After all, they have already spent a huge amount of time, effort and money on setting up their website, and they now have to spend even more money on search engine optimization and website promotion. What benefits could they possibly get from web analytics? Well, here are 7 reasons why you should know your website’s analytics:

1. It lets you know how many people visit your website
The primary function of web analytics is to calculate the number of visitors to your website. This information is important for you to understand where exactly your website stands amidst your competition. If you do not know how many people visit your website, you won’t know whether your business is successful or not either.

2. It provides you with the source of these visitors
As a website owner, you may be promoting your website through different mediums, like search engines, affiliate websites, etc. Web analytics lets you know which of these mediums are offering maximum traffic in terms of visitors.

3. It tells you about the most popular sections of your website
Another important benefit of web analytics is that it lets you identify the popular parts of your website. As a businessperson, you should know the focus of your target audience so you can meet their requirements. By understanding which section of your website visitors like most, you can understand the strengths of your business.

4. It informs you about the most common keywords used to search for your website
This is another important advantage of web analytics if you are using search engine optimization techniques like a majority of other websites do. By learning what keywords work better for your website, you can change your SEO strategy to give you better results.

5. It shows you the areas where visitors log off your website
The fifth advantage of web analytics is that it shows you the areas of your website where your visitors log off or move elsewhere. These areas are your website’s weak points, and once you recognize them, you can change or update them to avoid visitors from leaving your website.

6. It tells you about the problems faced by your visitors
If your website is not able to attract traffic, it may be because your site is difficult to navigate or because it takes a long time to load. Web analytics helps your ascertain if your visitors face such problems, so that you can make your website more visitor-friendly.

7. It helps you understand what is ideal for your customer
The seventh and final reason for you to know your website’s analytics is because it helps you bridge the gap between what your website currently provides and what your customers are looking for. This helps improve your business and your website further to meet your visitors’ expectations.

1. It creates a strong and positive image for your business

Social media like blogs, forums, wikis and social networking and micro blogging sites have continued their progress undeterred for this year as well. By associating yourself with the latest trends on the Internet and taking part in popular trends, you can improve the visibility of your business and also create a more modern, positive image of your business.

2. It helps you understand your customers

Social media is all about interacting with the help of Web 2.0 technology. You can not only use social media outlets and tools to market yourself, but also interact with customers and understand them. This helps you shape your marketing campaign and maybe even change your products or services to meet the changing needs and trends of your customers. After all, the success of every business is ultimately gauged by how satisfied its customers are.

3. It helps in generating reliable leads

The third reason for you to start a social media marketing campaign is that helps generate leads. Lead generation helps create an interest among prospective customers, and it can also be used for search engine optimization purposes. Your social media marketing campaign can be used as a very useful lead generation tool.

4. It helps optimize your website for search engines

You may have already heard about search engine optimization or SEO and its benefits for your business. Your website can get a lot of traffic by simply getting optimized for search engines to rank you high in their results pages. There are several ways to optimize your website, including social media marketing. Search engine bots are always on the lookout for real time search results, and social media bookmarks or updates can help rank your website better among search engines.

5. It generates relevant traffic

The main function of any social media marketing campaign is to generate traffic for your website, and it is also the main reason for you to plan a campaign. Social media websites have the highest number of traffic at any point of time, so they are the perfect place to attract huge volumes of traffic to your website. Apart from common social networking websites, you can also target other niche social media channels.

Everything has a shelf life. Even your website. If you’ve thought that your website is good enough for the work it has been cranking up all along, then you have to rethink that attitude and take a good hard look at it again. It probably doesn’t match up to industry standards, especially in terms of SEO. The thing is that you have to keep SEO in the circle if you’re trying to redesign your website particularly because SEO is not a fixed entity. It changes according to the trends and current vibes in the industry. Here are a few best practices that you need to keep in mind before you redesign your website.

