Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

• qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
• you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppe
  Tips from SEO Consultants
  Ensure that your website title has keywords that represent your site effectively. The title should be short but always inclusive of your keyword(s).Use meta-tag descriptions and meta-tag keywords on every page of your site if you want them to be indexed by the search engines.Write quality content using most important keywords prominently throughout your website.Perform a thorough keyword planning on both the search engines and directories to determine the best set of keywords and key phrases.Put alternative text in your graphics that clearly describe the graphic image and use your keywords whenever possible.Do not try to dupe search engines.Organize the important content near the top of your pages. Search engine spiders read this to determine rankings. Closer to the top is usually better, and having keywords throughout a webpage develops a theme, which is also important.Stuff the top of your pages with data that engines can read. Avoid HTML formatting, images, scripts, etc. toward the top of your page as these can result in lower ratings.Always update your website. No one likes to visit a page t
  Successful websites don’t happen accidentally. A business that runs an effective website thinks carefully about the website’s role, plans the website’s design and content, and closely monitors the website’s activity.

  Conversely, those businesses that fail to undertake any planning are, inevitably, planning to fail.

  Don’t let your new website become a disappointment to your business. Some careful planning will ensure that you:

  • know what you want your website to achieve and who it is for
  • can undertake appropriate actions to generate visitors to your site
  • have reliable, regular methods of measuring your website’s performance

  Mistake 1 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know What They Want Their Website To Achieve

  Producing a successful website starts with understanding what you want your website to achieve and, as the business owner, you know your business best. Despite this, having decided to start work on a new website, many business owners immediately phone their website designer.

  When you can define clearly the overall aim of your website, you are ready to present your thoughts to your website designer. Their role is to develop a website that achieves your aim; your role is to decide what that aim is.

  Do not feel that you need to develop an aim that is radical or unique. Many business websites exist to generate sales enquiries from prospective customers. Just because this is the most common raison d’etre, it can be your aim too. As long as you have thought through your objectives and understand what you want your website to achieve, you have made the first step towards a successful business website.

  Mistake 2 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know Who Their Website Is For

  You have given your new website some thought and developed an insight into its purpose. Closely allied to this is the matter of who your website is for: who is your website’s target audience?

  The usual answer is "customers" but this is too vague. Is your website aimed at existing customers, with whom you already have a relationship, or prospective customers who don’t know your business?

  If your website is focused on prospective customers, is its role to attract their initial attention or is the website involved at a later point in the sales process?

  Many businesses use their websites successfully to generate initial interest from prospective customers. This is particularly evident in industries where customers use the Internet as part of their research into sourcing a supplier. Other businesses will generate initial interest through different means and will then refer prospective customers to their website, either to demonstrate credibility or to provide more detailed information.

  In both instances, the target audience is "potential customers" but the approaches are different.

  Mistake 3 - Most Business Websites Have A Poorly Defined "Call-To-Action"

  The most beautifully-designed website is, in itself, entirely useless unless it encourages visitors to take some specific action. That action will vary with the nature of the website but common examples are to:

  • complete an online enquiry form
  • register on the website
  • purchase a product
  • sign up for a newsletter
  • progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services

  Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.

  Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.

  Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website

  Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.

  Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.

  The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:

  • search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
  • search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
  • online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
  • email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
  • off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits

  Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.

  Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

  Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

  Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

  • qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
  • you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppe
    Article Submission Tricks Multiply Traffic A Hundred Fold!
    Article submission was an old trick used frequently by the pioneering internet marketers to drive traffic to websites when internet was still in its infancy stage. Back then, there aren’t that many authors online and since the search engine algorithm was pretty rudimentary, it was very easy to get lots of attention to just about any article that was written. Nowadays, people question if article submission is still relevant as a website promotion technique. What do you think? You be the judge. We will discuss about article marketing and discover if teaching this old dog some new tricks would indeed turn it into a traffic dynamo.Article submission has evolved over time. The entry of many new authors has diluted the effectiveness of article marketing as a traffic driving technique. It is more competitive now to submit articles for targeted traffic especially if you are targeting on very broad and competitive topics. Here are some article submission tricks you can use to turn this long time tool into a powerful website promotion strategy that multiplies your traffic a hundred fold.1. Give your Article Eye-Catching TitlesYour article t
    dical or unique. Many business websites exist to generate sales enquiries from prospective customers. Just because this is the most common raison d’etre, it can be your aim too. As long as you have thought through your objectives and understand what you want your website to achieve, you have made the first step towards a successful business website.

    Mistake 2 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know Who Their Website Is For

    You have given your new website some thought and developed an insight into its purpose. Closely allied to this is the matter of who your website is for: who is your website’s target audience?

    The usual answer is "customers" but this is too vague. Is your website aimed at existing customers, with whom you already have a relationship, or prospective customers who don’t know your business?

    If your website is focused on prospective customers, is its role to attract their initial attention or is the website involved at a later point in the sales process?

    Many businesses use their websites successfully to generate initial interest from prospective customers. This is particularly evident in industries where customers use the Internet as part of their research into sourcing a supplier. Other businesses will generate initial interest through different means and will then refer prospective customers to their website, either to demonstrate credibility or to provide more detailed information.

    In both instances, the target audience is "potential customers" but the approaches are different.

