Copyright © 2010 I-COM International 2010-07-30T07:35:12+0100 2010-07-30T07:35:12+0100 http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. http://www.i-com.net/blog/ http://i-com.net/images/icom-net.gif http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. I-COM International blogmaster at i-com dot net I-COM International I-COM International en SEO, SEM, Web Design, Web Development 1440 http://www.i-com.net/blog/having-fun-analysing-conversions-191/ I was asked at a recent network event about what I would recommend (and what do we do at I-COM) to test how a website is converting. I know from years of experience that the individuals and companies that are the most successful with their online marketing do one thing more than most - they are constantly testing and tweaking their sites, always on the lookout for changes they can make to improve their results even by a tiny fraction! Testing is easy to do but Im not surprised that so few people actually do it! Why? Because it takes time. What are we chasing most of the time? Yes, the clock! So, these great ideas, testing different headings, graphics, call to action banners, content never gets implemented... true? So what is going to help? Well we have these fundamental rules at I-COM as far as testing is concerned; it's not rocket science but having a process helps. Test one thing at a time! The key to successful testing is to quickly identify each new element that makes a difference to your conversion rates - if you changed your headline, your content and your call to action all at once, how would you know which of these changes was making a difference (either good or bad)? It sounds like common sense but how many of us break this rule if we are honest? Be methodical! Slowly and methodically go through your website, testing one element at time, monitoring the results carefully, and then either keeping or removing each change, before you move on to the next test. In this way, over time, even tiny improvements will add up to a large increase in conversions and sales! Testing should be fun! It should be fun to test on a regular and ongoing basis, some over weeks, others over months. Look forward to reviewing the results and making the next set of changes as this will keep you motivated and surprise, surprise you will find the time. Benchchmark to measure your test! Look at your current website stats from Analytics or whatever performance tool you are using. Decide on the pages you are going to measure and change. Dont go mad - the more you do the more you will have to measure, and what did we say about time or lack of it? So then, make one change, whether that is to graphics, navigation, headlines or content on each of the pages that you have decided to measure. For example, if a call to action grahic on the page was generating 1% click through conversion rate and your alternative call to action banner generated a 4% conversion rate, you would leave it and that figure becomes the new benchmark. The next time you test the call to action banner the aim is to try and beat that new one. The game begins and its rewarding and fun and creates a positive behaviour of consistent improvement. Timing! Ideally you should run tests within the same time frame to avoid skewing your results. For example, you shouldn't test one headline in September and another in December when seasonal factors could make a difference to your sales. Or, if you're testing an email, you should send the two test emails to the same number of people to get a more accurate idea of which performs better. The other important thing to remember is to always keep a record of your test results! As far as I'm concerned the key numbers to keep an eye on include your bounce rate (number of people who leave the site again without visiting beyond the first page they see), number of visitors who reach your order form, your sales conversion, opt-in and enquiry rates. The truth is, your job of testing never ends... but make it fun! Search Engine Marketing 2009-05-13 09:33:55 http://www.i-com.net/blog/having-fun-analysing-conversions-191/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/what-do-i-look-for-in-a-profitable-market-141/ Before we enter into any relationship with a client regarding online marketing we look at two key factors: Visitor Levels - How many potential customers (web-site visitors) are there in this market, and; Visitor Values - What is each one of these potential customers worth? Together, they will tell you the QUANTITY, as well as the QUALITY of potential customers in that market. Here's what I mean... Visitor Levels Visitor Levels are simply the number of people who are searching online in a particular market. The more people search for keywords related to that market, the bigger the market must be; and the bigger the market is, the more potential customers there are! However, the problem with just using Visitor Levels as an indication of the quality of a market is it only gives you part of the picture. There are plenty of online markets that have high levels of traffic, but low levels of buyers! People browsing within these markets generally aren't "hungry" to buy. In most cases, these people are looking at websites for information! They don't want to spend any money. So while you may receive a lot of visitors to your web-site, it's unlikely that any more than a tiny portion of these people will buy from you. That's why it's not enough to just look at the traffic levels in a market. We need to find markets full of people who have money, and are willing to spend it. We want markets that are full of BUYERS - not just browsers. That brings us to the second key factor we should look for in markets... Visitor Values It makes sense to target markets where we can find the big spenders. Big spenders make big purchases - and for us that means big profits! However there are plenty of markets that spend big, but have only a tiny number of customers. Let's take the example to the extreme, and consider some really big-spending markets, like people searching for "private jet purchase". This is a HUGE spending market! Each market stands on its own merits, how many people do you think search for "private jet purchase" online? The monthly average according to Google's keyword tool is 46! So not many!! The issue that you have with low visitor levels it could take