1. First of all you will need a Google account.  If you are using gmail you can use those login details and if not, sign up for an account then proceed to check in with Google – click on the sign up button to get started.

2. Enter your site details including URL and timezones, click to continue then enter your contact info.

3. You will be taken to the tracking instructions.  To make sure Google knows to track your site, you must put the code given on the right hand side of your screen on your site – copy and paste it onto every page.

Once you have it set up and its been tracking traffic for a few days, you will find all kinds of valuable information that will enable you to improve your online marketing efforts and make educated decisions:

Your traffic: where it comes from (both geographically and from other sites), how often people visit, how long they stay and which pages they visit and more;

Your content: which pages they land on and where they go from there, which content drives the most traffic etc (or the least);

Your goals: track your online marketing goals  including conversion rates, funnels and Adwords campaigns.

Tips

• Filter out visits from you or your employees as they can skew your results.
• Set goals – Analytics allows you to set goals pertaining to your traffic.  You should use these to track success.
• One of the things I like best about Analytics is the ability to view data in different ways – remember to use these capabilities to view graphical representations of your data.

Having problems installing Google Analytics or no time to do so?  Just let us know.  This is just one of the many services we provide.

Thanks to songglod on Flickr for the traffic pic!

As your site’s welcome mat, the elements of the home page are critically important in terms of communication and usability.

What’s your story? Just say it.

Visitors expect to find out in three seconds or less if a site has what they’re looking for. Jakob Nielsen, a web usability consultant, says that not explicitly stating what you have to offer is #1 of The ten most violated home page design guidelines.

If the headline on your home page says “Welcome to company X,” that’s only telling your visitors who owns the site – not what you can do for them. If your company story is buried in generic corporate speak, it is a one-sided pitch that visitors quickly see through.

In plain language with purposeful words, explain what your product or service is and how it can help your visitors. Use first person so that it feels like a comfortable conversation. Then casually direct them to other pages for more information.

Keep the important stuff above the fold – that is, above the point where visitors have to scroll down to continue reading. They may not get that far, so you want to make sure to make an impression early on.

Make the reading easy with subheads and bullets

Web readers tend to scan on-page content to decide if they want to stay or move on. (Did you know that the back button is the third most-used button on the keyboard?) To make it easier to scan and to hold visitors’ attention longer:

• Break up your story with intriguing subheads
• Use bullet points to separate thoughts
• Incorporate links into bullets to direct visitors to other pages

Where do they go from here? Don’t leave them hanging.

There are many ways for visitors to navigate your site. But it’s up to your site to show them where to go and how to get there.

Does your site have a global navigation – defined as a set of top-level navigation links (for example, Home, About Us, News, Contact Us) – that appear on every page? This helps to orient your visitors. The global navigation should be in about the same place on every page, with the page or section that visitors are currently on highlighted.

Don’t rely on your global navigation alone to be your site’s road map. Include links to important pages in the content of your story. At the bottom of the page, give readers an option to go elsewhere, such as “Contact us for more information.”

Let visitors know they’ve landed on a happening site
Today’s websites are dynamic, engaging and interactive. When people arrive, convince them that there is real value in sticking around. Some ideas for doing this are:

• What’s new? – showcase your latest projects
• Newsletter sign-up – offer free information
• Recent blog postings – prompt visitors to read and comment
• Social media widgets – invite them to follow you on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
• Post your latest podcast
• Link to your latest press release

Say no to digital barriers – open the doors wide
You want to eliminate any and all frustration around your site, so avoid the following:

• Splash landing page – you know you hate these. So do your visitors. What’s more, splash pages make your site virtually invisible to search engines
• Pop-ups – unless there’s a good reason for a pop-up, don’t go there
• Embedded scroll-down boxes – these can be confusing to visitors, and they’re not pretty
• Long sign-up forms, surveys and password requests – too much work and your visitors are reaching for that back button

When visitors arrive at your site, they already know what they’re looking for. Will they find it on your home page?

Louise Desmarais is an SEO copywriter with a loyal following of web clients from across North America. Louise operates Mud Creative, a writing company based in Calgary, Alberta.

[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/Podcast13.mp3]

Bluelime Media has long been our preferred partner for web design and development projects. We recently sat down with their “chief code monkey”, Christine Rondeau to talk about their approach to building effective web pages and the changes she has seen in the industry in the last few years. Enjoy!

[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/Podcast 8.mp3]

Thanks to the ZDNet blog for this very apt cartoon. Same could be said for many company websites too.

These days its all about interactivity and collaboration. Its easy to make websites more dynamic and to involve your audience rather than communicate at them. There are thousands of widgets out there to allow you to question is are you doing it? Go on – interact with us – you know you want to…..

He works with Bell Canada to create a site that takes advantage of social sharing to promote Bell’s music and movies.  He predicts Bell Canada will be an openID broker.There’s no real compelling reason to do this right now but it will be way of future.

I haven’t captured half of what Marc said so you should check out his aforementioned blog and his PeopleAggregator company.

Nice job Marc!

1. Update your site regularly – this may seem obvious but many corporate sites rarely change.

2. Post a video – it can be short and sweet but has the added benefit of enhancing your image.

3. Add a podcast – we did it this week and you can too. Our traffic has gone up by about 50% since. Coincidence? I think not.

4. Label your images – most sites don’t bother but this is viable real estate on your site, use it. Image titles should relate back to your keywords and offering for maximum impact.

5. Use Google’s webmaster tools – make sure your site is crawled regularly, submit your sitemap (okay I concede you might need a technodweeb for that) and identify any problems so that you (or your technodweeb) can fix them.

6. Get bookmarks – book marks are like links the more you have the better. Hit on employees, partners and colleagues to bookmark your site.

7. Comment regularly on relevant blogs and always remember to insert your url correctly.

8. Spend some time developing a keyword map for your products and services so as to identify the most effective words to use and those to avoid.

9. Use bold and headings to identify key terms in your text.

10. This one should be first on the list but it seems so obvious I almost left it out. In case you haven’t done so, remember to submit your site to Google and other search engines otherwise there’s no hope whatsoever.