Analysing web performance

New to Google Analytics? Here are five key areas you should be monitoring

I have Google Analytics installed on my website but don’t really know how to use it, what are the main things I should be looking at?

Rob Weatherhead writes:

The world of website analytics can be very confusing if you don’t know where to look for the most important information. Analytics packages provide with a whole heap of data and information about how people find your website and what they do when they are there but it can be a daunting task when you first start looking at Google analytics. Here are 5 basic statistics you should be looking at and monitoring over time:

Traffic sources

This section shows you how people are finding your website. It will split your traffic into the main ways in which people find their way to your web content and display it in a pie chart. You can then drill down into each section to see further detail on where people are coming from.

It groups the sources into key categories such as search engines, direct traffic (people typing in your domain name) and referring sites (people finding your site linked to on another website or directory).  With this information you can understand which areas are working for you and so you should do more work with, and those which aren’t working for you so you may need to look at your strategy.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is roughly defined as the percentage of times a page is visited and then immediately exited without more content being viewed. It means that somebody found you site, and for some reason, exited it straight away back to wherever they came from. This is useful information as it can indicate problems with a particular page or even your whole website.

Any pages with a bounce rate higher than the other pages of the site should be investigated and maybe even involved in some testing to ascertain what is putting the visitors off and making them hit the back button. Obviously some of this is linked to how people are finding your website, if you are by chance ranking well in the search engines for an unrelated term then these visitors are going to exit your website quickly, so it is just a case of working out why you would be ranking for an unrelated term. 

Top referring keywords

Linked directly to your search engine marketing, both paid and natural, this section shows the keywords which are driving the most visitors to your website. This is important as it allows you to assess:

• Whether these keywords are the most relevant keywords which are likely to drive sales
• If you are maximising the opportunities in these particular areas (could you be doing more?)
• Are there any areas you really need to do more work?

Average page views

Depending on the objective of your website the number of pages viewed by a visitor can be perceived in different ways. Obviously if you are an informational website selling advertising by the pageview, then the more pageviews per visitor the better. But if you are a lead based website looking to drive enquiries you want to get the enquiry through as quickly as possible whilst maintaining quality therefore you want a lesser number.

At its most basic level a greater number of pages viewed indicates a higher level of relevancy and engagement with your visitors so you should be looking to increase this figure over time where possible. Obviously, as mentioned above, this needs to be balanced against generated business and return but on the whole, the more page views the better.

Average time on site

In most cases directly linked to the number of pages, the average time spent on site is another measure for how useful your website content is. If a user is spending more time on your website then logic suggests that you have something interesting to tell them. So long as this isn’t linked to users not being able to find what they are looking for, then you will want this figure to increase over time, again by improving you web layout, content and usability.

Once you have understood the basics of Google Analytics there is more, much, much more you can get from this fabulous tool. The next obvious step is to set up goals and conversion metrics in your account which help you understand where your business is coming from and feed that information back into your online marketing campaigns. There are always more advanced metrics you can get from Google Analytics and more refinement you can do but if you begin with these basics it will give you a good starting point in the world of web analytics.

Rob Weatherhead is operations director for BT SearchSmart offering small business SEO and PPC from as little as £74.99.

To read more, click on STARTUPS

Start-up Confidential: Five OTHER job titles you take on as a start-up

This post is from StartUps, to read more, click HERE!

You're never just a managing director when you start a business. Start-ups' secret start-up reveals the necessary evils you can't avoid

by The Secret Start-up

have to admit that although there are many things I love about running my own business, I’d be lying if I didn’t say there are things I miss from the cosy world of my old business.
Top of that list is the big team who would support me by getting on with some of the essential but tedious admin that goes with client work and, sometimes if I had been nice enough to them, make me the odd cup of coffee when there was a big deadline looming.
As a bootstrapping start-up still in its first year, one thing I have learnt – as if I didn’t know it already – is that if you run your own business you have to become an expert at a lot of things. Here are five job titles anyone starting their own business gets in addition to managing director.

