What About Google’s New Analytics

A few weeks ago Google offered a complete set of web analytics for free to anyone who wanted to sign up. This is similar to what a lot of good webmasters use to track the visitors at a website. Some of the hosting companies include this kind of report in their monthly fees but generally you have to do the work yourself; download the log files and run them through some kind of interpreting software for them to make sense.

So Google’s offer of free analytics has been a boon to many who needed this kind of information but didn’t feel comfortable working with the files. Google’s report includes entry pages, exit pages, referrers, and search term. If you haven’t been doing any analytics this kind of information will be really useful. Until now, many of these reports have cost you money to be able to use.

I got an e-mail from Google this morning that shows just how popular this new service has been. I signed up when it started and put their pieces of code on several web pages we maintain to compare it with my own metrics. It looks like lots of other webmasters did the same thing because Google has temporarily stopped taking new accounts.

Here’s a quote from their e-mail.
“First, due to extremely high demand, we've temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. This allows us to focus on our primary objective--to provide a great user experience for our existing users.”

They assure us the freeze is short-term and they are adding capacity as quickly as possible. So why would they go to all this trouble to offer a free service?

Google is getting an inside look at just how popular specific websites are. When it comes time to give someone Search Engine Results they will be able to look at the exact traffic websites are getting and serve up very exact matches. A question to think about is, “What happens to all the websites that don’t allow Google access to their visitor statistics?”

Will these websites have trouble getting in the Google Search Results pages? Will you be able to get to the Page 1, Top 10 position without showing Google your site traffic?

These questions and many others are looking for answers that only time will provide. But it’s the kind of information your Internet Marketing company needs to be watching.


Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Actionable Information by Maintained Website Services

Actionable information sounds almost like something a lawyer would be arguing in court. In terms of the Internet and how it applies to your website we use it to mean information that allows you to make informed decisions. Businesses don’t survive by making guesses; they prosper by considering the advantages and disadvantages of a situation.

Should you buy gadgets at a low price and reasonably expect to sell them at a profit? Is there even a demand for gadgets? How will advertising change your expectations?

Using good web metrics you can accurately track your visitors as they enter and leave your website. The better metrics will allow you to track the path they take through your website as well. Are they taking the paths you expected them to use or they being distracted or lost as they navigate through the information you provide.

The better you understand their behavior the better you will be able to serve them and hopefully make the sale. If you have served them well you should be able to build on this first success and create a lasting relationship. Repeat business is the heart of most successful companies.

By working with a good Internet Marketing company you should get the benefits of being told actionable information. One ad campaign has a lower return than the other one and we can see this in the metrics of the web site traffic. No guesses; just real decisions made on real information. A very strong benefit to using the Internet for part of your marketing is the ability to get observable details about specific tactics.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and E-Business owner. His company, http://www.myklin.com/, provides information to businesses about e-marketing techniques and Search Engine Optimization tactics.

There is No Page 2!

Above my desk there is a handwritten message that I can see every time I raise my eyes. It is the absolute essential core of everything we do here. It sets our goals in terms that have no qualifying elements. There can be no misunderstanding.

There is no page 2!

If you are going to the trouble to have a web site (and let's admit they are a headache at times) then the only place you want it to appear is on Page 1 of someone's Search Engine Results Page (SERP). So few people look past the first results they get they probably don't even know if the results are relevant to their search.

So, the question to ask is; are you wasting your web site?

Despite the Internet being everywhere very few people really understand how to make it work to their advantage. It's not hard to create a pleasant looking website. I know a dozen young teenagers who can make your eyes pop out with beautiful animations and glorious images. You can drop by EBay and pick up hundreds of templates for pennies and web designers appear every time you turn around. But, it's what you do with these beautiful creations that will make all the difference to your success.

Pretty pictures by themselves are worse than useless. It will delude you into thinking that your web site is doing what you need it to do. The whole purpose of your web site is to support your business. If all it's doing is sitting there, looking pretty, what's the point in wasting your money?

A web site that looks great can be absolutely invisible to the Search Engines. If the pages are invisible then they will not be indexed and your web site will languish (along with your business) for lack of attention. I see this every week. A client will bring a web site that looks good, the navigation is clear, the pictures and words weave together to create a good buying experience, but no one sees it because the Search Engines aren't indexing the content.

The sad part is that the web designer probably doesn't realize what a terrible blow they are dealing your business. It often takes just a few changes in the background code (that you never see anyway) to produce the results you want. Your beautiful web site can look the same and finally stop being a waste of your money.

That's what we do for you. We help your web site be the asset you need it to be. We're so confident of our ability to tweak your website we prefer to accept some portion of your sales as part of your payment. If your web site doesn't produce we don't make any money either. (Of course, we still work for cash if you want.)

That's confidence. That's experience. That's what your website needs today.

Why are you delaying? It's not going to cost you anything to talk with us about your website. Plus, we'll never share anything we learn about you with anyone else whether you become clients or not.

I know; you're used to companies yelling the customer's details from the rooftops as some validation for their services. Well, we don't do that. Your business is just that, your business.

A company that talks to you about another company will want to talk about you to someone else. We don't do that.

Just another great reason to write to me today to get started!

mike@myklin.com

Inside Search Marketing - Part 2

Last week we created a new Sponsored Search Account with Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) and began promoting a new product. This is a pay per click (PPC) campaign meaning we pay for each time a person clicks on one of our ads. A much-expanded version of this article, including last week’s information and a detailed search term analysis, is available at www.myklin.com/campaign.

The product, an updated version of an electronic book, “SEO-Tactics v2.6”, was started with five search terms. The highest number of impressions is coming through a term, “Internet Marketing Book” that is generally about the book’s subject, which we expected. However, we are getting a smaller click through rate (CTR) than the more relevant search term, “Search Engine Optimization Book.” This is a good thing. The less relevant the search term is to our product the less likely we will make a sale. I don’t really want to have someone clicking on our ads unless they are looking for what we’re selling.

The more relevant term is getting a CTR over 2.5% which means my ads are working fairly well. I have seen better rates but they could be much lower. On a daily basis they sometimes exceed 4% so these are weekly averages.

Different terms will have different costs and the costs can change daily. We started with five terms ranging in cost from .11 to $1.02 per click and the pricing has remained stable. We bid just enough to get number two positions with all the terms.

We’ve had 1329 impressions (the number of people who saw our sponsored ads) this week and a total of 32 clicks for a total cost of $7.32. That’s an average CPC (cost per click) of just 23 cents, down from 62 cents last week. More of our clicks are coming through lower priced search terms. The campaign total is $14.08.

YSM says we’ve had one conversion (sale) this week. If they are correct then the total cost of the campaign would be the advertising cost for the sale. YSM tracks this by placing a cookie in the browsers of people who click through my ads and then checking to see if the cookie is still in the browsers at the sale completion page on my website. If your browser deletes cookies at the end of the on-line session they would not be able to track your visit correctly. In fact, we had five new customer sales this week and this campaign is the only expense connected with the book, so my advertising cost per sale is just $2.82. I do sell this book to previous customers for half price and through commission sales by affiliates as well so we’re just following new sales in these articles.

Look for more explanations next week as we continue to watch this active campaign.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.