• Consulting the experts – A good idea before getting down to work would be to consult experts in the same domain. Ask them what usually works but be more specific with the questions. Experts come with loads of experience in marketing and website usability so make sure you get their opinion on the current website and the redesigning options that you have.
• Checking out the competition – What are they doing right and you’re missing out on? Try and figure it out by researching the competition thoroughly. SEO is mutable and you have to be well versed with the different ways in which it works and the different forms in which it floats around so you can get the best redesign for your website. Also, understanding the competition means that you can avoid their mistakes and improve on their positives to make it work better for you.
• Reviewing usability – A good website has to be functional at best. Almost everything else comes secondary. While redesigning your website, it would be a good idea to get the usability tested especially in terms of SEO. What are the terms that people are using on search engines to reach your website? You’d have to read the next point to understand that better.
• Making Google Analytics your friend – Google Analytics is really one of the best features that you can use to understand your visitors better. There are many ways in which it can make things clearer for you regarding your content and the visitors it draws and where they linger the longest. Google Analytics helps you understand your website’s flaws and strengths, segment by segment.
• Getting killer content – If SEO is what’s needed to keep your website alive, you have to remember that unless you have some really good content, no amount of SEO will keep visitors coming. There has to be a good balance between SEO and content and the best part is that they’re both closely interconnected. It’s just that few people realize the value of good content when they’re busy pumping their website full of SEO.

Redesigning a website is a big job and not something that can be undertaken lightly. There are numerous things to consider before you start and it all has to go back to the beginning, the very reason for the existence of the website.

Marketers everywhere know that it’s important to adapt to the changing times especially when it comes to the ways in which consumers can access them. Today Social Media Marketing brings the customer to your doorstep literally with the click of your mouse and if you’ve had any doubts whatsoever about whether it’s good for sales or not, now’s the time to leave your doubts behind and surge ahead. Here are five great reasons why. And they’ve all got to do with boosting your sales figures incredibly.

1. Increasing accessibility

Social media is swiftly bringing down the walls between marketers and consumers by increasing the number of ways in which the two can interact. The more places you can be reached, the more people you will end up reaching out to. Where earlier getting hold of customers was difficult, today creating a presence in a social media forum can go to great lengths to help build a customer base.

2. Establishing trust

Trust is an important aspect in the consumer-marketer relationship. If the consumer feels the marketer is trustworthy, they will proceed to take a closer step towards the product or service and will eventually pay money to make it theirs. With social media marketing, establishing trust becomes a little more easier because it’s easy to see how many others have been influenced by the marketer and people usually follow the  ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us’ rule.

3. Building communications

For a lasting relationship between consumer and marketer, there has to be good communication.  Social media marketing may not offer personalized communication but goes to great lengths to ensure that consumers are informed immediately regarding any situations or new products or releases. Having knowledge of certain products before they even hit the market give the consumers an edge over the others and fosters a feeling of closeness between the marketer and the consumer.

4. Creating a distinct voice

Social media marketing allows you to create a distinct voice and become a tangible entity in the eyes of your consumers. Building a relationship and sustaining it with them becomes so much easier when consumers know who is at the other end. Social media marketing brings the consumers closer to the marketers, demolishing the walls and bridges between them that often lead to disinterest and even defection.

5. Extended reach

Most social media sites allow users to sign in to other sites using their sign in identities. This continued expansion into the consumer’s interests can prove to be an excellent way for marketers to focus on sending targeted content to consumers.

Social media marketing is definitely not a hindrance as most old school marketers are prone to think. If the right balance is worked out, then it can prove to be a wonderful way to drive revenues even in a faltering economy.

SEO vs SEM

If you were launching an internet marketing campaign, you would have surely heard of the terms ‘SEO’ and ‘SEM’. These two terms are the mantra for success in the field of internet marketing today.

However, it is odd how people are either pitting SEO against SEM or using both terms synonymously, because both concepts are incorrect. The truth is that both are complementary to each other. Of course, there are a few basic differences between the two, and you must know what they are before you opt for either of them to help build your business.

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It includes using appropriate keywords to get high rankings for site on a directory or a search engine. With SEO, you have to create content that brings people to your website. This is done with the help of keywords, images and videos that are relevant to your business.

SEO involves tailoring your content to suit the needs of your visitors and through this, increases the chances of the visitors being converted into leads for business.

Paying to get top placements on sites has become common these days but it can sometimes dilute your credibility. This is why organic SEO is important and in the end it all boils down to your content and how good is your offer.

