Are you meeting Your website's Business Goals?

Doing business online is not the same as doing it offline. But one thing that remains the same in both is the measurement of your progress towards achieving the business goals. Whether online or offline, every business enterprise tries to measure the progress made and level of profits achieved through it's business strategies.

Website key performance measurement indicator (KPI) is a metric that defines, measures the progress that a company has made towards achieving the website business objectives and goals. It is that single most important factor that augments and shoots up your e-commerce sales and lead generation strategies. So in case of website key performance measurement, one of the key factors is the page views per session that acts as a fuel for triggering off and achieving your targets.

Page views represent the amount of times your pages are viewed by the people that visit your website.Telling an advertiser accurately that you have 5 million page views per week, it’s very likely that this alone will be one of your KPI’s, simply because if this number drops, your advertiser's interest in advertising with you will drop too. This will make it all the more important for you keep the page view count at least to the same level every week in order to keep the same level of banner revenue.

Similarly sessions represent the amount of visitors coming to your site over a given period of time. So it becomes an important metric in ensuring that only the right kind of people come to your site as this would mean better sales for you. These are two examples of the KPIs that can help you measure the performance of your website from various angles.

KPIs developed properly allow you to measure things on your website that directly effect your business objectives. Given above is one demonstration of finding ways to improve the number of pages people view per session. There is more chance that those users will complete your calls to action (buy, register, subscribe, whatever web business objective you may have). This is one of the KPIs that suggests you to consider as an early warning signal that something is wrong and it’s very easy to determine how to set a measurement. Similarly there can be more such KPIs that can be measured for better sales and lead generation. What you need to remember is the kind of website business objectives that you have set for yourself.

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Web Marketing Essentials: Strategies that Every Web Marketer Should Know

You write a book and do not tell anyone about it. You compose a song and it keeps lying in your notebook in a closet. You create something useful for the whole society but don't expose the people to it. The basic fact of life is that when you do anything in life, it makes no sense to anyone till the time you advertize your creation or make people aware of your invention.Similarly, web marketing is all about marketing and advertising your products and services online so that users come to know what all you sell or provide. It's like spreading word around about your products and services in order to get more targeted traffic.

If you are in business, then you have to make your product and service known to the consumers in a very organized as well as effective manner so that more and more people come to your site and buy your products and services.

Be very consistent and regular in marketing your goods and services.

Always have clear cut goals and a well chalked out plan for your online marketing.

It always helps to use a combination of various marketing strategies as you never know which one clicks.Also it gives you choices and alternatives to work on, if one fails or doesn't take off.

Depending too much on just one strategy, however good that maybe, is a dangerous proposition as everything changes with time and one strategy that is good today, may not be so effective tommorow.

Always test the strategy that you plan to use for your website. This way you can do away with the strategies that are not working well for you.

Email information really helps as through it you can inform the interested users what all you offer and how they can benefit and this can be easily done by setting up an autoresponder delivering quality information after every 7 to 10 days.

Writing ezine ads and placing them on the ezines that cater to your niche market also helps you to get more response than otherwise.

Newsletters on your website are another amazing marketing strategy to get more visitors and marketing your products and services. Ask people to subscribe to your newsletter and send the newsletter once in a fortnight to keep in touch with your subscribers and to keep them updated about what is happening on your front.

Having a testimonial on your site or requesting permission of the clients to use them as referrals is also a very good web marketing strategy. Asking the happy and satisfied customers to be used as references will help you a lot in your marketing efforts. There is no harm letting others know and post comments of clients who have lavished words of appreciation for your products and services. You can also place the link to your client's website so that you both gain in the process.

Know your prospective market well and accordingly plan your marketing strategy. You must be clear about your intended audience and then structure and organize the best suited marketing strategy for that type of audience.

Writing articles and publishing them in good ezines with a link back to your website can fetch you innumerable links pointing back to your site.

Since popular forums are regularly indexed by search engines, if you participate in one of the forums closely related to your field and leave a link back to your site, your site will get a major forward push.

Anything offered for free attracts attention. If you too offer something related to your products or services for free, you will surely convert many visitors into clients. It is all about convincing people that you are good, you mean business and you offer stuff that is reliable and good quality.

Getting involved in reciprocal linking can also help you market your wares pretty well. But make sure that the sites you are linking to complement your site and are relevant to you.

Your website content has to be really good with the best of the keywords laid out well on the pages. Also place keywords in the title, headings and subheadings, but do not over use the keywords.

Expand and enlarge your networking horizons so that you develop good rapport with people you come in contact with. Take advantage of every meeting, seminar, or presentation and make contacts, know people as this will give you insight into whether people are interested in your products and services or not.

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Things That an SEO Expert Should Never Do

Usually we talk about what all to do and consider while creating a website so that you get targeted traffic and rank high in search engines. But we forget to discuss about what you must not do, in order to improve rankings. Let's discuss these important 'not to do' things avoiding which you automatically get your site placed among the top ranking sites on search engines:

Do not indulge in KEYWORD FLOODING- When you try to place a whole string of keywords in the homepage thinking that you are the smartest SEO expert around, you are actually making a fool of yourself. Never flood your home page with keywords as less is always more in SEO. It is best to restrict yourself to 3-4 keywords at the maximum and then concentrate on them on the homepage as well as the title tags.