1. Head of IT and IT support desk manager

It may be a world of cloud computing and software as a service but when that deadline hits and you need your printer or email to work, it’s you who will be the expert finding the fix to get stuff working. I can only dream of the time when I can pay for outsourced support who will wave a magic wand to get things working when they go wrong.

2. Head of finance

Oh for those days when I agreed a fee, sorted an invoicing schedule and then never really had to worry about the mechanics of being paid. As head of finance I’m also head of credit control, expenses management and of course in charge of supplier payments. It’s fun seeing the money coming in but it would be nice to give the job of shaking my clients down for money to someone else.

3. Head of admin and office services

Photocopying may be a thing of the past in many offices but preparing powerpoints, client reports, charts and all that other important stuff that takes ages and is part of consultancy life: yup you guessed it, that’ll be me who does it. Oh, and I have to make sure I order the milk and keep the coffee stocked up. I never thought I would be the king of admin….

4. Head of legal services

Whatever business you run, you’ll end up coming up against the law at some point. For the big stuff of course you’ll need a lawyer. Of course you can get model contracts and documents drafted for the smaller everyday stuff but, drawing up contracts and dealing with incoming legal challenges (you will get them!) will be down to you.

5. Head of motivation and engagement

OK, so that’s not a real job title but if you are going to keep on keeping on when you hit obstacles and tough times, it’ll be down to you to grit your teeth, stay positive and keep on course. Whinging to your partner who is relying on you to make the business work or your clients isn’t really going to cut it.
On a rainy Friday, when the printer has given up the ghost ahead of a vital presentation to the management team of a new client and you have a pile of financial admin facing you over the weekend, it’s easy for me to wistfully dream of the days when I had someone to sort it all for me and think…should I go back? Wouldn’t life be easier?
But then, that’s the thing. This is my business, which is growing through my hard work and I’m doing things my way. For me, that’s inspiring enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a printer to fix….

An hour a day SEO: hints and tips for DIY search marketing

How you can get a ‘do it yourself’ SEO campaign off the ground in 60 minutes – and save money

by Stacey Cavanagh
SEO is a vital investment for businesses but expert agencies can demand investments that you don’t always have available as a start-up. So for business owners who want to be hands-on with their SEO or who simply don’t have the budget to outsource, time is valuable and this is a guide to SEO in an hour a day.

Before we get started:

If you’re completely new to SEO, take a look at the Startups.co.uk guide to SEO before going on.

Get in Google’s good books

Before you can be expected to figure out how to improve your site in Google’s eyes, you need to know what Google wants. Spend an hour reading through Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This is an essential starting point for anybody looking to spend time on their own SEO campaigns.

Fine tune your content

The old cliché, ‘Content is King’, rings truer than ever before. Whatever your sector, you give yourself the best chance of tickling Google’s fancy by producing brilliant content. We’re not just talking about text content either. Data visualisation (charts, infographics) other imagery, video and audio content all count.

Start with your key pages and make sure your content is unique to you and has something original to offer. A great use of time, particularly for businesses where everyone’s content in the sector is effectively the same includes:

• Pulling testimonials and case studies together – these are unique to you!
  
• Making your ‘About Us’ page genuinely informative. Steer clear of clichés and effectively just using the same paragraph you’ve got all over your social profiles. Create something truly unique for your website.
  
• Produce unique descriptions for your products. This is particularly important for e-commerce businesses where you’re selling products manufactured by a third party and where lots of other people sell them. You tend to find that a lot of retailers run the manufacturer’s own description as their product description, meaning you have nothing unique. If your site falls into the category of a site with a lot of products where you’re running much of the same description content as your competitors, then an hour a day spent updating products will be incredibly productive.
  
• Give your opinion or spin on a trending news story from within your industry in the form of a blog post.
  

Link building

As critical as content is, much of what determines where you show up in search is still down to links to your site from other relevant sites. Don’t fall into the trap of submitting your site to lots of low quality free directories for a link or for doing a lot of ‘link exchanges’ with irrelevant websites.

