, what phrases they use to find you, etc. You can also link your Google Analytics with your Google AdWords account so you can track the effectiveness of your ads. This tool allows you to track conversion rates – i.e. what percentage of your pay-per-clicks turned into your goals (e.g. a sale, filling in a form, etc.).
Ivan: You probably remember a famous quote by John Wanamaker from more than 100 years ago: "I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted. I just don't know which half." Well, on the Internet, this is no longer true!
Cyri: To learn what ads convert best, you can use Google AdWords' conversion tracking and ad click -through rates. A click-through rate of about 2% is generally considered to be quite successful (this means that while your ad was shown 100 times, two people clicked on it). To compare the click-through rates (effectiveness of different ads), you can use an A/B split test such as loweryourbidprice.com/splittest/. Run the two ad stats through this test, choose the winning ad, replace the loser with a new ad, and repeat the testing process until you maximize the effectiveness of all your ads.
In addition to Google AdWords and split test, you can track a website's search engine rank or "website visibility." For this purpose, you may want to use services such as Webposition (www.webposition.com). These tools help you monitor your online rank and the number of inbound links to your site. They can also provide you with a "Page Critic" to improve your pages.
Ivan: Finally, and most importantly, you want to know if your website or online advertising produces a positive financial result. For this purpose, download this free calculator on my blog: whereispuck.com/2011/10/21/search-engine-marketing-calculator/. We also recommend fabulous calculators provided by ClickZ (www.clickz.com/stats). They will even help you decide how much it pays to invest in your website or what your average online customer acquisition cost is.
Future management of condition
Cyri: We recommend doing at least regular monthly and annual web health checkups. The more often, the better. Outsourcing your online advertising/web analytics to an e-marketing professional might be a good idea, but be sure to define your monthly reporting expectations before you start.
Cost:
Ivan: Most of these tools are free. Webposition.com (the search engine rank reporting tool) starts at $29 per month, but you can try it free for 30 days.
Precautions/warnings
Ivan: Regular checkups are a valuable tool in maintaining good online health. Regular tests can help you find problems before they start.
Medication rating:
*****
