After almost a month of hard work, my official entry to the Busby SEO Challenge made it to the top 100. It was on number 94 overall yesterday, at first I can't believe it when I check my rank using seobook.com's Rank Checker so I checked the Busby SEO Challenge leaderboard to confirm, and it's true! I'm on top 100.
Now, I need to double my effort to maintain my current standing.
Showing posts with label Statistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Statistics. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The Secret to Converting Web Traffic
Copy is absolutely crucial to not only delivering a great customer experience on your website but also converting all that traffic. This is true for traffic that originates from organic search as well as pay per click advertising. In fact, research has shown that organic search visitors tend to convert at a higher rate than visitors from search engine advertising. So how do we make the most of our efforts to attract visitors to our website?
Achieving a good balance between visitors from organic search and search advertising is important as the right mix will bring you more traffic. To maximise the opportunity this presents, I recommend you develop landing pages with "purposeful design". This is critical to the success of your online business.
When a visitor lands on your web properties (pages), their subsequent behaviour is determined to a large extent by what they see and experience within the first few seconds. How do you know what will work and what will not? Well we need to create different versions and test. This is where the science of landing page optimisation begins.
There are two types of tests that I like to apply. One is called AB Testing and the other multivariate testing. Each has its place in the optimisation process. Let me explain.
Let’s use an example to explain each. Let’s assume I have a website that sells products. Should I direct visitors from my pay per click advertising to a page that contains all the products in a category or should I direct them to a single product? Which will convert better? We use AB testing to find out.
AB Testing allows us to test the conversion rates of 2 different pages. So we might direct an equal amount of traffic to each of our pages for a period of time and monitor the conversions rates of each to determine which delivers the better result. Once we have a winner, we adopt that page for all subsequent visitors. We could do sequential testing on this page but that’s a topic for another time.
We can now apply multi variates testing to compare the performance of different elements of the same page to determine what works best. To do this, we select different parts of our page, for example the headline, an image and perhaps the call to action. Then we test each of these with alternative versions.
For example, each time a visitor lands on our website, we can display one of three images of the product. Once we have had a statistically valid sample of visitors through the page, we will begin to learn about which image works best. We can do the same for other elements.
It is important not to get carried away with the testing. I prefer to test perhaps one or 2 elements at a time with 2 to 3 versions of each. If you change too many elements, it is more difficult to assess what really makes the difference.
Once we have the results of our multi variates test, we adopt our highest performing option and then, you guessed it - we do it again!
I hope I have been able to explain how to convert your traffic. As a channel to market, the internet offers a rich source of information that can be used to fine tune your website. Over time, you will know what works and what does not. This really places you at a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.
Billy is an internet marketing specialist and writes on various topics such as landing page optimisation.
Article Source: http://www.free-articles-zone.com
Achieving a good balance between visitors from organic search and search advertising is important as the right mix will bring you more traffic. To maximise the opportunity this presents, I recommend you develop landing pages with "purposeful design". This is critical to the success of your online business.
When a visitor lands on your web properties (pages), their subsequent behaviour is determined to a large extent by what they see and experience within the first few seconds. How do you know what will work and what will not? Well we need to create different versions and test. This is where the science of landing page optimisation begins.
There are two types of tests that I like to apply. One is called AB Testing and the other multivariate testing. Each has its place in the optimisation process. Let me explain.
Let’s use an example to explain each. Let’s assume I have a website that sells products. Should I direct visitors from my pay per click advertising to a page that contains all the products in a category or should I direct them to a single product? Which will convert better? We use AB testing to find out.
AB Testing allows us to test the conversion rates of 2 different pages. So we might direct an equal amount of traffic to each of our pages for a period of time and monitor the conversions rates of each to determine which delivers the better result. Once we have a winner, we adopt that page for all subsequent visitors. We could do sequential testing on this page but that’s a topic for another time.
We can now apply multi variates testing to compare the performance of different elements of the same page to determine what works best. To do this, we select different parts of our page, for example the headline, an image and perhaps the call to action. Then we test each of these with alternative versions.
For example, each time a visitor lands on our website, we can display one of three images of the product. Once we have had a statistically valid sample of visitors through the page, we will begin to learn about which image works best. We can do the same for other elements.
It is important not to get carried away with the testing. I prefer to test perhaps one or 2 elements at a time with 2 to 3 versions of each. If you change too many elements, it is more difficult to assess what really makes the difference.
Once we have the results of our multi variates test, we adopt our highest performing option and then, you guessed it - we do it again!
I hope I have been able to explain how to convert your traffic. As a channel to market, the internet offers a rich source of information that can be used to fine tune your website. Over time, you will know what works and what does not. This really places you at a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.
Billy is an internet marketing specialist and writes on various topics such as landing page optimisation.
Article Source: http://www.free-articles-zone.com
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Website Traffic Stats Can Help Determine The Effectiveness Of Your Visitors
Web traffic statistics can be a valuable tool for a number of different reasons. Before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data. These figures are the most accurate measure of your websites activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.
Often there is a great misconception about what is commonly known as hits and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.
If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it 's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.
If you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, it means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of success.
Often there is a great misconception about what is commonly known as hits and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.
If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it 's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.
If you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, it means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of success.
About the Author
Brandon uses wotArticle.com for his article submission and buy cheap dot coms at wotDomain.com.
Article Source: Content for Reprint
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