How To Maximize Sales On Your Site

The problem with analytics

Recently I have spent a lot of time talking about collecting and data accuracy issues in the field of web analytics. It turns out, the widespread problem, one that I actually believe to be most substantial for business success or failure is the challenge of campaign attribution.

What’s so challenging and hard about campaign attribution? If you have tracking system on its place, web analytics tells you what works, right? You can get detailed graphs and reports of all that fun stuff, right? Campaign analytics is so easy!

Well, sorry but you’ are completely wrong!

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Did you know that one of the best-kept secrets in online marketing is that most campaign attribution data is completely wrong and the models used to evaluate campaign performance are wholly inappropriate?

The poorly understood interaction between online marketing channels and the relative nascence of digital marketing practices, combined with conflicting measurement systems, don’t produce their intended results. Web analytics come into the frame to correct the flaws and help to improve both the accuracy of measurement and the general understanding of how marketing really works online.

Did you know that a recent poll found more than half of American and British marketing professionals do not use analytics to measure their online campaigns? You can read the article on here.

Alterian polled 1,545 marketers and 62% witnessed that although they are not measuring web analytics they plan to increase their online spending. The results are overwhelming especially when the same survey found that 25% of respondents believe that analyzing results is the most difficult part of a campaign. Yes, people find reading and analyzing web analytics as the most difficult part of a campaign!

Are your goals on target?

Isn’t that interesting? Marketers aren’t using analytics because they find it too difficult, but they do have the cash to invest online.

If you are looking for a nice little business opportunity, here it is to take full advantage of  :)

Behind the Scenes of The Art of Execution

Seems like collecting the web analytics is not the only problem but applying the required changes to the business. Many times the web site owners, when they get big binders full of our thoughts and an analysis of their website, run into complete website redesign, instead of applying a little change that can help see improved results in the near future.

Furthermore, the collected data should be applied the faster the better but usually takes time up to a year to execute on those changes and by that time they had probably forgotten what they were measuring!

The fact that many find reading and analyzing web analytics tricky isn’t surprising at all. As a result 80% of implementation is done improperly because people often misread or misinterpret their analytics data.

Measuring online success

Earlier this month Todd Friesen of Search Insider said that in his ten years as an SEO he is still amazed by people who have little idea as to how to measure online success. “Many of my clients run into trouble because there are no analytics in place; or that they have analytics but no goals; or worse still that they have no general understanding of what should or even can be measured” – said Todd.

“My sales pitch always involves a spiel that goes something like, ‘We can run all the ranking reports you want, but those reports are only as good as the keyword list we use and will always be a partial representation of what’s happening”

“Yes, money in the bank is the ultimate goal – but if you don’t know how it got there, you’re going to spend too much of it in the wrong places.” – continues Friesen

Ready for change

So, what you have to do to keep your business at best performance? Shall you run into a kind of extreme makeover for your website? The answer can surprise you

To see how the changes improve your website performance you should apply a little band aids rather than major surgery.

Said that, you have to realize that you need the change… you need to be ready to do changes on regular basis and you accept the fact that your website will never be good enough! That’s an extreme change in attitude for some website owners.

You can’t really escape the original problem of execution because you need to be in a position to change. If you aren’t ready for that then you won’t ever be able to increase your profits.

Bite-sized recommendations

Let’s say you accept the fact that you continuously have to do changes in your site to ensure your site makes maximal amount of sales and you derive maximal profits from it… You get the report of your web analytics and analyze it… How do you make your decisions what should be changed: the design of a page, re-writing text or tags, or link building? Maybe it’s images on a page? Or maybe the navigation in your site doesn’t serve your goals?

First thing that you should do is, create a basic ‘to do’ list in bite-size chunks which helps implementation. If you are advanced marketer chances are you even can evaluate how long it will take to apply the required changes.

Then to stay on track, each month you have to prepare a list of tasks which will help you maintain your goal of continuously improving your website. Don’t look what is working now but find out where the trouble spots are in your site, ie, why your visitors are failing to buy, register or subscribe to your product, or why they leave after 3-5 seconds since they get to your site.

On target with keywords

Whole the process of continuously improving your website, it’s an exercise to see whether your assumptions are correct and also where your failures are. Everything is a question until it’s been proved. However, you should take your best guess and then with accurately read metrics you can prove it.

Let’s say you have built a site and got good at generating traffic and sales from certain keyword phrases. Unless your website is a content type and your revenue comes from ads, you probably want your web site visitors to do something.

On a keyword level you have to realize that some keyword phrases are meant to bring traffic to your website while others have a buying intent. When you drill down Keywords can give you that insight into which searches and phrases bring people in with a buying intent versus research intent. And this makes the difference between bookshelves (buying intent) and book reviews (research intent).

No Guarantees

There is no guarantee that with any of the changes you do in your website you will have any kind of success.

Such kind of statement could mislead people. One who spends his time in saying that is just blowing smoke. What I’m saying is that this is in your control; it’s up to you how good you do the job.
If you are not sure in your knowledge: what to do and how you should continuously improve your website, then look for credible advice, read a books or blogs, watch the webinars or go onto websites that provide the required information and check them out.

However, if you are ready to go to work, you buy the approach and you commit yourself to the work – I can’t guarantee – but I know that it works.

Again, it’s all up to you… It’s like losing weight – you can decide to eat well and exercise – or not! Who can guarantee you weight loss? Unless, you stay committed to your goal, use a calorie counter and go to the gym!”

Now here comes the question: Who can you trust and who is an expert? Simple Google search can give you 10’s of thousands of results. In any other business you need 20 or 30 years in the business before you can call yourself an expert. Yet in the web market if you can spell it you can make yourself an expert. This is a real concern for all of us, isn’t it?

Continuous optimization is not a skill that many people are claiming to be experts in right now. If you are interested in hiring optimization expert then you can find thousands on the web claiming just that. Some of them have proven records with great results they achieved if you can afford the price tag of course.

However, if you are on a budget and can’t afford spending of 1000’s of dollars on your website continuous optimization than I strongly suggest checking TrafficTrickle which will offer a lifestyle change for you and your business.

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