Earlier, I wrote an article explaining how to use Google Analytics, and in one of the sections I included information about joining a Google Moderator series called, Web Analytics Question “Hour” with Avinash & Nick. If you don’t know what Google Moderator is, no problem, I wrote a post explaining about it , and how you can use it yourself to improve your own blog or website.

Joining their series allows you to ask questions and offer a thumbs up or down vote on other questions already asked. The questions with the most thumbs up votes gets bumped to the top of the list. Each week, Avinash and Nick address and answer the most popular questions. While they haven’t been exactly addressing these questions once a week, they have at least been addressing them.

That said, if you’re really looking to buckle down and learn the In’s and Out’s of Google Analytics, I totally suggest tuning in to this video Q’s and A’s offered by Avinash and Nick. Here is a recap of the items that have been addressed to date.

Web Analytics Q & A With Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski: Part One

In Episode #1, published on October, 15, 2009 discussed the following items:

1. How is bounce rate calculated
2. Effect of search bots on data collection
3. Finding a benchmarking category for sites that don’t fit into any particular benchmark category
4. What is the best way to identify landing pages with high bounce rate
5. How to find new keywords to improve content performance
6. Effects of private browsing and incognito mode on data collection

Be sure to visit their blog post that goes hand in hand with the video. They include show notes and links that were referenced in this video.

Web Analytics Q & A With Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski: Part 2

In Episode #2, published on November, 04, 2009 discussed the following items:

1. Strategies for non-bounced non-converted visitors (Macro vs. Micro conversion)
2. Ways to report total number of keywords over time
3. Benefits to tracking transactions as conversion goals
4. Tracking unique visitors to specific web pages
5. Path analysis for keyword reports — why it’s bad and what to do instead
6. How Google Analytics can be used on affiliate sites
7. How site owners can exclude themselves from being tracked by Google Analytics
8. How to properly track sites that reside on different domains but use a shopping cart on a different, common, site (cross domain tracking)

You’re going to want to view the blog post that correlates with the video because they include links to the resources discussed in the video tutorial.

Once again, if you’re looking to finally gain a better understanding of Google Analytics and how the program can help you, I suggest tuning in and listening to what Avinash and Nick say in these videos. While they said they’re going to be posting new videos weekly, it hasn’t been consistent. But that’s ok! I am pleased that they are doing them. That said, to assure that you don’t miss any of their new videos, I recommend subscribing to the Google Analytics YouTube Channel. Doing so, will get you a lot of great information in addition to the videos Avinash and Nick are providing.

Increasing traffic to your blog is something that can be a challenge for lot of people. So how do you get traffic to your blog? Well, there are many ways. For one, you can pay for traffic. I’ve never done that, but many people do. But what about free traffic to your blog? You might feel like you have great content, and a nice looking blog, but you don’t have traffic. That is where the buzz factor kicks in.

There are many ways to generate traffic with creating buzz. Some people offer contests, some people create blog memes and others write posts on controversial topics. Along with the various buzz building tactics comes a reaction. A reaction is the result of blog buzz. The reactions are either negative or positive.

Depending on what kind of buzz tactic you use will warrant which kind of reaction you get. So the key to getting traffic is by creating a buzz. But, within that, it’s your goal to create a buzz that scores a positive reaction. Anything less, then you’ll create what I call, one hit wonder traffic, which are people who visit your blog and don’t like what they see and never will return again.

How Do You Create A Positive Buzz?

Here’s something that I say to myself when I’m writing content for my blog. Following this for the last few years helped me create some of my best articles. I call this SEMI.

1. Stimulate. People want to stimulate their brains. Our brains are filled with thousands of pulsing receptors that need to be stimulated at all times.
2. Entertain. People want to be entertained. Why else do we have The Comedy Channel and a million and one Blond Jokes?
3. Motivate. People want to feel good. They want to be encouraged and supported. People want to be motivated and pushed towards achieving things.
4. Inform. People want to be aware. We want to know whats going on, how did it happen, who was the cause of it, when did this happen and where do I go?

Now, in the process of creating a positive buzz, you should remember SEMI and ask yourself this, “Is my post going to stimulate, entertain, motivate or inform people?” If you can get a yes for all four questions, you then have yourself an excellent post.

The great thing is that it doesn’t matter what topic you have chosen for your blog, you do have an audience. The best way to reach out to your audience is to give them SEMI! Take what you have learned in this post and write one today that follows the basic rules of SEMI!