SEM

SEM on the other hand is Search Engine Marketing where search engines are used to promote or market a website in order to increase business. SEM is a more targeted concept and if you are willing to shell out a few bucks, you should opt for it because it can get you results that are more streamlined.

SEM includes ‘pay-per-click ads’ where you have to pay only when someone clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. The thing to note here is that people might come to your website through these ads, but do you have the information that will make them stay?

To catch the attention of your visitors and to make them take an action you need ‘landing pages’ – which are very important aspect of any SEM campaign. Every cent and dollar is important, so concentrate on making your landing page informative and accessible so that the visitors are encouraged and curious to know more.

For a successful internet marketing campaign, it is a good idea to combine both SEO and SEM, or rather use those elements of each that are relevant to you and your business.

Ideally, it is not easy to separate SEO and SEM and the lines begin to blur if you want to have a fantastic internet marketing campaign that will boost traffic to your website and drive sales.

The present day and age is certainly the best time to be marketing your products or services online. Social media has propelled online marketing to new heights since millions of users across the globe are now connected through it. While you can Tweet about your services or create a social media campaign to increase awareness about your product, don’t discount the importance of email marketing, because it’s just as important as social media marketing.

Email marketing may seem old school today, but it isn’t. In fact, it forges a personal connection between you and your customer. The best thing to do would be to create a marketing mix that employs both email and social media marketing strategies to create the most effective marketing campaign.

Here’s a look at the seven ways in which you can promote your business using both social media and email marketing:

1. Choose the right social media – You can’t be everywhere at once. Social media is constantly expanding, but that doesn’t mean you have to create a footprint everywhere. Look for those social media channels that your customers are likely to frequent, and make your presence felt on such platforms.

2. Use your email contacts – If you’ve been doing email marketing for a while now, use the contacts you have to build your social network base. You may be surprised at how many of your customers or clients are already on a social network. Send them an email to inform them that you are also a member of that social media website.

3. Link your content – If you have a newsletter service, make sure to include a link to your social media page in your newsletters. In this way, even if people forget to see the email, they’ll be reminded of it through your Tweets or updates.

4. Use limitations to your advantage – Remember that social media updates do not allow for much space. For example, the limit on Twitter is just 140 characters. Use these limitations to your advantage by creating teasers about articles that are already there on your blog or website. This will enable you to attract some much needed traffic to your site by upping the curiosity quotient in your readers or clients.

5. Forge a connection – Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus you’re using to create a buzz about your products or services, combine it with targeted emails to forge a stronger connection- one that doesn’t wane the moment your customers sign out of their social media sites.

6. Get social network friendly – If you have an excellent newsletter that’s been doing the rounds for quite some time, then a good idea would be to include a ‘share’ button through which your customers can share your content with their contacts on social media networks.

7. Use polls and surveys – Conduct polls and surveys on social media to find out what customers want so you can provide them with targeted content via email newsletters.

Social media marketing and email marketing are most effective when used together. It doubles the impact and makes sure that your customers stay informed and aware.

For help with your social media and email maketing, contact The Thinking Giant

In this role, you will be:
+ Working with the business development team to create and execute strategic marketing initiatives & campaigns
+ Managing the day-to-day activities required for those campaigns
+ Develop copy for ads, microsites, blog posts, and social media websites.
+ Reporting and dissecting results with the business development team and company leaders.
+ Doing things that nobody could reasonably expect would work, but do anyway by virtue of sheer force of will and ingenuity (i.e. because you were bat$&*t crazy enough to try)

Qualifications
• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Familiar with social media sites
• Organized and detail oriented, work well independently
• Interest in social media marketing
• Creative thinking

To apply send email with resume to info@thinkinggiant.com

1. Frequent Updates: When consumers and users come in contact with your Social Media Platforms and find that it has not been updated in several months, they will assume it is inactive and decide not to follow your business. Businesses that tend to have more updates on their Social Media Platforms tend to have significantly more engagement from their customers. Update your social media regularly with useful and meaningful information.

2. No Selling, No Pitching! Social media is used to connect and communicate, not pitch your services and products. Consumers are looking for meaningful information and a long term relationship with your brand. In some cases it is clearly ok to post a deal or special but a constant bombardment of sales tactics is a sure turnoff for consumers and fans alike.

