If you want to run a profitable website, understanding how to interpret and use web analytics is vital to your success. You can find out what you’re doing right, and duplicate it. You can also find out what you’re doing wrong and avoid it.

The problem is, getting started with web analytics, and more specifically, Google Analytics, is a cumbersome task. And trust me, I know. Right now I’m working to implement advanced analytics tracking into the DIYthemes.com website.

While doing research, I stumbled on three fantastic resources that will help you understand and use web analytics. So, I figured, why not share them?

Occam’s Razor

“Analytics is vitally important, and no one explains it more elegantly, more simply, or more powerfully than Avinash Kaushik.” – Seth Godin

If you haven’t read Avinash Kaushik’s blog, Occam’s Razor, you should. During my research, his blog has been, by far, one of the best resources for web analytics tips.

More specifically, here are two articles I found extremely helpful:

* 3 Advanced Web Analytics Visitor Segments
* Beginner’s Guide to Web Data Analysis

Also, if you’re interested in learning about web analytics, Avinash literally wrote the book on the subject. Find it here on Amazon (affiliate link).
Measuring Success

If you use Google Analytics like I do here, you’ll need more specific information on how to use Google Analytics to drive results. That’s where Brian Clifton’s blog, Measuring Success, comes in. Here are a couple awesome articles from his site:

* How to Track Social Media with Google Analytics
* How to Choose Between Advanced Segments and Filters in Google Analytics

If you’re interested, Brian Clifton wrote the book on Google Analytics. Find it here on Amazon (affiliate link).

VKI Studios

If you’re anything like me, you probably have limited knowledge of Google Analytics—meaning, you know how to check keywords, referring traffic, and top content. If you’re looking to become a Google Analytics power user, VKI studios created a great quick-start guide.

Thats it! Hope you found this enjoyable reading, see you soon & don’t forget…feel free to comment.

Keith

If you bought, re-branded, and are selling a private label rights product, such as an e-book, article pack, software program, or audio book, you should have a sales page.  Whether that sales page is one you created yourself or one hosted on a third-party website, marketing is important.  Unfortunately, too many newbies make the mistake of relying on search engines.  This has the potential to be a very costly mistake.

For search engines to pick a sales page, it must be optimized with relevant keywords.  Use a free keyword tracker tool and see exactly what internet users are searching for.  .  Say you have a chiropractic care e-book for sale.  You will see that people are looking to “find a chiropractor,” wondering “can a chiropractor fix TMJ,” wondering the “difference between osteopath and a chiropractor,” and curious as to how they can find a “Los Angeles chiropractor.”  Incorporate these phrases into your sales page and the search engines lead internet users to your website.

Optimizing your sales page for the search engines sounds nice, but it isn’t fool proof.  Why should you do more?

1 – The Competition

If you are selling a PLR product, like an e-book or software, that same product was sold to 100 or more people.  Many of those people are also trying to sell the same thing.  For starters, that is why you should make a few edits, as you get a new, unique product.  The overall theme is still the same though.  For that reason, you will still have competition.  If 100 people bought the above mentioned chiropractic care e-book, you could expect to find at least 50 similar sales pages with similar keywords.  Your sales page will still appear in Google and Yahoo search results, but possibly not until the tenth page.  Rarely do internet users go that far into search results.

2 – Search Engine Optimization Isn’t Always Easy

For most individuals, search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is easy.  For those just getting started, it requires trial and error.  As recommended above, find a keyword tracker tool.  Know what internet users are searching for, but don’t make a common mistake.  That is only using popular phrases.  Thousands of people search each day wondering how to “work from home.”  Work from home is one of the top searches performed and a keyword tracker will tell you this.  Way down the list, you will find “work from home ideas.”  Although only 20 people may use this phrase a day, people still use it and there is less competition for it.

It will require trial and error, but experiment with keywords and keyword placement.  Rarely do internet marketers get SEO 100% perfect on the first try.

3 – Translates Into Less Money

Having Google lead people to your sales page is nice and easy, but it rarely translates into sales.  People use the internet to do research, rarely are they looking to buy a product. You may get a few sales, but they will be limited.  Market and advertise; target those who want to do more than just gather information, but make a purchase too.

4 – The Money You Can Lose

As for why buying, re-branding, and selling PLR products is so popular it is because it has the potential to be a goldmine.  It is common for buyers to make hundreds or thousands of dollars on one product alone!  These individuals do more than just optimize a sales page and let it sit.  They invest time and money into marketing.  Think of the money you may lose if you don’t.  Would you rather sell your re-branded software program 100 times or 5,000 times?

5 – Your Other Options

Marketing a product and a sales page does require time and money, but is very easy.  You can make use of Google AdWords, create an affiliate program and let others help you market and sell your product, use article directories, advertise on message boards, and so forth.  Your options are endless and all are relatively easy.

I’ve just been updating a couple of things and thought I would share these plugins with you which in my opinion are amongst the best plugins WordPress have to offer. All are free and easy to use.

Just click on the links to go to the download area for each plugin

1. TweetThis
TweetThis is a great WordPress plugin to help you increase the likelihood for visitors to your blog to share your posts through Twitter. When you install the plugin, an invitation link is included at the end of your blog posts suggesting that readers “TweetThis” and share a link to the post they’re reading through their Twitter feed.

2. All in One SEO Pack
The All in One SEO Pack plugin allows you to add title tags, descriptions, keywords and more to every page and post published on your blog. Users consistently report a noticeable increase in traffic to their blogs from Google searches after installing and using the All in One SEO Pack plugin.

3. SEO Title Tag
The SEO Title Tag plugin allows you to override the automated title tags that WordPress sets for your blog posts and pages, so you can use keywords in your title tags that are far more search engine-friendly than the words in your actual post or page titles.

4. Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemaps is a plugin made with a specific search engine optimization benefit in mind – to help Google find every post and every page on your blog, index them and include them in search results. Helpful for blogs that want to get indexed by search engines quickly.

5. Simple Tags
The tagging functionality in WordPress is great, but the Simple Tags plugin takes it to a whole new level by boosting your blog’s search traffic.

I hope you find these useful

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to a seminar held by BusinessLink, A government backed initiative to improve your business skills.
This seminar was all about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The two speakers at the event are at the top of their game in this field as they run a multi million pound advertising company whose clients include many top known household name companies. They specialise in getting these companies to the front of search engines without the use of PPC programs wherever possible.

During this seminar they explained the importance and nessessity of doing every step needed in making your website google spider friendly. It was explained and shown in a step by step fashion on how to get your website a page ranking of 3 or above (any pagerank of over 3 is highly regarded by Google) The pagerank is how Google rates and places websites – nothing to do with ppc or whereabouts on Google search pages a website appears.As an example did you know that having a pagerank of 1 can bring you more visitors than being at No 1 on a search page.
*Note: Googles pagerank is 8

We were also taught all about Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) showing how having your SEO done correctly can produce a traffic increase, even just 1% can mean a dramatic increase in your profits.

Overall, everything needed doing  is easy to do yourself but you must keep on top of it in order to maximise the exposure.

I thought I would share this with you as these seminars and others are held all over the UK so if you wish to attend any then you can get the details from your local BusinessLink or go to http://www.businesslink.gov.uk and find your nearest office.

I am going to write a report on everything that was covered as a lot of myths were dispelled and the knowledge gained by this seminar has really opened my eyes regarding SEO and the serious ability to build up your online presence.

I hope you have found this information useful as I feel I am slowly learning about the holy grail of marketing.

P.S. Even though this is primarily for the UK it still worth checking out the BusinessLink site as there is loads of free info worth reading.

It can take quite some time for Google’s crawlers to index all the pages in a new website just by following links. The larger the website, the more time it can take.
Solution?
An XML sitemap really solves this problem because it tells Google about all your pages ahead of time. If you have a large website with many high click depth pages then an XML sitemap will help indexing enormously. An XML sitemap is basically a text file (saved with an XML extension) that lists all the URLs in your website. The XML sitemap standard is supported by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft so the same sitemap can be used for all three search engines.

Use this XML sitemap generator tool to create your sitemap. Once you have created your sitemap file you have to submit it to each search engine. To add a sitemap to Google you must first register your website with Google Webmaster Tools. This website is well worth the effort, it’s completely free plus it’s loaded with invaluable information about your website ranking and indexing in Google.

Similarly, you can add an XML sitemap to Yahoo! through the Yahoo! Site Explorer feature. Like Google, you have to authorise your domain before you can add the sitemap file, but once you are registered you have access to a lot of useful information about your site.

Microsoft doesn’t have a special way to submit a sitemap yet (they always seem to be so far behind the competition) so you have to use their regular Submit my site form instead.

Here’s another link to help find broken links on your website before you create your sitemap.

I found this excellent post here and thought it needs to be shared.

Few would disagree that SEO is one of the most important aspects of having a top ranking website or blog. SEO should be used as an integral part of your overall ranking strategy, and is vitally important coupled with keyword research, on page SEO, back-linking, sitemaps and article submission creating an allround search engine dominating force. This article explores 5 essential tips for SEO domination that can be started right now.

1. Keywords are important – but the right keywords relevant to your site and on page SEO are vitally important. To optimise your webpage for your keywords involves placing your keywords in your Title tag (the thin blue line at the top of your page), within your H1 and H2 tags on your webpage and strategically placed within the first paragraph of your main text. Although some Internet Marketers do not consider this as important it is worth completing this step in your overall strategy. Search engines crawling the internet now have a better chance of finding your site and indexing your site for the keywords you chose.

2. Submiting articles to high ranking article sites is a sure way to receive traffic and increase your overall ranking with the search engines. The most popular article site is ezinearticles.com who follow strict guidelines for submission of your articles but in return you can receive free traffic and back links with very little effort. Outsourcing article writing is a very smart way to maximise the number of articles you can submit for a relatively small investment saving you time and the effort of writing articles yourself.

3. Back linking has become a very important aspect of traffic generation and search engine ranking. By receiving high PR (Page Rank) backlinks from as many sources as possible (naturally) search engines value your webpage as more important over time. Finding high ranking websites to submit links to can be difficult but well worth the effort – several tools exist to help find these and many products have been created to submit and find high PR relevant websites. These links add credibility to your site and have proven themselves to be highly effective in SEO domination.

4. Sitemap submission is also important allowing search engines to see your website. Submitting your site to the major search engines gives your site an extra boost when the robots crawl the net looking for new sites. Submitting your sitemap is relatively easy and some platforms such as wordpress have plugins which do this automatically for you. Do not forget this step in your overall strategy.

5. Keyword research is vital to your success and what can be the most exciting stage of SEO domination is finding the right keywords with minimal competition but targeted and relevant traffic. What keywords do your customers use to search for your product and are they buying when finding the information they need? Your goal is to find targetted keywords relevant to your site, and how your customers are searching when using those keywords – the good news is there are products available to help with this research and many forums also teach these skills.

The tips outlined above when used together will help increase your online presence and ensure the major search engines “find” your site in the maze that we call the Internet. Some of these tips alone can create massive amounts of traffic but ideally combining them all should become standard practise when lauching any new or existing site.

To find out how to explode your traffic and dominate your niche in every way visit Elite Money Club and find yourself on the path to unlimited traffic.

Anthony69
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