Sweetmantra: Internet Marketing Advice

Surprising Findings From my Blog's Traffic Statistics

I recently checked the traffic statistics for my blog, Sweetmantra, and was so surprised by some of the numbers that I thought I'd share them with you.

For the last year or so, I've been using Google Analytics to measure and analyze the traffic to my blog. (As an aside, Google Analytics is a terrific - and free - tool.) To be honest, though, I don't spend a lot of time checking the traffic statistics for Sweetmantra because "traffic" is not the main reason I blog.

Nevertheless, when I checked the source of traffic for last month (July 2007), I was rather surprised.

• 65% of my traffic came from organic search results (i.e., search engine queries)
• 18% came from type-in traffic (i.e., people who typed the URL "www.sweetmantra.com" into their Web browser)
• 17% came from referrals (links) from other Websites and blogs

What was I surprised about?

Well, first of all, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of my overall traffic I was getting from search engines. For me, this further proves how search engine friendly blogs are compared to 'traditional' Websites. It also means that a lot of these visitors are probably stumbling across my blog and discovering me and my work for the first time. Thanks to search engines, I'm reaching a new audience, and at little to no cost.

I was also intrigued by the referral source details. Getting traffic from links from other sites and blogs is key to how the Internet works and a great way to generate traffic. Nothing new there. What surprised me was how much traffic was generated by a single blog that linked to my blog. Although I received traffic from 52 different third-party Websites and blogs last month, a tourism Internet marketing blog located at tourismkeys.ca (that I had never heard about and had never contacted) mentioned one of my posts on June 27 and this accounted for 9% of my referral traffic (i.e., 1.5% of my total traffic) in July.

I should also note that I continue to get a steady stream of blog visitors from my profile on two popular social networking sites: Facebook and LinkedIn. If you have a Website and/or blog and aren't linking to it from your profile on these two social networking sites, you're likely losing a great traffic building opportunity.

When was the last time you checked your traffic statistics? You just never know what pleasant surprises and learning may be waiting for you.

Defining Success Metrics for Corporate Blogs

I was recently asked to help someone define success metrics for a corporate blog. I thought this was such a great topic that I'd share my answer with a wider audience.

Many of the success metrics for blogs are similar to those that might apply to a Website, since blogs are a variation on a Website.

These 'shared' success metrics include:

Blog/Website Traffic

• Unique Visitors
• Unique Visits
• Repeat Visits
• Page Views
• Page Views per Visit
• Average Time Spent on site

Blog/Website Brand/Content Interactions

• Content Page Views
• Content % of Page Views

Blog/Website Responses (if applicable)

• Number of Desired Responses
• Conversion Rate from site visitor to Desired Response
• Cost-Per-Desired Response

In addition to the above 'shared' success metrics, there are a number of success metrics that are specific to the unique nature of blogs.

These blog-specific success metrics include:

• Number of Subscribers to the blog's RSS Feed
• Number of Overall Inbound Links to the blog
• Number of other Blogs that Link to the blog
• Number of Comments Submitted to the blog
• Number of Trackbacks Submitted to our blog

Not all of these success metrics will apply in every case, however these are some of the more common ones.

Site Search Best Practices

We all know that anything to do with search is hot these days.

And now the smart companies are starting to take a closer look at the search engines on their own sites.

Whether you call this "site search" or "internal search" or 'who-knows-what' search, I predict this area is going to see a lot of excitement and evolution in the next few years.

I recently completed a fascinating site search consulting project for a large media company. Since they publish a number of magazines, they have a vast content archive and a vested interest in making it as easy as possible for Website visitors to be able to get to their content as efficiently as possible.

My company was hired to help the media company understand how to improve their site search. During the course of the project, my colleagues and I developed an unofficial list of what we started to refer to as "Site Search Best Practices." These best practices are independent of any one particular site search system (i.e., the technology solution) and will be of benefit to any company, large or small, that is implementing site search.

So, without much further ado, here are some of our Site Search Best Practices:

1. Make sure you are measuring usage and other key metrics related to site search so that you can keep track of the impact that any fine-tuning to the system makes. You can't manage what you can't measure.
2. Most site search systems allow the Website owner to configure the default search results layout a number of different ways. For instance, you usually have control over whether or not the results display the article's full URL, author's name, publication date, etc. Consider your particular target market and configure the search results layout in a way that is most relevant for them. If you don't know, ask them!
3. Include a highly visible link to 'search tips' content on every search results page, preferably adjacent to the search input text field, and make sure this content is written in plain English and kept up-to-date.
4. Automatically display 'search tips' content if the user's search does not generate any search results. Don't just strand them on a page that says, "No results found."
5. Follow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices when creating new content/pages (and design templates) because a page that is well configured for an external search engine will also be well configured for an internal search engine.
6. If you are using a content management system (CMS), ensure that your internal content development team understands how to properly input and tag the content they are creating and why this is so important.
7. Synchronize your site search system's crawling/indexing schedule with your content publishing schedule, whether that be daily, weekly, or monthly. And make sure it stays in sync.
8. Configure the site search system to automatically notify representatives of your company's IT department AND content/publishing department in the event the system goes offline. Because it will, and you want to be the first to know.

Since the site search landscape is in a constant state of flux, I consider this list to be very much a 'work-in-progress.'

Ten Questions to Ask When Considering Hosted Software

I'm a big fan of the Application Service Provider (ASP) model for obtaining access to powerful software for use in businesses large and small. In case you're not familiar with the term, Application Service Providers are third-party organizations that 'rent' online access to software to clients that they manage and host on their behalf.

Examples of solutions relevant to Internet marketers that I've used (among others) include www.campaignmonitor.com (for email marketing), www.salesforce.com (for CRM), and www.parachat.com for chat).

There's a 'hosted software' solution for just about anything you might want to do these days. But how do you ensure you are choosing the right one?

If you're an Internet marketer considering a 'hosted software' solution for yourself or your clients, here are 10 essential questions you must ask the software vendor before you sign on the dotted line.

1. If the software will be sending automated emails to your customers, what has the ASP done to ensure that their outbound email server does not get blacklisted?
2. What sort of editorial control do you have over these emails? Can you edit every single element, such as the subject line and "from" fields, or merely the body copy?
3. What sort of design control do you have over Web pages generated by the software? Is "customization" limited to including a logo or do you have full access and control over the entire page layout?
4. If the software generates Web pages, are they search engine friendly? How much control, if any, do you have over the page title and meta information?
5. If you plan to serve a Canadian market, and the software is from the United States or elsewhere, can the language be 'Canadian-ized' so that, for instance, colour is spelled with a "u"?
6. What is the uptime of the server that the software sits on? How fast is this server's connection to the Internet? And what happens if the server crashes?
7. If the software is generating or storing a database for you, how and how often is this critical asset verified and backed up?
8. What kind of instructions are available to you and your team to get the most out of the software? Is there a detailed manual or online tutorial section for you to refer to? Training? Samples and templates?
9. What kind of support will be available to you? Is it just email support or can you actually phone and speak to a ... gasp... live person?
10. What sort of guarantee will you be provided with? Can you test drive the software for 30 days, which is about how long it might take (at least) to know for sure if it will do the trick, or do you have to commit for a year right from the beginning?

The answers to these and other questions will help you decide if a specific 'hosted software' solution is the right choice for you. Good luck!