3. Communicate with your audience, fans and followers. If you do not feel it is necessary to reply to comments, answer questions, or join in on conversations on your page, then social media is not for you. You need to be a part of the conversations on your page. If not, you will lose touch with your customers and what they want.

4. Be sure about your postings. Remember that anything posted on the internet will remain public record even after it has been deleted. Choose what you post on your page wisely. Be sure you have a social media policy in place  so employees and consultants  are aware of your post preferences. Working with a Digital Marketing Agency may mean you have someone else handling your posts for your company, be sure to hire an agency you can trust.

5. Link to others. If you find something interesting (and relevant) on the web, link it on your Facebook or Twitter page. Explain why you find it interesting (and relevant) and ask for input. Link to other companies, articles, cool websites, whatever. Just be sure to ask yourself before posting, is this relevant to my business?

6. Share! Don’t be afraid to show your consumers what your company’s employees are doing when they are not in the office. Take photos of your office picnic, philanthropic event, or even a run/walk for a good cause. These photos create a positive image about your company for your consumers. They want to know you’re human and don’t wear ties all the time.

7. Start a weekly trend. If you do something once a week, on the same day each week, your followers are bound to come back that day every week. For example, if you own a Jewelry store, every Monday you could post the piece of the week. Include an image and a promotion for the product.

8. Spread the word! If you have a Facebook, Twitter, blog, YouTube channel, etc. you really need to tell people. They are not just going to assume you have them. Put them on your company website, on your business cards, put a sign up in your store saying “Add us!” the relevant social media icons for each site next to the copy. Don’t be afraid to tell your customers you’re on Facebook. If they like you and your product, they will share it with their networks.

SEO, Interactive Marketing, Web Development, Web Design, Email Marketing, Social Media Strategy

The simple fact is, most small business owners and marketers only have some of the information as it relates to internet marketing. Some may understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but not an effective email marketing campaign and vice versa. Some may grasp the need for social media campaign but fall short on effectively running one.

A Digital Marketing Agency is as essential to a business as a Law Firm or an Accounting Firm. However, unlike these two examples, a digital marketing agency directly impacts your bottom line. There is no debate that the activities of such an agency can be quantified and tracked instantaneously.

Evaluate your business and it’s position in the digital space, if you recognize any of the following as something happening with your business then it’s time to bring in a digital marketing team. A good digital marketing agency will be able to facilitate all aspects of your digital needs.

1. The competition’s site looks better & works better

Review your competitors’ website. Check out the site’s functionality, look at its design, study the copy, pay attention to the loading time. Evaluate how your website stacks up. The key with an effective website is not to stand back and allow your site to fall behind the existing technologies of the day. Instead the opposite is required, get ahead of the curve, develop a site that saves you time and money. A website you can manage easily in-house that clearly communicates what you are all about. Your services are easy to find, the company culture is communicated in the design, the functionality improves your efficiencies and customer service.

2. Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Tumblr, Linkedin, Blogger

If none of the above are part of your existing strategy for developing business then it’s time to hire a Digital Marketing Agency. Understanding how, when and where to reach your ideal customer online is as an important part of any marketing plan. Combined, social networking sites have more registered users today than some countries have citizens. This alone should make targeting your consumer base an essential strategy. There are hundreds of social networking sites at your disposal. A blended strategy and balanced mix of these networking sites can help drive traffic, increase customer awareness and increase consumer engagement with your brand. Not engaging in these areas, particularly when your competitors are, is a sure way to reduce your market share.

3. SEO, SEM, PPC, Google, Bing

Search is still the number one activity performed online.  Determine if your website is fully optimized. Working with a Digital Marketing Agency can ensure that you are and continue to be. It’s important to have a solid search strategy and to understand the key ingredients that go into getting great search results.

4. Huh?

Not understanding what to do, how to do it or not wanting to do it yourself are all great reasons to hire a Digital Marketing Agency. Many business owners are experts at building great products and services. When it comes to promoting and selling their products and services, they don’t have a clue or an interest or more importantly the time to devote to online marketing.

- follow Thinking Giant @thinkinggiant