Delgar.net Blog

I’m always surprised by the number of website owners I speak with that don’t know the answer to that question. As a website owner you MUST know how many visitors you get each month, what search engine they used, how long they stayed on your site, what keywords they used to find your, and more.

Stats - Google Analytics
This is a free service which give you incredible details about who visits your site. You sign up for an account, they give you a piece of code which you put on all your pages, and in no time at all you can see just how your site is doing. Analytics shows you:

• Number of visits
• Number of hits
• How many pages viewed (total and by each visitor)
• Which are the most visited pages on your site
• How long they view each page
• How long they stayed on the site
• What search engine or from what site they came from
• Keywords used to find you
• Country they come from
• Language
• Browser used
• Monitor size used to view your pages
• Bounce Rate (See Definitions below)
• Much more

All this information is valuable to you as the site owner, your webmaster, site designer and search engine optimizer, in the marketing, design or redesign or your website.

Counter on the Homepage
Many sites have counters on the homepage recording hits to the site. This is not an accurate system for anyone. All this does is exaggerate the number of visitors or hits to a site. Most site owners that have requested counters from me tell me to start the counter at 10,000. You will notice on these counters that it increases every time you refresh the page or go to a new page. To the website owner it provides no real value.

Definitions

Visit: a visit is counted as 1 person who visits your site regardless of how many pages they look at.

Hits:every item on the page that displays when you go to it, including the page itself, counts as a hit. So if you have a page with 10 pictures and some one goes to it they will register 11 hits, the 10 pictures plus the page. If they go to a second page with 10 more pictures, that’s another 11 hits.

Bounce Rate: In Analytics you will see this value. It represent the percentage of visitors that left the site from the page they entered. So this means they landed on your site and left without going further. I have seen some presentations and seminars stating that a good bounce rate should be between 40-60%. The lower the better.

Your comments, corrections and additions are appreciated.

…

Enrique

www.delgar.net

Do it yourself web design… is it right for you?

Using a “do it yourself” service or even having a friend or family member design a site is not usually a good idea for a business.

A professional web designer or developer will sit with you to discuss your business goals and objectives and figure out how your website will help you achieve them. The goal of your site is to sell a product or generate leads via email or phone calls. A professional, with business and marketing know-how is your best bet. These designers keep up to date with usability trends, web marketing and optimization techniques and know how to use the right technology to achieve the desired results.

Do it yourself sites

I have worked with several clients over the years who first tried to build a site on their own using tools and templates provided by hosting companies and others. They gave up after a while for many different reasons:

• Could not achieve the look they wanted
• Tools were more complex than they first thought
• Limited choices of designs they could use
• Ended up with a “cookie-cutter” site
• Site did not deliver results (visits or leads) they expected
• Could not completely customize the site

A friend can design it

This can be a good way to start provided the designer knows a bit more than just putting together a website. Make sure your designer knows about:

• Usability – How easy is the website to use.
• Accessibility - accessible by as many people as possible
• Search Engine Optimization
• Adding statistics code like Google Analytics to track your visitors
• How much do they know about your product and service
• Web marketing such as Adwords

There are many tools and services out there which allow individuals to build their own site. Some are very good and keep getting better every day. However, they just don’t do everything which is required to have a successful website:

1. Professional design
2. Good content
3. Usability
4. Internet marketing trend
5. Search engine optimization
6. Keyword analysis
7. Pay-per-click advertising for initial traffic

Your time is valuable. Creating a site will take some time away from what you do and know… your business.

Consider all cost associated with a do-it-yourself solution and compare them with a design professional’s quote:

• cost of service
• your time spent
• research
• trial and error
• lack of results
• learning about keywords, search engine submission, copywriting, Meta Tags, pay-per-click, etc

Your comments, corrections and additions are welcome.

Enrique

www.delgar.net

Landing Pages
A landing page is a single web page where often a visitor “lands” after clicking on a banner or advertisement.

Your main website may be divided into several sections and requires some looking around for a particular product or piece of information. The landing page puts it all in one place. The page should have your contact info or a form as a “call to action” for the potential customer. They allow you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns by tracking the number of visitors to it.

What should go on your landing page
Call to action – ask the potential customer to call the number of submit the form to get more info, to buy the product now and take advantage of the special offer. Add them at the top of your page and on other locations throughout to make it easy for when they are ready.

Links to your site – not only to allow a visitor to learn more about your company or other services, but to build “in-bound” links to your main site which helps your search engine ranking efforts. Put a text link to your homepage or your URL at the bottom by your contact info.

Beware of creating landing pages that have the same copy and content as other pages on your site. These “clones” could be seen as spamming by the search engines and bring penalties to your listing.

Stats code – like Google analytics which allow you to track the number of visitors, what site or search engine they came from, how long they stayed, what links they clicked, etc.

Keep it simple – remember to focus each landing page on a particular product or service. Do not include unnecessary information. Remember they click on your ad to get here and they expect a specific message.

Additional Resources:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46675

Enrique

www.delgar.net

Your comments are welcomed.

When buying a domain name we like to tell our clients to buy it from registrars that give you a login which allows you, the owner, to have control over your domain and make changes as needed. With this in mind I usually send my clients to either Goddady.com or NetworkSolutions.com.

Here’s the scenario

You find a hosting company and buy your domain through them. Makes it easy to get the domain and hosting in one place.After a while you need to or want to move to another host. Now you need to point your domain name to that new host, but because you don’t have direct access to your domain you must continue to deal with that company. What if they go under? Finding your domain will take a bit of work.

You can transfer your domain to a new registrar like Goddady for about $7 and it takes 5-7 days to complete provided your domain is not Locked and the domain contact can be reached.

Did you know sometimes hosting companies or web designers buy a domain for you but put it under their name? Guess what, it’s not really your domain.

Cost

Plan on paying $10 - $15 per year, but you will often get them for less. Buying a domain for multiple years offers you pretty good discounts.

Auto Renew

This is an option that automatically renews your domain upon expiration. We have a client who lost her domain name after using it for many years. Their domain was listed in many industry websites and enjoyed good ranking and recognition with her domain. They relied on the hosting company where they registered the domain and hosted the site. They sent her a reminder every year a couple months before it was due to expire. This year, however, the company went out of business and the domain was left up for grabs.

Within 24 hours someone else purchased the domain. We inquired about purchasing it and were told that bidding started at $1000.

Private Registration

This is a good idea to protect your personal information from spammers and the likes. When you register your domain your name, address, phone and email are made public to anyone doing a WHOIS search. It will cost you a couple bucks but it’s worth it.

Domain Transfer

You can transfer your domain to a new registrar in about a week with no downtime to your site.

Enrique

www.delgar.net