Google Analytics is a free traffic analysis program offered by Google which is capable of generating detailed statistics about the people who visit your website. Google Analytics (abbreviated GA) can track visitors from most all referring sources including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click campaigns, email newsletters, and clicks from links within PDF files.

While GA is packed full of features and functionality, initially the program can seem intimidating and daunting to use. I’d like to share a few resources with you that may help lessen the overwhelming feeling of not knowing exactly how to use the program, and what its capable of doing.

The first thing you should do before anything else is subscribe to the RSS feed of the Google Analytics blog. If you’re using Twitter, you should follow them as well. The Google Analytics team seem to have put more effort into their branding compared to other official Google blogs.

You may notice that their top horizontal navigation is seamless between their blog and their education, home, product, and support pages. A matching custom orange background and their recognizable avatar have been added to their Twitter page, giving it a nice and professional appearance. Clearly a lot of energy, time, and work have gone into the Google Analytics blog, website, and corresponding social network pages.

The second thing you should do is subscribe to the Google Analytics YouTube Channel and immediately start watching the videos. At the moment, they have a total of 36. If you feel like it will take a long time to watch them, consider how long it took to create them, and also consider what the purpose is behind making them. I also recommend subscribing to their YouTube Channel RSS feed so that when you do catch up watching the videos, you’ll be able to watch the current ones quickly as they become available.

The last thing I recommend doing if you want to learn more about using Google Analytics is to join their Google Moderator series called Web Analytics Question “Hour” With Avinash & Nick. If you don’t know what Google Moderator is, no problem, I wrote a post explaining about it, and how you can use it yourself to improve your own blog or website. Joining their series allows you to ask questions and offer a thumbs up or down vote on other questions already asked. The questions with the most thumbs up votes gets bumped to the top of the list. Each week, Avinash and Nick address and answer the most popular questions.

As you can see, Google Analytics is important. It can be beneficial for you, and Google feels it’s even more essential that you learn how to use it properly. That’s why they have gone to such extents to help you learn. That said, what other advice, tips, or tricks do you know about? Also, what are some other resources that you know about that can help people learn even more about Google Analytics? Share them with everyone else in the comments below.

As a blogger, there’s many times when I need to create online video tutorials to share with my readers. Adding videos to your blog posts can help capture people’s attention, add different incoming traffic ports, increase the number of people who read and subscribe to your blog, and boost your organic ranking in search engines. The question is, where is the best place to upload videos to?

I can say that determining the best place to upload your videos to is up to you. The reason is because there are advantages and disadvantages with using different services. Below, I have included a copy of the same video that I uploaded into multiple online video sharing sites and also included are my opinions about each. You can review each video and read my opinions about each and determine which online video sharing site is best for you.

YouTube.com

YouTube.com is the most popular online video sharing site online. I would recommend using YouTube because of the added SEO value and traffic you can pipe back into your web site and pages. The disadvantages of using YouTube is that your videos will degrade in quality, and they can NOT exceed ten minutes in length. Because of the time limit, I was not able to upload my video to YouTube.com. Another thing that bothers me is that YouTube.com doesn’t inform me that the video isn’t going to process.

Yahoo! Video

I was actually quite impressed with Yahoo! Video. It has similiar qualities to YouTube.com, but doesn’t have the time restriction. The quality seems to be the same as YouTube.com. The disadvantages, in my opinion, is the lack of traffic, and SEO value. Uploading and processing the video didn’t take long at all, about 15 minutes.

MotionBox Formally AOL Video

AOL Video has been discontinued and traffic is being redirected to a service called MotionBox.com. I decided to give MotionBox.com a try and I am pleased with their service. The process of uploading a video was very clunky and not very systematic. The end result was a video higher in quality compared to YouTube.com and Yahoo! Video. The audio didn’t render quite as well. The disadvantages of using MotionBox.com is the clunky interface, lack of traffic, and I am sure lack of SEO value.

Vimeo Video

I enjoy using Vimeo a lot. It’s one of my favorite places to upload videos to. The interface is very user friendly and the uploading process is conducive to productivity. The problem I have with Vimeo is that it can take up to 30 minutes to batch videos if you have a free account. While this is annoying, I do understand and appreciate their business model. A premium account can be had for under $60 / year, which is very fair. The video and audio quality is amazing. The sharing features are brilliant. One of the things I enjoy most about the sharing features is that Vimeo will do the math for you when you’re customizing proper sizing.