These are tactics that could get you in trouble in the long run and actually, in the worst cases, result in Google removing your website from its index altogether! Refer back to the Webmaster Guidelines for more information on the link schemes Google’s not a fan of!

Instead, if you are going to invest time in acquiring links back to your site, do it in these ways:

Make contact with a handful of the most influential and authoritative bloggers in your sphere. This could be in the form of an email, a Twitter exchange or similar. Don’t start by asking for anything! Maybe start by adding valuable comments to their blogs, responding to something they Tweet and generally adding value. Spend some time working out who their audience is, what their blogging style is and therefore the type of content likely to be of value to those bloggers. When you have a feel for the content likely to work on their blog, perhaps suggest writing a guest post for them. Guest posts are often credited to authors with an author bio including a link back to the author’s website. Guest blogging is a really valuable link building tactic when used correctly.

Claim listings in valuable and authoritative directories. I know I just warned away from directories, but some are great. Aside from some of the premium (and costly) ones like BOTW.org, there could be some directories or regulatory bodies that list relevant businesses specifically for your industry. For example, in the digital marketing industry, the Recommended Agencies Register acts as a high quality register of agencies based on the client recommendations. This does include a link back to the agencies too. If there are similar bodies in your industry, get yourself listed.

Claim your image credits. If you produce original photographs or images, there’s a great way to build links. You can use Google Image Search to find instances of your image on other people’s websites. Where the website hasn’t credited your image with a link, send the webmaster an email. Be polite! Simply tell them you have spotted that they are using an image you own and you are more than happy for them to continue doing so, but that you would appreciate an image credit link back to your website.

Get to grips with Google Analytics

All those hours spent writing copy and building links will become somewhat demotivating if you’ve no way of actually measuring the results! Google Analytics is incredibly useful even right out of the box, but with some deeper knowledge of the product and how to customise it to your needs, it becomes a powerhouse for insights.

Google has a course and exam for Google Analytics known as ‘Google Analytics IQ.’ You don’t have to take the exam to be able to access the course material though and the course material is free to use! Spend some time learning more about Google Analytics.

Spot-check your technical set up and speed

• If you have development skills or a developer on hand, go through your website checking the URL structure, checking how easily crawled the site is and checking for any duplicate content issues (common on large e-commerce websites).
  
• Check for any internal dead links. You don’t want to have links on your own websites pointing to dead pages (either dead pages on your site or external dead pages). There’s a Chrome extension called Check my Links that’s useful for highlighting such links. Fix up any that you find.
  
• Use Google’s page speed insights tool to measure how quickly your site loads in Google’s view. Page speed is a ranking factor in search now, so it’s important you’re speedy. You can switch between mobile and desktop as well to see how your site performs for both sets of users and Google will provide you with an actionable list of fixes if there are any issues. Don’t worry if your site doesn’t score 100%. Benchmark against your closest competitors by running a quick check on their sites in the tool too.

I’m not suggesting an hour a day could be a permanent solution to a specialist in-house team or agency, of course. But 60 minutes a day can enhance your SEO presence and start bringing in more qualified traffic and therefore revenue, which is the first step on the way to being able allocate even more budget for SEO resource.

Stacey Cavanagh is the digital marketing manager for Tecmark.

To read more, go to: STARTUPS

Blogging in the cloud: How to create an effective blog for your small business

A guide on why blogging can boost traffic, the range of platforms available and setting up your own text blog

by Kate Russell
Having found your space on the web and begun gathering a crowd, the next natural step is to start engaging them. You can do this by creating
interesting, unique content, stuff that they will want to link to and share with their friends, which will make sure that your name keeps bubbling up in the search rankings.

