Google Analytics Training
In my previous post I talked about why you should use analytics on your site and why I think Google is the best solution out there. Now that you know Google is the cream of the crop, how are you going to go about learning all of the cool features Google has for you to take advantage of? My recommendation is to go through their Google Analytics training classes.
The first things that you will learn are:
- Introduction: What Google Analytics can do for your business, how it works, how often the data is updated, and how to set your data sharing preferences.
- Interface Navigation: How to set your date ranges, how to graph by time units, how to compare multiple metrics, how to export, how to email others your reports, how to navigate, how to use report views, how to segment and sort data
- Installing the Code: Where to place the tracking code and how to verify installation.
After getting these basics down then you will learn how to interpret reports and analyze data, how pageviews and visitors are calculated, how Google tracks the time users spend on your site, the different kinds of traffic sources and how to identify which ones are the highest quality, how to interpret top content and landing pages, navigation summary, and entrance/exit paths.
After going through those tutorials (about 40 minutes worth of material) you can study the fundamentals (about 90 minutes) and then go into in-depth analysis (34 minutes). All-in-all you should be ready to be an expert in Google Analytics after watching around 2 hours and 45 minutes of video. Google even has a test that you can take to make sure that you absorbed the knowledge. If you missed anything then it will tell you what areas you may need to go back and refresh your memory on.
Why Use Google Analytics
If you are a site owner then you should have some form of analytics installed on your site. This will allow you to track your user's data and make informed decisions about how to operate your site. Let's take a look at a few reasons that I use analytics with my Internet business:
Spotting Problems - Setting up analytics will allow you to easily spot bugs, mistakes, and oversights. The sooner you spot them, the quicker they are fixed and you are back on track.
Managing Campaigns - If you are using any sort of pay-per-click (PPC) then analytics is an absolute must, but beyond PPC you also need to monitor organic search for the results you are getting from certain keywords, or any other kind advertising that you are doing.
Spotting Opportunities - If you see trends in your analytics, like an increase in the number of people finding your site by a certain keyword, then you can start to ramp up your link building efforts for that specific anchor text.
Improving Conversions & Testing - What pages are most of your visitors finding first? What are they doing after they land on your site? Is there anything that you can do to drive them to your money pages or get them to sign up for your newsletter? How are you going to know the answers to any of these questions if you aren't tracking visitors?
Hopefully by now you understand just how important it is to have some sort of analytics program on your site, but which one to choose. There are several good providers out there, but Google Analytics is my preferred solution. Here is why:
- Easy integration with Adsense and Adwords: This allows me to track my earnings from Adsense, and also allows me to search which keywords are profitable in my PPC campaigns.
- E-Commerce Integration: I can track my sales back to specific pages, keywords, etc...
- User-Defined Goals: What pages do I want my users to end up at? Easily customizable.
- Reports: Dashboard is configurable and gives me a quick overview of the information I want to see, plus I can export the data in a variety of different methods.
- Users: I can assign different people on my team access to different site profiles.
- Up-Time: Google is tough to overload, so you know there is going to be near 100% uptime.
- Custom Reports: Secondary segmentation and drill-down of the data.
- Mobile Analytics: Tracking the phones and operating systems used.
- Site Search: So I can see just what my users are looking for.
- Event Tracking: Allows me to track clicks on outbound links.
The only real down side to Google Analytics is that the data is not in real-time. It's delayed by a few hours, but I look mostly at long-term reports so this isn't that big of a deal to me. It is easy to install, so I recommend getting signed up today and start using this great service so you can track your visitors and use the data to improve your site performance.
Exit Pop Up Code
Did you know that 98% of people visit a website and then leave without taking any action at all? They don't place an order, they don't sign up for your RSS feed, nor do they sign up for your newsletter.
I know there isn't a lot of love for pop ups anymore, but you have probably lost these visitors anyway so why not take a chance to give them another opportunity to take action. Most have already decided to leave your site anyway! You can use the exit pop up code to do any of the following:
- Give the visitor a special offer (a discount to the product or a free trial)
- Remind them of the free giveaway you are offering to all subscribers to your list (you are building your list with incentives right?!)
- Show them related products
- And much more!
With the Exit Catcher Pro an unblockable exit pop up is triggered when your visitors click on the back button or when they try to close their browser. This gives the user a second chance to see your offer that is right in front of their eyes. Turn lost visitors into paying customers or subscribers the easy way!
Exit Catcher Pro is very easy to use and customize. You just enter the message you want the visitor to see, what target page you want them sent to, and what piece of audio you want to play. There are 10 audio files already loaded into the software for you to choose from.