Viddler Video

Viddler reminds me a lot of Vimeo but slightly lesser in quality, but much better than MotionBox, YouTube, and Yahoo. Viddler doesn’t quite match the quality that Vimeo can produce, nor do they offer the robust sharing features. A neat feature about Viddler is the fact that you can record videos on the fly, meaning you don’t have to use desktop software, such as Camtasia, to create the video. With Viddler, you can use record directly on their site.

Where Is The Best Video Sharing Site?

My vote goes to Vimeo. I would recommend upgrading to a premium account simply because it’s affordable, gives you a ton of more features, and it supports their efforts and helps keep them online. In my opinion, even the free account is superior to the other services.

After publishing this article, my strategy will be to use YouTube.com for it’s natural resource of traffic and SEO value. From there I’ll use Vimeo to actually display the videos direct on my pages so that readers can experience the best quality and ease of sharing with others.

(photo from Tyrone Shum)

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term direct navigation, here’s the Wikipedia definition for you:

“Direct navigation describes the method individuals use to navigate the World Wide Web in order to arrive at specific websites. Direct navigation is a 10 year old term which is generally understood to include type-in traffic.”

If you have spent any time learning about the world of domaining, you know that short, generic .COM domains are highly valued not only because they are extremely brandable, but also because they receive direct navigation (or type-in) traffic. While there’s no denying the branding power of a short, generic .COM name, a new report shows that direct navigation may be dying.

Earlier this week, Symantec released a list of the top 100 searches conducted by children on the Internet. While the list is interesting and worth looking at for yourself, here’s what makes the list particularly interesting (as noted by RWW):

“Another somewhat unexpected insight gained by examining this data is the fact that kids are searching for easy-to-remember URLs including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, and even Google. Why search when simply adding a “.com” on the end will take you directly there? Some may say that this points to children not entirely grasping the way internet addresses work, but it’s more likely an example of the trend where search has replaced typing in URLs for navigating the net.”

So, why is this significant? As asked and answered in the comments of this post:

“why is this bad for domainers? it may not be good for people who rely heavily on direct navigation for PPC/parking.”

“That is probably 50% of the domain industry’s revenue.”

Because search engines very rarely send traffic to parked pages, domainers rely solely on direct navigation users. Without this type-in traffic, no one is ever going to land on a parked page and create revenue for the domainer by clicking on an advertisement.

Now, for many people outside of the domain industry, they view parked pages as a waste of a domain name and don’t understand why they wouldn’t develop them and take advantage of the huge amounts of additional traffic that search engines can send. Unfortunately, while this may sound good in theory, because many domainers have tens or hundreds of thousands of names in their portfolio, the ability to create a scalable method of development has simply not been an option. So while it is easy to say that domainers who rely on parking to generate revenue are lazy, the reality of the situation is that the high cost of trying to develop a tens or hundreds of thousands of domains has not been justifiable.

So, what exactly does this mean for the domain and SEM/SEO communities? While this report could be flawed, there has been plenty of other evidence of an overall decline in the revenue generated by domain parking. While this will probably improve some as the economy regains strength, I think the big takeaway should be that there is a lot of opportunity for domainers and SEOs to work together in the area of development. Once again, I fully acknowledge that this is much easier said than done, but at the very least, I hope that it will spur positive discussions between the two groups, like the one started by this SEO guest post on a domain blog.

Image Credit: examiner.com

Placing banner ads on other websites can be a cost-effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website with the goal of increasing your leads and sales. But just like all other forms of advertising, there are some guidelines you need to follow to make sure you get an excellent ROI with your banner advertising.

Here are some tips to consider when buying banner ads.

•    Place ads where your target audience dwells—Let’s say you run an online video game store. You probably wouldn’t want to buy banner advertising on a gardening blog that attracts older women. Instead, you’d want to look at video game websites/blogs, tech websites, and other online sites that attract your target audience. Displaying your ads to a highly targeted audience will get you a higher number of quality clicks.

•    Location, location, location—While it might be cheaper to buy an ad on the footer of a website, you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth it. The most effective banner ads are those placed above the fold. They immediately capture the attention of new website visitors, whereas footer ads seem like an afterthought.

•    Test different designs and copy—Just like all other types of advertising, the only way you can find the most profitable method of banner advertising is to test out multiple designs and copy. Determine which banner ads get the most clicks and conversions, and ditch the ads that aren’t performing up to your standards.

