Every organization wants to achieve success in digital marketing. There is nothing better than reporting a 300% increase in conversion. In order to get there, you need to take the necessary steps. It starts with an approach towards web analytics that is designed for success.
Let me first define web analytics: it’s the collaboration between analysts, web developers and management on the collection of web data for the purpose of analysis and optimization.
Having experience in implementing some of the best web analytics platforms such as Omniture, Google Analytics, WebTrends and Coremetrics, I know that no out-of-box solution fits your exact business model. All web analytics platforms will start collecting data when implemented, but that data isn’t necessarily reflective of your company’s business goals or online KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This is why web analytics is a collaboration between multiple teams, to measure the KPIs that matter to your business. It is valuable to have a consulting partner who is able to suggest the best way to obtain the KPIs that matter to your company’s bottom line.
Once you start obtaining data from your site, it is time to analyze and make a hypothesis. It is important to collect the most fact-based data from your web analytics platform, otherwise your analysis and hypothesis are going to fail. This is by far the most important job of the web developer and the analyst, making sure your data is accurate. No analytics platform data will match a competitor’s system, as they collect data differently. However, conversions should match 97%-99% accuracy of your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system or database. read the full story...
It involves both an aesthetic and structural update meant to keep users more engaged and on the site longer. YouTube’s ultimate goal is most certainly to increase their (thus, Google’s) advertising revenue potential, but put your cynicism away, because the key is: It’s designed to keep users more engaged and on the site longer. That is what you really need to know.
Here are the 2 key changes to the site and why they should matter to you:
More emphasis on Channels and Subscriptions than just on individual videos What Does This Mean? On the home page, users will now see handy channel categories helping them browse for content that interests them–even stuff they may not have considered being on YouTube. There’s also recommended channels, which is based on previous searches and views. And a customizable feed of new videos added by channels they subscribe to. Users can also connect from YouTube to Google+ and Facebook to see what theirs friends are sharing.
What Does This Mean For Your Business? YouTube currently reports 3 billion video views per day, which will start translating into lots more engaged viewers, with all the redesign alerts YouTube has all over the site. As video watchers start to more actively peruse content through YouTube’s cleaner structure, you need to take steps to get in front of them! read the full story...
Develop videos that you can upload on a fairly consistent basis: seasonal tips/motivation/ideas/inspiration, how-to’s on something your company produces, footage from events (especially great if you run a club, restaurant, or store and had customers in attendance–most people love seeing themselves and will share that content), footage of your company building a house for charity, even silly antics around the business.
Google has introduced Real-Time traffic data to all Google Analytics users, allowing you to view all traffic on your site as it’s happening in…real time!
Real-Time Analytics allows you to view who is entering and leaving your site, if they are a new or returning visitor, and most importantly what traffic source they are coming from.
Since Real-Time will define the source of a visitor, this is very valuable for marketers and business owners who want to know how well an ad campaign or social media post is performing. They can now gauge the immediate impact of those marketing efforts. For example, if you tweet about a new product on your site, you can immediately see how many site visitors were driven by that particular content. This will allow you to help pinpoint your marketing strategy, by allowing you to find what type of messages are the most effective and what time to post to drive the most traffic to your site.
Make sure you capitalize on this new feature, and use it to maximize your advertising campaigns to their full potential!
Check out some screen shots of the new Real-Time Google Analytics in action below:
Social media has become a huge part of every company’s marketing mix, whether you are a local business or a nationwide brand. It is important to have a branded Facebook page and a branded Twitter handle to communicate with your consumers directly. Many companies are utilizing Facebook to its maximum potential, but are you using Twitter to its full potential as well?
According to this article by Mashable, Twitter has over 100 million monthly active users, 50% of whom are signing in every day. That is a HUGE audience. But sometimes just pushing your Facebook posts to your Twitter account doesn’t cut it. So let me share some tips to help you maximize your success in the Twitterverse.
1. Utilize free Twitter tools
There are a lot of free tools that can help you utilize Twitter to its maximum potential. My two favorite are Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. These tools not only provide easy management of multiple accounts or brands, but will also greatly help with the other tips proved below.
2. Set up relevant live searches
When using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck you have the ability to set up live streams of searches using whatever terms you desire. As an example, lets say you are a hotel in the Chicagoland area. You can set up a search for “Chicago Hotels” in your Tweetdeck account. You will then have a live stream of all Twitter users tweeting about Chicago hotels, hotels in Chicago, etc. So if someone tweets, “What is the best hotel to stay at in Chicago?” you can quickly reach out to him or her directly with a response in a matter of seconds. read the full story...
Did you update your site to HTML5, while updating your meta data to reflect the new SEO keyword research done in AdWords, that will best help the webpages PR and PPC quality score so the keywords appear above the fold in the SERPS. Did you have trouble understanding all of those interactive marketing acronyms and terms used in the above sentence? Most people do and that is why we are here to help you have a better understanding of the world of web marketing!
Web Marketing: Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, and is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.
HTML5: Hypertext Markup Language version 5 or in simpler terms, the way your website is most likely built or going to be built in the near future
Meta data: data that provides information about the other data managed within an application or environment or in simpler terms, background data on a webpage that helps the search engines figure out what your webpage is about.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing): is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): can be referred to as organic, natural, or algorithmic rankings and it is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines or in simpler terms, the optimizing of a webpage by changing known factors that best help said web page rank higher in Google.
Keyword Research: is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search. read the full story...