I will be using this unblockable exit pop code to give my visitors discounts, downsell products, offer incentives for joining my list, showing related affiliate offers, and more.
This script can recapture 20% or more of your exiting traffic, so think about how much more money your site can make by using this exit pop up code!
Making Your Site Stand Out
There are a TON of new sites that are created each and every day. With all of that competition, how are you supposed to compete? The key is to make your site stand out from the crowd. Your site needs to be unique, memorable, and one that adds value to the reader. You only have a few seconds to make an impression on your visitor, so how are you supposed to get them to take notice?
Unique Header Design - One of the first things a visitor will notice is the top of your site. You want to have a memorable site logo along with your site's name and tagline. I also recommend having your customer service phone number if applicable, and the different ways for visitors to connect with you (like Twitter, Facebook, Email). I also like to have a general menu so users can drill down to what they are looking for, and a search box so they can enter keywords they want to find. Of course, advertising spots here are pretty valuable and can generate some extra revenue if they fit into your layout.
Footer - This is the last chance you have to make an impression on the visitor, so don't just waste this space. Most sites simply put their copyright information and repeat the name of the site. This is a nice spot that can be used for partner links (or exchanging home page links) and a sitemap to carve page rank to the pages that you want users to land on.
Sidebars - You want to design your menu for the user, allowing them to easily navigate to the sections they might want to read. You also want to make sure the search engine spiders have access to all of your previous posts, so I almost always include my categories and date archive links in the menu. This allows the spider to crawl deep into my site.
Of course after these simple design tips you need to create dynamite content to keep the readers interested. That's the most important part. Hopefully these few simple tips will help your site stand out from the others in your niche.
Increasing Conversions Using Analytics
We briefly touched on the topic of setting goals in Google Analytics with the how much do you make from your traffic article, but today we are going to go a little bit more in depth because it's important to study your analytics in order to increase conversions. Our example is going to be nice and simple, how to get more of your visitors to sign up for your newsletter.
The first step will be to create a goal in your Google Analytics account that recognizes when a new subscriber has signed up. I make this the thank you page on my site. Once a new Aweber subscriber confirms his account, the user is taken to my thank you page which might have a free offer or an ebook available for download (you are building your list with free incentives right?). This way I can track what page the user came from when deciding to sign up for the account or which PPC campaign if one was used.
Now, how can I use this information to increase conversions? I do it with split testing. Try testing out a couple of different signup boxes, with different text for the free offer that you are providing. After reaching 1,000 visitors or so on each, which one had the higher conversion rate? If you have a clear winner then that is your answer, but don't stop there. Create another offer and run it, comparing it to your original winner. Maybe the original still has the higher conversion rate, but after testing enough offers you might find that you can come up with something even more appealing to your visitors.
What about the hover box that has your newsletter signup in it? Again, you can test the text inside the box to see which converts the most visitors to subscribers, or you can test the time it takes to appear. Maybe 15 seconds works best for your niche, others it could be 20-30 seconds. You simply are not going to know unless you test.
Of course you don't have to only set goals and test for your newsletter signups. If you run an ecommerce site then more than likely you have a confirmation or receipt page after the buyer pays. Test different offers for your products to see if one has a higher conversion rate to that page.
Basically I want to stress two points: you should be using analytics and goals to track your visitors, and you should always be testing to see how you can increase your conversion rates.
Where to Put Ads on Your Blog
One of the more popular questions I have been asked when helping someone start a blog is where to put ads in order to maximize revenues. The important thing to remember here is that not every blog is the same, which means that you are going to have to test some different designs and ad formats in order to increase your click throughs, which should mean an increase in revenue from advertisements whether it is through affiliate programs or cost per clicks.
The picture on the left shows the hot zones according to google adsense. These are the locations that their studies show ad placements generate the most clicks. While looking to see what the graph shows and mimicking it on your site might work out just fine, let's dig a little deeper and figure out why those spots are as premium as they are.
The first thing that you might notice is that above the fold ads do a lot better than below the fold. This stands to reason since the user doesn't have to scroll down to see the ads.
You'll also notice that ads on the left do better than ads on the right, which fits in the Western style format of reading a page from left to right.
Users also focus in on the content, so the top of the content area is the best place for ads. However, the end of the content area also does well, and in my research I find that this is a great place for text ads for relevant sites, simply because the user has finished reading your peice and is either looking for more information on the topic, or they are interested in the topic and any related products or services will catch their eyes.
A few additional points that I have noticed personally. Larger banner ads do better than smaller banners. I think this is because the advertiser has more room to put information on a large banner and thus can draw the user in.