•    Consider pay for performance deals—Many advertising networks offer plans that allow you only to pay for performance of your ad. In other words, you can choose to only pay a small amount whenever someone clicks your ad, rather than paying a large amount upfront. Or you can pay a set rate for every 1,000 impressions on the website your ad is being displayed on. This is the best way to get good value for your dollar.

•    Avoid flash—While flash ads are, well, flashy, the simple truth is most website visitors won’t wait around for your ad to load or to cycle through the entire advertisement. Instead, create eye-catching jpg or gif files that load instantly so new visitors can see them the second they land on the website.

Do you use banner advertising for your business? How do you make certain you get maximum ROI?

There are many tools and software available to help you study the performance of your website. But, wouldn’t it be cool to have a visual interpretation of the activity that takes place on your site?

In other words, instead of seeing the data in the form of stats and numbers, wouldn’t it be neat to see a visual representation of the clicks and the hot spots on your site? Being able to study your site in this sense could easily allow you to increase performance. Luckily for you, the technology is available, and it doesn’t cost you a dime to use it.

Checkout CrazyEgg.com. This site allows webmasters and bloggers an easy way to study analytical data in a visual form called a heat map. Simply add a few lines of javascript on your page and instantly you can start tracking data visually. CrazyEgg.com offers this free up to 6,000 visits per month. If you need to track more than 6,000 visits, you can upgrade.

After you install your tracker code CrazyEgg.com will begin creating a heat map of the page being tracked. The more people who click certain links, the brighter in color the area will appear on the map. Even though you can discover this data in analytics, having the data presented to you visually may allow you to see potential improvements. An example would be the “About Me” page on my own blog. This is one of the most popular links on my home page.

I wouldn’t have realized that simply by studying Google Analytics. Even though the data is there, it isn’t something I am looking for. But, having it appear brightly with the heat map, I can instantly see that quite a bit of my daily traffic migrates there. This has lead me to take a closer look at my “About Me” page and see if I can make any improvements to it.

Give CrazyEgg.com a try for yourself. Set up a free account and take advantage of tracking up to 6,000 of your visitors at no charge. If you exceed 6,000 in a month, you can either wait until next month to have your amount reset, or you can upgrade. Regardless of what you do, it’s well worth the time registering for a free account.

Image Credit: www.theconsultants-e.com

I’m assuming most of you already know what podcasting is, but just in case one of you has been living under a rock, podcasting is essentially your own downloadable radio talk show. You can do everything from talking about the hottest industry news to interviewing experts in your field. You can promote your podcast through your blog, website, iTunes, and other places.

A number of businesses have jumped on the podcasting bandwagon, and those who do it well are reaping several benefits. Here are just a few of the biggest podcasting benefits.

1.    Increase your authority—Just like blogging or writing an e-book, podcasting is another way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. The best way to build your authority is to give your unique insight on relevant industry topics without sounding like a constant advertisement for your services. By providing quality discussions to your listeners, your words will start to carry more weight, and over time, people will begin to trust you.

2.    Connect with a new audience—With the ability to place your podcast on iTunes and other websites, you have an excellent opportunity to reach an entirely new audience. Some of your listeners will be people who would have never found your blog or website. And once you have them listening to your podcast, you can direct them to your website, thus increasing your traffic in the process.

3.    Improve relationships with your target audience—For many, it’s easier to build a personal connection to a human voice than it is to an anonymous guy blogging. It just makes things more real, and it showcases the true you. Simply put, podcasting is another way to add a strong link in the chain connecting you and your target audience. You could also respond to questions submitted by your users to add an interactive element to your show, further strengthening the relationship.

4.    Build your brand—At the end of the day, podcasting is just another way to build your brand. Not only are you expanding your brand’s presence, but you’re also refining its image through the words you speak. You’re able to tell your story week after week. Just make sure the image you present in your podcast is consistent with the image you put forth in your blogging and social networking. Consistency is key when building a brand.

5.    Inexpensive promotion—Perhaps the best thing about podcasting is how inexpensive it is. With the right recording software on your computer, you can easily record, edit, and publish your own podcasts. And if your podcast becomes popular enough, you can actually make money by selling advertising spots.

Do you podcast? If so, how has it helped your business?

Creating a USP (unique selling point) for your business is essential to your success. Your USP is what separates you from the competition. It’s the main benefit that customers will enjoy if they do business with you. In short, it’s the thing that hooks customers in, keeping them from going to your competitors.