As we close in on a year since launching the new ROOF on theWit website, we’re happy to announce that our hard work is being recognized by some of the top industry professionals. Last week we received two awards: the Summit International Marketing Effectiveness Award and the Best Leisure Website WebAward.
The WebAward signified our ability to not only deliver a best in class website design, but a site that communicated the overall goals and objectives of the ROOF team. After the site was launched, our web marketing team took over that vision, and worked with theWit to create and implement marketing programs that drove overall awareness, traffic, and conversions to the site using various digital channels. Again, we were able to create a best in class marketing program that has sustained ROOF through the cold winter months and prepped them for the best summer yet!
Congrats to everyone at EIM that worked on ROOF this past year, and congrats to our friends at theWit, as it was a collaborative effort that allowed us to achieve these successes.
You know what they say, “All good things must come to an end…” While I’m sad to say that next week marks my last week as a web marketing intern here at EIM, I’m proud to say that I’ve truly enjoyed my time here over the past few months. To say I’ve learned a lot during my summer internship here would be more than an understatement.
Working at a small interactive agency like EIM really gave me the opportunity to gain a lot of hands-on experience. I got to work on several client tasks such as search engine optimization, pay-per click ad management, social media management, and weekly / quarterly reporting. While working closely with the web marketing team, I’ve learned all about the different aspects of search engine optimization including keyword analysis and research, meta-tag writing, content enhancement, video optimization, and link building as well as how to effectively utilize various online marketing tools and resources like social media, keyword tools, and Google Analytics. In addition to learning more about interactive marketing, my internship at EIM has also helped me develop my skills in collaboration, time management, internal communications, and problem solving.
Overall I feel like my time here at EIM has been a great success. I came into this internship as a fresh college grad with very limited knowledge and experience in interactive marketing and now after spending my summer here at EIM, I feel confident and well-prepared to take on the interactive marketing world as a full-time professional! Thank you to everyone at EIM for making my internship here a great experience…I will be sure to keep touch!
…And to close out my last blog post as an EIM intern, I’ve compiled some helpful tips for students or recent grads looking to make the most of their internship with an interactive agency: read the full story...
Sky King Fireworks, one of the nation’s premier fireworks retailers, has officially rocketed into the fireworks season with a new multi-prong digital marketing campaign. From the launch of a brand new (search engine optimized!) website, to the creation of a social media campaign that includes Facebook and an extremely large video library on YouTube, to an overhaul of their email marketing program, Sky King Fireworks is ready to kick off their summer selling season. The 2011 summer campaign holds a lot of opportunity for their 18 stores across Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, specifically:
- the opportunity for the site to be found on online and map searches to create a competitive edge over nearby stores in their local markets
- the ability to create a “wish list” of products that the visitor can print off and bring into a store, decreasing the likelihood that they stop at a competitor fireworks tent on their way to Sky King
- housing a central database of their organically-acquired email addresses that they can now send segmented and targeted emails to
- videos of their products can now be shared through social networks.
- analytics on their website so they can monitor usability, engagement, and make educated decisions about their site moving forward
EIM created a look and feel with an integrated approach across all their channels that brings the “King” to the forefront, with a whimsical and fun design. Check them out!
It’s time to get reacquainted with an old web marketing friend: Google AdWords. In case a recap is needed, this is the platform through which ads are developed and managed for display on Google’s search engine results pages (the listings you see at the very top of the page, above the organic listings, and stacked along the right side of the page).
With new social media tools constantly being introduced and ever-evolving mobile marketing technologies to stay on top of, AdWords is really a breath of fresh not-so-traditional-advertising-but-more-traditional-than-social-media-and-stuff air.
Yes, a good marketing strategy includes a combination of tactics designed to work together to achieve a common goal, and that may mean introducing some newer options. But in all the excitement of what’s new and popular, have you forgotten about some “older” standbys? Paid search advertising through AdWords might be just what you need to pump some new (old) life into your online marketing.
Let’s look at a few benefits of Google AdWords to remind ourselves why this is: read the full story...
First things first: Bing is out there and growing. It’s an important search engine to many and should be considered in your interactive marketing plans. But Google still has the much larger market share, so that’s why we’re focusing on it.
Adwords’ paid search ads allow you to target an Internet user at precisely the moment they are searching for what you sell. And if you optimize your ad, campaign settings, and landing page well, your ad should gain optimal exposure to this target audience member. You don’t have that kind of control within the organic side of the search engine listings.
StumbleUpon is a recommendation engine that allows you to view web pages, photos, and videos all over the web based on your tagged interests. You can seamlessly “stumble” from page to page, liking and disliking each page you view on the way. StumbleUpon then begins to learn what you like and provides you with related information based your like/dislike behavior. They also offer a very targeted CRM paid advertising option where they discretely insert your web page into users “stumbles” (about $.05 per visit/ $50 CRM).
Check out this quick video to learn more:
What are the benefits?
Increased Traffic
StumbleUpon is a great way to generate additional traffic to your website, and every time you submit a page to the site you have a change to hit a potential social media home run—it seldom happens, but when it does you have the potential to get hundred of thousands, or even millions of visitors to your site.
SEO Value
StumbleUpon can also be great to create some additional SEO value for you website. If your page/video/image gets enough likes to make it to the top of its category, you will be seen by millions of users. Since StumbleUpon’s user base is so large (15 million +), many people can find your pages and link to them, ultimately increasing cross linking between your website and therefore boosting your website ranking. Your StumbleUpon profile can also rank well if it gets a lot of interaction, and a large amount of users like your posts.
