As blogs make it easier to publish more information, the process of finding information becomes more difficult. This makes keeping up with the Blogs harder than keeping up with the Jones! Consider one of two options to keeping up with the feeds: Check and read every blog/web site of interest to you all the time (daily), wasting all of your time and energy doing so. Ignore the blogs and use a search engine when ever you need information - but now you don't keep up with things … [Read more...]
posted on April 20, 2008 by
Blog Examples in a Website
In the last article, we looked at why you would want to use a blog on your web site. We mentioned that people can either use a blog as their web site, or simply add it in addition to their web site. We even used GM's Fastlane blog as an example of a corporate blog that you may not expect. Obviously GM, a manufacture of cars, is not the technology work horse you would expect when you think of other companies which might blog (like IBM, Microsoft, Google, and others). Obviously, the amount of … [Read more...]
posted on April 15, 2008 by
Why use a blog on your website?
Image via WikipediaWhat makes blogs interesting and the most often used form of Web 2.0? Because they are self contained, and allow for existing pages to be edited without knowing (X)HTML, once a theme is created and applied, it can be easy for a non-technical small business owner to work with. You wouldn't buy a new work vehicle without know how it was going to be used! Likewise, it is important to know how you will use your blog. Will it be as a traditional blog, for internal use, for … [Read more...]
posted on March 19, 2008 by
Optimize your pages for better Pay-Per-Click placement
I've written about optimizing your site before, but it was in regards on how to optimize your site based upon your usage. Now there are other reasons to optimize your site, especially if you use Google's Ad Words to advertise your business. A little history Google Ad Words was one of the first ways which small business owners could advertise on the web. It allowed you to create small ads based upon keywords which people typed into Google. Users could bid on key words to modify the … [Read more...]
posted on March 14, 2008 by
Happy Pi Day
Happy Pi Day (3.14.08) Let's face: it you have to be at least a little bit of a geek to be a web developer for a living. … [Read more...]
posted on March 9, 2008 by
An internal error
A while back I wrote about integrating new software and components into your business and web site. I suggested that you pick components that would, among other things: Provide a solution to your problem, Integrate into your web site, and Have good support. Shortly before writing that, had recently added WordPress as the blogging tool I use on this web site. I had choose it because it was a completed tool which was actively maintained by others, and it easily be integrated into my … [Read more...]
posted on February 27, 2008 by
Getting the most from your consultant
In a recent article 7 Things I Love About Small Business SEO the author gives 7 things he likes about working with small businesses. As someone who routinely works with small and new businesses, I have to agree. Generally they can move faster than a large business, are more concerned with results, and are loyal if you perform for them. This is part of the reason why I love working with small businesses myself. However I would like to offer a few things small businesses must be careful … [Read more...]
posted on February 26, 2008 by
Measuring Marketing Effectiveness – A Simple Case Study
Web Analytics is often used by marketing staff members to determine their effectiveness. This is a real-life example of how I recently helped a company measure the effectiveness of their internally driven e-mail campaign. A company I work provides training to their clients on the products they have purchased, as part of their on-going support. Before I started working with this company, only basic analytics from the website was tracked. Not even all of the pages were being actively … [Read more...]
posted on February 20, 2008 by
Using your analytics data to improve web site performance
It's one thing to look at your reports, its another to start to draw conclusions from your data. Different people will look at the data in different ways. Most often, the reports are looked at by the marketing department/person to see how to better market the site, what Search Engine optimization needs to occur, and measure the effectiveness of their pay-per-click ads. All of these are important uses of the web analytics, but they are not the only uses. I want to look at a specific example … [Read more...]
posted on February 8, 2008 by
More Metrics – Where Your Visitors Come From
Learning how our web site works is an important task. We've seen some simple examples in previous steps (visits, page views, and unique visitors) as well as determining how long someone visited your site, and which was the last page they viewed. We've shown how some pages are viewed more than others, and where people exit your web site. We've even shown what pages people come to your web site. What we will look at now is how did they get to your web site. Before they were on your web site, … [Read more...]