Unfortunately, a lot of the businesses I provide copy for don’t know what their USP is. It’s one of the first questions I ask them when outlining their copy. More times than not, the answer I get starts with “That’s a hard question to answer. It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing that makes us better than the competition. Hmmm…”  Now, I’m not saying it’s a breeze to come up with a USP, but the simple truth is you better figure one out or else you’ll never gain any ground on your competition.

So, before we talk about how to create a USP for your business, let’s first identify what is NOT a good USP.

Examples of Poor USPs

•    We provide great customer service—Every company says they care about you, the customer. It’s a hollow statement that carries no weight with the consumer.

•   We’re #1 in our industry—Again, every company says they’re the best. It doesn’t provide a tangible benefit for the customer to grab onto.

The reason these USPs are ineffective is because they don’t answer the only question the consumer truly cares about: What’s in it for me? Your USP needs to let the customer know exactly how they will benefit from doing business with you.

Examples of Good USPs

•    Domino’s Pizza—You got 30 minutes—Back in the day, Domino’s used to say “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.” Of course, this created a hazardous situation where delivery drivers were barreling through the streets at breakneck speeds to make sure the pizza got there in time. Despite the fact that the 30-minute delivery is no longer a guarantee, the current USP is still effective. When you’re ordering pizza, you want to know that it’s going to get to you quickly and on-time.

•    Burger King—Have it your way—This is another simple, highly effective USP. Burger King promises to let you customize your burger exactly the way you want it. It puts you in control, and it helps make certain that you get a product you enjoy.

•    RAID—Kills Bugs Dead—This USP works really well because it tells you exactly what the product does. You see “Kills Bugs Dead” and you know that if you buy Raid, you can get rid of those pesky bugs and roaches once and for all.

So, what do these great USPs have in common? First off, they’re all very simple and easy to understand. A good USP is clear and to the point. So, while it might be tempting to list everything you think your business does so well, you have to figure out a way to simplify it.

Most importantly, the other thing these USPs have in common is they answer the “What’s in it for me?” question that all consumers ask. So, above all else, when creating your USP, make certain it lets the consumer know what’s in it for them.

Questions to Ask when Creating Your USP

I’ll finish this post by leaving you with a few questions to ask yourself to help you create your USP.

1.    What do my products or services do?

2.    What do I offer that my competitors don’t?

3.    What unmet wants or needs does your target audience have?

4.    How exactly will your customers benefit by doing business with you? (needs to be a measurable, tangible benefit)

What’s your business’ USP? Share them with us in the replies.

If you’ve been around the Internet marketing world for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Content is King.” For one, it’s true. If you look at most of the successful websites, they have at least one thing in common – great content. And true statements (even though they’re sometimes buried in a cloud of garbage) tend to stick around on the Internet. Maybe you already know this, but I want to talk about a very similar phrase that you may not have heard a lot – “Community is Queen.”

If you think about it, the two seem to go hand-in-hand. If you have an active, thriving community, you’re getting free content on your site. This content (the king) attracts even more members to your community (the queen.) It’s like a marriage made in heaven, with both working in tandem to grow your website and increase your revenue. The problem is that if your king isn’t attractive enough or fresh enough, you’ll have trouble attracting a queen to your online realm. You can still grow the kingdom, but it can be more difficult.

So, the question becomes, how do you attract a queen (community) for your king (content)? Here are some tips:

Money – Diamonds are a queen’s best friend. You’ll find that money can solve some of your early problems in attracting a queen. You don’t have to spend a lot either. Instead of paying for content or writers, what about building a PPC campaign to attract users who will contribute quality content? You should be able to quite easily figure out after a month or so how much it costs you per “good user” that’s adding content to your website. If it seems high, think about this: if you keep them happy, that initial investment can more than pay for itself in quality content generation on your site.

Marriage – Which brings us to the next step – getting “married” to your queen or community. What I mean by this is coming up with a contact of some sort to share revenue with your community – who’s adding a lot of great content. If you look around, there are players (such as Jason Calacanis of Mahalo) big and small using this method. It can be a good way to keep your good contributors around once you attract them. If you get big enough, it’s a smart idea to think about putting up money to reward good writers and content producers (members of your community!) to create even better content.

Divorce – Sadly, this happens in a lot of marriages. The thing is, losing one or two people here and there is to be expected. You don’t want to lose the whole community (the queen), though. This is where it becomes a dance of sorts, trying to make sure everyone’s happy in the multi-person relationship. It can be tricky, but it’s worth it.

There are other connections that can be made, but that’s why the comment area is there! If you have any thoughts about finding a perfect queen for your king, share them below!