The stats

On average, companies that run a regular blog experience 55% more web traffic than companies that don’t, with more than half believing that they’ve taken on new customers directly because of the blog.
Surprisingly, then, given those numbers, only 60% of companies actually do run a blog and more than half of those admit to not having updated it for over a year. It’s not essential that you become a prolific blogger, but creating a new page every now and then that is optimised to help your performance in the search rankings can never be a bad thing. If business is a bit slow and you’re just sitting there waiting for the phone to ring anyway, what have you got to lose? You might even uncover a hidden talent and become an Internet sensation! Maybe.

Bloggers now have so many ways to express themselves that it is getting ridiculous, and there are more than 133 million blogs (though, to be fair, the active bloggers I know all have more than one blog running, covering various different projects).

A range of blogging platforms

Twitter is a form of blogging platform, known as micro-blogging, though in reality it has evolved more into a highly effective noticeboard directing people to deeper content on the web. You can choose to blog the traditional way, using pictures and text, or you can make an audio blog, known as a podcast.
You can screencast your desktop at the same time as recording your voice – a great way to create detailed ‘how to’ guides and step-by-step computer instructions if that is your line of work. Or you can go the whole hog and wow your audience with a video podcast, also known as a vlog (a contraction of video-blog). You can even blog with pure pictures if that’s your thing – there are plenty of very popular photo-blogs and cartoon series if you look around. Pretty much anything goes these days in the blogosphere.
It may seem far-fetched right now, but if you have the right idea, and do it in just the right way, at just the right time, you may be surprised at how quickly your link will spread. Remember, the more pages that link back to you, the higher your search engine ranking.

A good old-fashioned text blog

Whatever medium you ultimately choose, there’s a useful tool available, but we’ll start with the basics and look at the good old-fashioned text blog.
There are a lot of great free platforms if you’re not going to be overloading your pages with high-resolution images; if your business is photography I suggest that you consider one of the premium upgrades to cater for your needs. All the platforms offer a nice range of templates that can be set up in minutes, but you can also go pretty deep with the customisation if you want to. Most offer some kind of analysis of your traffic and they almost all have some kind of smartphone app these days, so you can share thoughts the moment they occur to you. There are obviously possible downsides to this if you are in the habit of having ‘brilliant thoughts’ when you are out drinking with your friends!

You can write as much or as little as you want – just try to make it interesting or useful. Always remember who you’re writing for. Post accompanying photos whenever you can – people do like a bit of eye candy – and put plenty of links to other sites throughout the text. Remember, the more pages linking to and from your blog post, the more credible it will look to those search engine bots, pushing your page rank upwards.
You can add web addresses without it being annoying for your readers by using the ‘insert hyperlink’ option you can find in all the popular blog-posting tools. The icon usually looks like a three-ringed chain and lets you put a web address behind some words you’ve highlighted on your page. Readers will expect these links to lead somewhere relevant, and it’s a great way to back up your words with source articles if you want to do some halfway decent journalism while you’re at it.

Popular websites for publishing your blog

www.blogger.com
Blogger is Google’s own platform, so it will integrate nicely with your other Google properties. It’s quick and uncomplicated – you can be up and blogging in just a few minutes after registration.

www.wordpress.com
WordPress is one of the long-standing web favourites for bloggers. Fast and unfussy, it has options for both beginner bloggers and those who want more control and customisation.

www.typepad.com
Typepad is another popular platform where it’s quick to set up and get posting, with deep design customisation and all manner of plug-ins and extras if you want to get more involved.

www.tumblr.com
With its trendy, clean design, Tumblr has become known as the place to blog about anything visual, like art, photography or design. It would be a good place to post something like a step-by-step pictorial guide or photographic journal.
This exclusive extract is taken from technology journalist Kate Russell’s new book Working the Cloud, published by Crimson Publishing. Available to order on Amazon now.
For more, go to: STARTUPS

Apps to boost your business

6 start-up founders share the apps they can’t live without

This article is from : START UPS. I hope you find it as interesting and useful as I did.

The New Year isn’t just a time for personal resolutions – it’ a time to get your business in shape for the coming year. For many start-ups, mobile applications are a vital way to manage the day-to-day running of their business.