    Mistake 3 - Most Business Websites Have A Poorly Defined "Call-To-Action"

    The most beautifully-designed website is, in itself, entirely useless unless it encourages visitors to take some specific action. That action will vary with the nature of the website but common examples are to:

    • complete an online enquiry form
    • register on the website
    • purchase a product
    • sign up for a newsletter
    • progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services

    Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.

    Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.

    Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website

    Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.

    Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.

    The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:

    • search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
    • search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
    • online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
    • email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
    • off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits

    Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.

    Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

    Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

    Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

    • qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
    • you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppe
      How to Improve Your Search Engine Marketing Conversion Rates Through Creating Landing Pages
      Are you struggling to convert visitors from your PPC campaigns? Are you looking at ways in which you can increase conversion rates and sales?If you are then hopefully this article will set you on the right track. Read On…With pay per click marketing now a key part of many search engine marketer’s promotional mix we have seen a dramatic rise in competition for the top sponsored listing slots in the search engines. This has resulted in higher bid prices meaning us marketers now have to work doubly as hard to ensure the campaigns we run are still generating a positive return on investment.So what can we do to try and make the most form each visitor we drive to our site. The answer lies in creating highly targeted web site landing pages.Is there a difference between writing a landing page and any other web site page? Yes and no. But mainly, yes. You still have to work within the fundamentals of good writing and copywriting. And you still have to recognise the differences between writing for paper and writing for a website visitor.However, there are some important differences to consider when it comes to writing a
      to their website, either to demonstrate credibility or to provide more detailed information.

      In both instances, the target audience is "potential customers" but the approaches are different.

      Mistake 3 - Most Business Websites Have A Poorly Defined "Call-To-Action"

      The most beautifully-designed website is, in itself, entirely useless unless it encourages visitors to take some specific action. That action will vary with the nature of the website but common examples are to:

      • complete an online enquiry form
      • register on the website
      • purchase a product
      • sign up for a newsletter
      • progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services

      Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.

      Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.

      Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website

      Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.

      Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.

      The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:

      • search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
      • search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
      • online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
      • email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
      • off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits

      Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.

      Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

      Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

      Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

      • qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
      • you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppe
        Financial Planners, Make Sure Reporters Comprehend Your Topic
        Don't assume that a reporter understands financial planning. If anything, assume the opposite until proven wrong. See if you can't develop a couple of questions for the reporter that delicately explore their subject-matter knowledge. Freddy Newshound may cover personal finance, but he’s no expert. He may have started on the beat yesterday and not know a T-Bill from a municipal bond.Fill in any necessary gaps so that the reporter can grasp the significance and context of your story. Making assumptions about a reporter’s knowledge base is risky business.You can also enhance the reporter's understanding of your topic by avoiding industry jargon. You’d be amazed at how much of it creeps unconsciously into our daily language. Save it for professional peers – except for an elite few trade press reporters, the media will be confused by it.Near the end of your interview, recap and gently probe to ensure the interviewer has understood your main points. Many of them are adept at making it sound as if they know what’s going on. Sometimes they don’t. Judge too, by the questions they ask, whether they are absorbing your information properly. T
        y works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.

        Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.

        The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:

        • search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
        • search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
        • online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
        • email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
        • off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits

        Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.

        Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

        Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

        Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

        • qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
        • you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppe
          Affiliate Web Marketing-How To Create Your Theme-Based Site That Pulls In High Affiliate Sales
          To be successful in affiliate web marketing, it is essential for you to create a theme-based site that will give valuable information and presell the affiliate program you are participating in. For this site to pull in lots of affiliate sales, then you must make it rich in information. How do you make it rich in information? You must fill your theme-based site, with valuable content that is related to the affiliate program you are promoting. This is how to be successful in affiliate web marketing.How to create an info packed theme-based site that will make your affiliate web marketing campaign a success:1. Go to www.blogger.com to sign up for a blog and choose a topic related to the affiliate program you want to promote.Example: If you what you want to promote is south beach diet, then the topic of your blog can be south beach diet tips. You can also use this for the url of your website.2. Write informative articles related to the affiliate program(s) you want to promote.Example: As in the case of the south beach diet example above, write articles about how people can get south beach diets easily, what they s
          l business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.

          Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success

          Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?

          Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:

          • qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
          • you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
          • website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.

          Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh

          The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites are not allowed to fade away because new content is added regularly, keeping the site alive.

          Not only does fresh content give visitors a reason to return, it encourages greater attention from search engines as well. Google, Yahoo and others will happily follow links to new pages on your site and index the content they find. More exposure in search engines generates more visitors, which further increases the chances of your website achieving its objectives.

          New content, particularly press releases, announcements, articles and case studies, gives you a reason to contact people and encourage them to visit the site. For instance, many businesses distribute a regular newsletter which refers to recent additions to their website and this helps them to generate return visits.

          A facility that enables you to add new content to your site is important. (Our article about the benefits of a Content Management System may be of interest.)

          Many websites fail to live up to initial expectations and are regarded by the business owner as "a waste of money". Planning your site’s objectives and understanding what action you want your target audience to take is critical preparation. Developing a strategy for generating visitors and ensuring that you have the means to measure your website’s activity will help you to assess how well your site meets its objectives. And, once your site begins to produce the results you want, regularly adding new, informative content will encourage return visits and enable you to build a website that is highly valued by your target audience.