Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Firefox Add-ons Help SEO Analysis

Here is a list of Firefox browser extensions that will help you manage your search engine optimization strategy. If you're having trouble moving up take a look at your website and compare what you see to your top ranked competitor.

KGen - Keyword generator analyzes a page for keyword frequency and placement. Also offers transfer to clipboard for use when tagging bookmarks.

MetaTags - Offers a side bar menu showing a web page’s meta data, links, keyword frequency and others.

SEOpen - 23 different metrics from back links on Yahoo and Google to Archived pages, whois and checking robots.txt.

SEO For Firefox -Aaron Wall’s clever and configurable tool with 13 different signals ranging from domain age and Page Rank to del.icio.us bookmark and .edu inbound links.

SeoQuake - Interesting tool for analyzing search results and various parameters that may influence SEO. Work can be saved for future reference or comparison to subsequent measurements. Don’t overdo it or you’re in trouble.

Niche Watch Tool - Checks back links, indexed pages, keyword frequency and several other SEO signals.

Search Status - Highlights nofollow links, back links, indexed pages, Alexa and Compete rankings.


Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com/

Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.

Friday, January 25, 2008

What Is "Good" Conversion?

Today I spent the day with a client in New York City and I'm on the Amtrak Acela back to Boston... I love the Internet (my laptop, my Sprint broadband modem, and my new iPod Touch!).

We talked about conversion and last year their website converted 2.54% of their gross visitor sessions into inquiries. If you use my rule (i.e. take your total visitor count and cut it in half - they are not qualified visitors or they are just people clicking around the 'net), the conversion pops up over 5%.

From those inquiries they booked 147 new clients. Good stuff, for sure.

Conversion... you say. What is conversion, Chris?

Conversion is that magic moment, the goal of EVERY website (IMO), when a bride or groom visiting your website does something you want them to.

If you sell your services it's most likely an inquiry, a phone call, or may be a download of your take-away - you are using a take-way, right?

If you sell online it's when they put something into their shopping cart and then, if everything goes right, enter your checkout process, put up their credit card, and complete the purchase.

So the question is: What is a good converstion rate?

Obviously, the higher the better.

But realistically, if you sell services anything below 5% is an indication something is wrong - either with your website or your traffic (i.e. poor qualified traffic) - or both. Below 2% and you've got a disaster on your hands.

In most cases, I see conversion in the 2% to 3% range and I think that is the average. Keep in mind, that's just an inquiry - not a sale. Tweak your online marketing, do some testing, and I've been able to get to between 10% and 16%.

When it comes to ecommerce the numbers are, sadly, worse. A .5% (1/2 of 1%) conversion is not unlikely and probably about the average. Yes, about average. An ecommerce site that converts 1% to 2% is above average. In a recent article in Internet Retailer, some sites claimed to be in the 6% range. Those, I'm sure are not typical.

As you might guess there are a lot of things that impact conversion and it's almost ridiculous to say there is an "average." Factors like quality of traffic play a large role, things like email marketing and repeat visits/visitors also impact conversion.

Bottom line... track your results (Google Analytics), test different page copy (split testing), test different graphics, test using landing pages (if you're using pay-per-click), get feedback from people who bought from you... gather up all your data and then, and only then, will you have an idea of what is REALLY happening at your website. If you think you've got trouble, then drop me a line.

As for my New York City client, we're shooting for 280 new clients in 2008 and optimizing conversion, getting it to 8% to 10%, is our plan of attack

Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings

Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Get Better Results From Your Website: Tips #893-897

Later this year I'll be publishing my book "1000+ Internet Marketing Tips, Tricks, and Resources: How To Get Better Results From Your Website, Reach More Online Brides, Beat Your Competition, and Book More Weddings." One of the questions everyone asks me is: "how can I get better results from my website" which is hopefully asked before "I used to get lots of leads from my website, what went wrong?"

Ouch!

One simple way to get the best results from your website when marketing to brides online is to make sure your website creates a FAVORABLE EXPERIENCE.

When I walk into the Whole Foods Supermarkets in the Boston area - man, I immediately get a FAVORABLE EXPERIENCE. I'm not necessarily impressed, but let me tell you, these folks are all about FAVORABLE EXPERIENCE, especially when compared to the competition (who they leave in the dust!).

Tip # 893: Does Your Website Create A Good First Impression?

There's no better way to leave a POOR FIRST IMPRESSION then by setting off warning messages in someone's web browser when they visit your homepage. Active-X scripts/menus will do that on most Internet Explorer browsers that have even basic security enabled. Slow loading home pages leave a poor first impression. If your homepage takes more than 6 seconds to load (i.e. your Flash "splash" page), don't be surprised of brides just decide to hit their back button and leave!

Marketing to brides online, how's your bounce rate?Don't believe me? Go take a look at your "Bounce Rate" if you're running Google Analytics (which you should be). If it's high, your traffic is leaving before clicking on any other link at your website or in less than a minute.

More at this link: Marketing to Brides

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Serving Video via YouTube (and a very funny video!)

Today I thought I'd share a funny video that is being served via YouTube.

So this post is a LIVE EXAMPLE of using YouTube to "serve" your video clips - whether at your blog or at your website.

It's pretty simple:

1) Open a YouTube account

2) Load up your videos

3) Grab the "link"

4) Put it on a web page at your site

In other words, you are "plugging in" your videos from YouTube at your website (or, in this case, a blog).

Cool stuff and FREE!


I highly recommend you take advantage of this technique and in most cases I can't see someone wouldn't do it this way.

Benefits:

Easy

Serves videos across all platforms: Windows or Mac or ???

Eliminates the "streaming or no-streaming" issue (YouTube player streams!)

Fast delivery of content

Saves you bandwidth charges with your hosting company

Enjoy!






Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com/



Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

PPC and Landing Page Quality Score

Too many people I speak to who are using Google Adwords don't know what a landing page is.

Even worse, they're not familiar with Page Quality Score, which will impact your bidding costs (poor quality score requires higher minimum bids, higher quality score has a positive impact: lower minimum bids and potentially more impressions and clicks - for less cost-per-click!).

For more information about Quality Score visit:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/websites-that-may-merit-low-landing.html

For more information about Landing Pages visit:
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46675&hl=en


Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com

Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

The Five C's of Successful Websites

#1 - Content

The information on each of your web site pages is very important.

First, it's what a bride came looking for. If you don't provide what brides are looking for at your website, guess what? They leave. So if you have traffic, but not results, it would be a good idea to take a look at your page content (and also the source of your traffic which should indicate the quality of your traffic).

Secondly, the words and how you use those words on your page play a critical role in how well your website is ranked by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Content means not only delivering a valuable marketing message (unique value proposition, value/benefit, call-to-action), but using the right keywords and keyword phrases so brides and grooms can actually find your website!

Content is very important. Content is King.



Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com

Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.