We asked a group of bright young entrepreneurs to share the apps they couldn’t live without in 2013.

James Boon, founder, ElephantBranded
BASECAMP: Project management application based in the cloud. It allows you to control a whole project from one page, creating to-do lists, storing files and holding discussions with colleagues.
Platform: iOS, Android and Windows
James’ Verdict: “Basecamp is our virtual office, it allows us to run ElephantBranded from our phones anywhere in the world. Without it, our way of doing business would not be possible!”

Nick Simm, founder, BoldGorilla
AWESOME NOTE HD: Allows you to integrate your notes, calendars and to-do lists into one easy to use app.
Platform: iOS and Android
Nick's Verdict: “The perfect app for keeping track of plans, thoughts and ideas. Whether that's during a conference, on the train or back in the office, this is the perfect organiser. It synchronises with EverNote and iCal to be the one stop shop for everything a business owner or entrepreneur could need to keep track and plan ahead.”

Rob Welch, founder, smallcarBIGCITY
GENIUS SCAN: Allows you to scan documents on the go, format and then e-mail them in Jpeg or PDF format. You can group and easily locate files and save documents in the cloud using Dropbox, EverNote and Google Drive.
Platform: All
Rob’s Verdict: “My printer/scanner does not fit in my wallet, but my genius scan does.”

Matt Lovett, founder, WOW Media
DESK.COM: A customer support service allowing you to simultaneously track your e-mails, social media and texts to ensure you can keep organised when managing customer queries.
Platform: iOS, Blackberry and Android
Matt's Verdict: “We use these to manage customer support for almost all our websites, the iPhone app lets us manage our support tickets on the move to try and keep response times lower.”

QUICKBOOKS ONLINE MOBILE: Allows you to access and update your QuickBooks Online account through your mobile. New updates now include stock control and mobile banking which ensure that your finances can be constantly kept up to date.
Platform: iOS
Matt's Verdict: “Being on top of my accounts is very important and having instant access to the them on the go takes the stress out of keeping them updated.”

REEDER: Allows you to sync with Fever, Google Reader and Readability to keep up-to-date with the latest and most relevant news to you. Also allows you to track and combine relevant news stories so you can easily see the popular topic on your streams and keep on top of the news.
Platform: iOS
Matt’s Verdict: “Not so much to do specifically with the work we do, but I use Google Reader to keep up to date with all the news relevant to what we do. The Reeder app lets me keep up with my Google Reader on my phone.”

Naomi Kibble, co-founder, Rocktails.com
LIVE MINUTES: Free web conferencing solution which allows you to simultaneously chat, edit, share and create documents, brainstorm ideas and make notes. It can also connect with DropBox to store documents created in the meeting.
Platform: iOS
Naomi's verdict: “Live Minutes is great for conference calling, collating notes in a meeting and recording comments. Everyone can collaborate and add their input. The best thing is that it instantly compiles into a report which everyone can then keep as a record.”

EVERNOTE: Ensures you remember everything by allowing you to capture and save everything, from ideas, notes, photos, and business cards, all in one place.
Platform: All
Naomi's Verdict: “EverNote is great for compiling notes, sharing with the team and collaborating notebooks.”

Ruth Amos, founder, Stair Steady
TWEETDECK: Allows you to keep up to date with all your social media accounts simultaneously. The deck allows you to update several social media websites and also view multiple accounts on each website at the same time.
Platform: All
Ruth’s Verdict: “I’m a massive fan of the Tweetdeck app - I have a few twitter accounts so being able to switch from one to the other, personal to business, is great.”

DROPBOX: Allows you to share large documents and photos with friends, colleagues and clients in the cloud. You can create online communities to share numerous relevant and clearly grouped documents. Through the app you can view documents traditionally too large to be viewed on phones and tablets.
Platform: All
Ruth’s verdict: “Drop Box is amazing and really great at sharing big documents and it works nicely on iPad and iPhone.”