OPTIMIZING only the content- It is the whole page and not only the content part that makes the website be optimized. Many a times,webmasters, due to negligence or in a hurry, forget to change the non-visible header area of a page in Dreamweaver or otherwise. These are the sites that have the same, duplicate, content in the title and meta tags on every page. Only the visible content is different. It is best to optimize each page for a keyword that describes that particular page well. Don't forget that it is not only the body part, but the header area as well that needs to be optimized for best results on search engines.

OPTIMIZING only non framed sites-When you create a framed site, do you optimize it properly? If no, then stop dreaming or hoping of finding your site on the SERPs. You have to treat and optimize your noframe tag content just like a normal webpage. Not only this, also link to your framed pages from noframe area and use Javascript for your framed pages in order to get the pages called by search engines.

Only FLASH Sites- Having only or most of graphics on your page or having flash sites that offer no HTML alternative is never going to let your site get a higher ranking or more traffic. You must not make all your site as graphic text. The search engines must find some pure text to be spidered and indexed. The best would be to have text around a Flash object.

Wrong choice of KEYWORDS- The keywords for which you optimize your webpages have to be carefully and seriously researched and you must srtike correct balance between not so broad or narrow choice of keywords. Many of the webmasters don't use any keyword research tool, being overconfident of the fact that they have made an amazing site with extremely good choice of keywords. This is a mistake that they make as proper research selection of keywords is as important as any other SEO technique.

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All About Authority Websites

What is an Authority Website? Just like we have an eye specialist who is an authority in eye related ailments, cures, and prescriptions,or a specialist in any other field, similarly an authority website is a large authority full of resources on a specific topic. It is a website that commands a lot of respect in its niche area of expertise. For example, a website like SearchEngineWatch.com is an authority website on every imaginable topic or news on search engines. People go to it for any kind of information or to remain updated about search engine industry and they trust as well as respect the site for the valuable information that it provides to users.

Now it is possible to attain higher rankings and better results by creating an authority website of your own that caters and whets the hunger starved users in that particular field for which you have created your authority website. Things that you need to keep in mind while creating an authority website are:

Don't try to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Brainstorm and think of a niche that you will target. Your niche must be very specific and as narrow as possible. The more specific your niche, the better are the chances of your getting lesser competition and increased rankings for the keyword you are targeting for.

Another important factor is writing fresh content and regularly updating your content as you are now an authority on a particular topic and people are looking forward to you and expecting relevant and updated content regularly. It really helps if you syndicate content from othe websites that are also authorities in their niches. This you can easily do by finding RSS feeds on many topics on websites. Not only this, writing articles and blogs for your site will also help you tremendously in improving your website's ranking and reach.

Forum building is an amazing method of building your website, simply because forums supply with you fresh content as well as good number of visitors that come back time and again to discuss the industry related topics. No doubt, starting a forum may give you sleepless nights initially, but once it gets going and running smoothly, you will get fresh content without making any efforts on your part.

Having your own link directory will also facilitate your web building process. This will serve a dual purpose:

1. Firstly, it will help build your backlinks from other websites by requiring reciprocal links during submission time.
2. Secondly, the number of pages of your website will increase as each business will in most probability submit a description along with the link. Now this description will most likely have keywords related to your website. This translates into instant generation of pages with keywords of your choice and interest.

Though building an authority website is a lot of work once and for all, but the benefits that you can reap from it are manifold and long lasting. You not only get seen or become visible on the search engines quite prominently, but also get the opportunity to see, advertise or promote your products and services.

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Making Your Website Visitor Oriented

Planning before Development of the website

As it is commonly said that always plan whatever you aim to achieve or do. Planning is the first and most important step towards execution of any project, work, exam, or even holiday. So, before just starting the development of your website, it is advisable that you spend some quality time planning and working out certain issues, like whether:

You have ensured that there is adequate demand for a particular product or service in a given industry or
You have closely studied and analysed your competitors' techniques and strategies or
You have worked out a tentative amount or dgree of traffic or audience that might come to your site

Designing Your Site

After proper planning comes the designing part which is another very important part of creating a website that is user oriented.This stage requires a very skillful coordination between the website owner (who is the initiator of the work) with the designer,developer, and copwriter. In fact, having a pre-site design meeting with all the departments is very important as it will help the different departments to remain focused on what initially was the idea or conception of the website. Some things that need tobe kept in mind while designing are:

The site's name is the brand ambassador of your site. Therefore, it should be clear and legible to visitors and should be placed in the header of the site. A lot of thinking should be done before selecting and deciding on a particular name. The name should correspond and gel with your products and services. Ensure that the links are underlined and the actions that you want visitors to take are clear.

Consulting a Media Strategist

Once your site is created with great and relevant content, great design and a very useful development strategy, time has come to consult a media strategist to provide you with ways and techniques of targeting the related audience and traffic. It is the media strategist who will tell you whether to go in for e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, PPC, or anything else.

Keeping track of your site's performance

Creating and launching your website is not the end of the cycle. In fact, it is after the launch that the real work begins. Yes, now you have to keep track and measure your site's performance regularly to ensure that your site remains hot and happening as ever and does not waiver from the top position due to your negligence and neglect. In other words, you must acquire a log file analyzer program to measure your site's performance. Have feedback forms on your site asking visitors to share their views regarding your website, and offer any suggestions, if they have for improving the site.

The crux of the whole story is that a website is like a movie that needs an audience. If the movie is not good, theatres will remain empty and there will be no selling of tickets, which means no profit or business.

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