I have also noticed banners do well when the user is forced to look over it. If you put a banner between the menu and the content, or if you break up the middle of the content with a banner, those two positions have worked out great for me in the past.
I also like the stripe ads at the top of the blog, you can pick those up by going to Max Blog Press. Text link ads inside your content also do a good job of generating clicks, so if you write reviews or just link to something relevant in your content. You can automatically change the keywords in your blog by using the Ninja Affiliate program.
These are just some of the things that I consider when I'm putting ads on a site. Do you have any additional tips or tricks? If so, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.
Stripe Ads
I'm going to try out a new form of advertising with the addition of the Stripe Ad to my sites. This is the single line of text that is displayed at the top of the site in a nice, clean stripe.
I've also thought about using the Stripe Ad as a call to action which will take users to a specific landing page, maybe of a hot product that I am selling. There are some sites where people I never read our terms of service, so this might be a good spot to draw their attention, or to display breaking news.
Another nice thing about the ad is that you can rotate it between several different ads, which is perfect for testing, and I'm a big fan of testing in order to maximize conversions. If you want to weight one ad more heavily than another you can do that as well.
A nice thing about the Stripe ad is that you can customize the look of it to match you blog, with options on the font type, text size, alignment, and colors.
If you want to add the Stripe Ad to your blog then visit MaxBlog Press and download it yourself!
Cheap Webhosting
If you plan to make money blogging then it's important that you use a quality webhost for your site, but if you are just starting out then you might not have a lot of money to spend on a solution. However, you don't have to worry because I've found some of the best sites for hosting your new blog or web site that won't break the bank.
There are plenty of other low-cost webhosts out there, but you are going to want to make sure your sites are up and running 99.9% of the time or you are not going to be able to make as much money online as you should be.
HostGator
One of the best webhosts that I have found is HostGator. I have been using this company for quite a few years for my sites and they are inexpensive, have several different plans to fit your needs, and their customer service is top-notch. Plus, it is extremely easy to install WordPress or several other content management systems for your site using Fantastico. One click and the files are uploaded for you and the database is created!
BlueHost
Another hosting company that I use and strongly recommend for beginners is BlueHost. They also have the cpanel backend, which makes everything easy to find and easy to use. You also get the Fantastico installs, which if you are a beginner can be a real help to get you started (and save you money from having a professional install something).
Basically if you go with either one of the above companies you will get a cheap webhost to help you get started making money online. Both of these sites are fairly big, so you don't have to worry about them disappearing one day and taking your site along with it.
If you want to find your own webhost, make sure that they are going to guarantee 99.9% uptime, they have 24 hour live support via phone or live chat, and that you can cancel at any time without incurring a penalty. If they don't live up to the hype then you want to find someone else who does.
Which hosts do you use? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.
Web Analytics & Tracking
If you have a website or a blog then you should know about web analytics. You can learn a lot about your site, what works, and what doesn't if you take a look at your stats on a frequent basis. Most hosting companies provide some kind of stats software, but I recommend adding Google Analytics to your site in order to get a complete picture of what your visitors are doing and where they came from. Best of all, it's FREE to use!
Here are a few metrics that I think everyone should keep a close eye on. There are countless of different options in the Google Analytics back end that you can track, but don't get bogged down in spending too much time back there. However, if you are paying for any advertising I would track the ROI on those campaigns, but that's a topic for another day so let's get started with this simple list.
Visitors
This is the most basic metric to monitor. With all things being equal if you get more traffic then that should mean your site will make more money right? If your goal is to keep increasing your general traffic numbers then you should continue to make more money from your site.
Pageviews
This is how many pages your visitors are looking at. Increasing the number of pageviews will increase the "eyes" on advertisements which will help you charge more for your space. Linking to relevant posts at the end of each article is a great way to increase the pageviews on your site as your visitors spend more time looking at your content.
Referring Sites
Who is linking to you and how much traffic are they generating for you by doing so? If you get a lot of traffic from a link then maybe you should think about partnering up with that site or writing a guest post for them. If you are doing advertising then tracking click through traffic lets you know if it's generating a positive return on your investment.
Keywords
How are your visitors finding you in the search engines? Google the keywords found in this section of your analytics to see where you rank in the results. A few more internal links to that page could boost you up a few spots in the results and bring you even more traffic than you are already getting.
You will also find topics to write about and areas that you might want to focus on when you see which keywords visitors used to find you. For long tail keywords you can rewrite some of your content to include those phrases and see a boost for those terms as well. There are lots of things you can do from an SEO standpoint if you keep an eye on the keywords people are using to find you.
What other metrics do you track? This list is pretty basic but I think it covers the most important stats to look for.