Website analytics is continuing to rise in the online world as an ever evolving strategy in website marketing.  Any business should be analyzed continuously to find weaknesses and ways to improve.  Imagine owning a grocery store, and having the ability to receive stats on the number of people visiting your store, how many of those walked down the fruits and vegetables isle, how many customers picked up an orange to smell it- returned it and moved on to the apples.  Or, even having the ability to find out where they came from and how they were referred to visit your store, what day/time of the week they went shopping, and to even be able to keep in touch through email for reminders of upcoming sales and deals.  What if you could get all this information for free?

Although software and online services are readily available at a pretty penny,  Avinash Kaushik (a notable web analysis guru) recommends adhering to a 10/90 rule: “10% of the budget should be spent on tools, and 90% spent on people (brains) who will be responsible for insights.”   Websites should at least use free services like, Google Analytics, Omniture, or Stat Counter to gather plenty of data of user activities.  Once a good amount of information is captured, analysis of that data (90% of your effort) uncovers the “whys” of user shopping habits, and navigational trends through a website.  Any website that puts even a minimal amount of effort into web analytics, will quickly find greater success with improved leads or sales.

User behavior online can be very predictable.  Effective marketers learn to listen and study their target market’s routine for surfing the net.  The Internet has certainly made this easier with web analytics.  We can use analytical tools to help target specific keywords that convert.  Users go through a few phases before committing to a purchase.  Here’s how it works:

Education Phase:  Initially the user’s search is general. Once they see a few vendors selling different brands, they become educated.  A preference is then established.

Preference Phase:  Now, they most likely search by a specific preference. Competitors ranked for this phrase are considered.  The user may go to a brand’s website for example, to learn more.  Now they’re sold.

Conversion Phase:  By the time they reach this phase they are ready to buy.  At this point they are most likely just considering options like: free shipping, pricing, reputation, or other promotions. At this point do not create any stumbling blocks.  These users are easy prey.

Try to focus your SEO / PPC efforts on specific key word phrases during the conversion phase.  Let those “other guys” fight over generic keywords.  They will only educate the users for you.  When your customer is ready to buy, you’ll attract them by a specific key word phrase (that may also be less competitive).  Study your target market’s behaviors online and strategize an approach.  By doing this you’re customers will convert on the right key words.

It seems like just about every niche is covered by a blog.  Some niches have dedicated blog evangelists.  The advantage of the variety of blog publishers out there is that you can get nearly instant access to readership.  As traditional marketing continues to change, users online are taking more and more control over freedom of speech.  Press releases can be freely distributed, products reviewed, and opinions shared about business is all freely posted and indexed online (good or bad).  Any business or corporation should be concerned about what’s being said online and how they can influence their image among users.

A press release can be written and submitted to blog publishers to share your story.  Press releases use to be restricted to large media organizations filtering content, whereas now there are very little limitations.   If you have a newsworthy event or interesting information for a specific niche- write up your story and submit it to blog evangelists who tend to be very supportive (make sure they include a link back to your site!).

A new trend of business reviews by participating publishers, are on the rise.  Most blog evangelists welcome a free product, book, or service to review and in return for a posted summary on their website.  This instantly gives your product a strong testimonial and positive reaction among regular visitors to a blog.  The price of a product to reach 10,000 niche impressions in a month is much cheaper and more effective than many advertising strategies.

Opinions about business in blogs and forums are regularly shared.  Any employee interested in PR for their company should quickly do a search for their name by keyword and pull up results.  In most cases you might be surprised at what you’ll find.  Your overall image and brand could be largely influenced (good or bad) online and you may be completely unaware.

A tag line (and logo) is the most important ad you’ll ever run, because if strategically sound, it can leave a lasting impression of your brand or identity.  It should simply and clearly encompass the single most important impression you want your target market to retain.  A lot of professionals have come up with formulas to create a tag line, which really is a series of brainstorming sessions worded in creative ways to make their claim to fame unique.  Don’t make the mistake of diving in without a clue!  Brainstorming is critical, but don’t forget about starting from square one.

Here’s my opinion for those who stay up all night wondering where to start:  Take a tag line, boil it down and you’ll discover it closely resembles a business’ position statement, which is just as critical to your identity creation.  Your positioning should define in a solid, competitive statement what makes your business unique, such as, “We will position Sally’s flowers as the freshest in the market.”  Notice Sally doesn’t ramble on with, “and wonderfulest, and beautifulest, and bestest and just everything you would ever want in a flower- oh yeah, and redest too.”  Your brand can’t be everything to everyone.  Stick with one concept, one defining element, and the ultimate void in the market your product or service is filling.  Whatever the “one” is, be sure it is clearly communicated in your tag line (with a clever twist).   Once you have the one impression you want to make, create a logo and start brainstorming tag lines.