months to evaluate any marketing! That is why we look at what it is the client or ourselves willing to pay per sale. By using these two factors we can establish two key metrics, visitors and value to support the monthly online marketing budget and the potential for success. Advanced Search Marketing 2009-01-13 13:44:56 http://www.i-com.net/blog/what-do-i-look-for-in-a-profitable-market-141/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/effective-marketing-in-an-economic-downturn-41/ When the last recession hit the UK, of all the different types of advertising media Yellow Pages was perhaps the least affected, as advertisers saw it as the most direct way of attracting real customers. Today, however, things are much different. Recent reports in The Times, The Economist and The Guardian have each reported how Yell plc has seen a dramatic downturn in its revenue growth and that shareholders are now very nervous having suffered from a 60% drop in share price this year! We believe things have gone so wrong for Yell because of the advent of effective search marketing on the internet. Consumers can now easily find what they want whether its a denture specialist in Manchester or a data cabling company in Warrington on their computer without having to dig out the Yellow Pages, and they rarely go near Yell.com. Paul Zwillenberg of OC&C Strategy Consultants supports this, saying, "Ten years ago SMEs had one marketing option: printed yellow pages. Now they can buy space on Yell.com, or they can bypass yellow pages by building their own web site and optimizing it on Google, or simply buying keywords from Google." Weve seen many of our customers pull out of Yellow Pages because the number of enquiries dont even cover the cost of advertising. Google is taking the market from Yell as easily as a Rottweiler might take a bone from a Chihuahua. All thats holding up Yells revenues at the moment is effective salesmanship and lack of knowledge on the part of the advertising purchaser. Lets consider the facts: Google is a relevancy-based search engine with around 90% of the UK search market; Yell is a portal directory with a negligible share of the UK search market. To get a return, where do you think it would be best to invest your marketing and advertising budget? The beauty of the internet is that with a well-designed website optimised for both the user and search engines, supported by easy to use tracking software and appropriate online strategies, you can analyse your sales performance on a daily basis and tune your advertising to greatest effect. Our tip for effectively riding out the downturn is: dont fall into the trap of simply doing the marketing that youve always done. Investigate if youre making money from directory sites like Yell, Thomweb and TouchLocal. If youre not, consider investing in paid search marketing to deliver quick and effective returns for your business. However, be careful. If youre not sure what youre doing, use a Google Professional to ensure you maximise value and dont lose your shirt in the learning process. Search Engine Marketing 2008-06-25 08:45:05 http://www.i-com.net/blog/effective-marketing-in-an-economic-downturn-41/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/avg-link-scanner-creates-web-traffic-jam-38/ AVG, once seen as one of the best free anti-virus software packages on the market is now a webmaster's nightmare.  Some of you may be aware that the latest version of AVG (version 8) comes with a new feature called Link Scanner. Link Scanner pre-scans links on a web search results page to determine whether they are safe to visit. What seemed a good idea to start with soon turned into a fairly large issue. Early on, we noticed problems with using the link scanner when our internet connection started to suffer noticeably. The link scanner on all machines in our office was causing considerable bandwidth usage and slowing our internet connection down. We were quick to turn this feature off. Little did we realise at that point another problem lurked around the corner which was to be a webmaster nightmare. With an estimated 20 million users worldwide using AVG 8 and a possibly 50 million users still to upgrade, webmasters are faced with the giant problem of fake traffic. These pre-link checks are skewing web logs all over the world by creating traffic statistics that aren't real human traffic. Comments from fellow webmasters have shown that in some cases website statistics are being skewed by as much as 40%. Effectively, the more you are shown in the search results the more your web statistics are likely to be distorted. What AVG does not realise is that for site optimisers and website owners this is causing a serious issue because it affects decisions that are made based on web stats. AVGs focus is on security above and beyond the statistical issues that are being caused.  However, recent communication from Roger Thompson of AVG suggests that they are looking to work with webmasters to help resolve these issues. At the moment the focus has been on those that rely on log files for their analysis, so the question I hear you asking is does the link scanner effect those Analytic packages that rely on JavaScript? The answer is YES. My research has led me to understand that because AVG is trying to mimic human activity it executes JavaScript. So the next question on many people's mind is whether Google Analytics is being affected. As yet I don't have a definite answer, but I will post again when more is found on this hot topic. To find out more on Link Scanner and JavaScript read this article: http://judah.webanalyticsdemystified.com/2008/06/avg-linkscanner-bot-executes-javascript.html If youre worried about AVG affecting your Google AdWords then don't worry, it seems that AVG have a work around on this see: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/19/avg_linkscanner_and_adwords/ for more info. For some there is an extended issue that a large amount of bandwidth and server storage is being used by such a feature. If your hosting company limits you on either of these, keep an eye out as you could be seeing a rather large bill soon. We are interested in hearing your views, opinions and results on any analysis so please post your comments below. Web Development 2008-06-23 11:13:32 http://www.i-com.net/blog/avg-link-scanner-creates-web-traffic-jam-38/