SoloSEO

Google ups Analytics: Now Track 50 Domains

Posted by Michael D Jensen on September 19th, 2006

Google has expanded Analytics to now let you track not just 10 domains, but 50. Google Analytics is a comprehensive statistics application that tracks traffic and stats for your domain.

Back in August the number of domains, or “profiles”, I could track in my analytics account was increased from 5 to 10.

Today I just noticed that my profile has been expanded to allow me to watch 50 domains, a significant increase from 10.

The other day there were several blog posts (like SEOmoz) about CrazyEgg.com which creates heat maps from where visitors click on your site. Google Analytics has a “Site Overlay” but nothing like Crazy Egg. I wonder if Google will jump into this. I’m guessing Google is not tracking the mouse positions like I assume Crazy Egg, but I don’t see it being impossible for Google to roll out if they wanted to. I’ve tried Crazy Egg and it has definitely given me some insight into where people are going, including to forms and such, which Google does not track.

Enjoy managing 50 domain profiles now in Google Analytics!

1 comment Visited 2092 times September 19th, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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Why are you scaring your customers?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on September 18th, 2006

Now unless you have a conversion rate of 100%, some of your customers are getting scared. Certainly some come accidentally to your site, but what is scaring the rest of them from taking action on your site? What can be done?

Don’t blame me, Blame the medium!

True, true, it’s not all your fault. The medium of the web does not give us the full ability to adjust for each customer’s individual needs. Surprise! No medium does that. We can only do as much as we can with what our customer is willing to share about themselves. They do share some things, even without their knowing (referrer, browser, OS, IP address –> city/state/country, time of visit, where they clicked, etc), but only so much can be inferred from this. We can ask them questions to find out more, but how many are willing to do that in the space of time leading up to the purchase? The bottom line is most of your customers come and you know next to nothing about them, so that is what we have to work with.

What we can do

I’ve been reading this book, “Waiting for your Cat to Bark?” by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. They are online marketing gurus, and have taken years of experience in other mediums to address what we face here on the web. The book is a must read, and I can’t wait to read their other books that I have (one on my shelf “Call to Actin”, one in transit from amazon [something about writing for the web]). So you’d probably be better off reading the book than this post, but thanks for humoring me.

This is what the book has said to me so far (I’m on page 140) about what we can do, and this is from the top of my head so it’s what has “stuck”:

• Identify “personas” instead of demographics
• Organize your site and create content and usability factors for each persona.
• Somehow lead them to “their” part of the site.
• There should be some way for them to take action on every page, and think first before you put it right down at the bottom.
• Put yourself in the personas shoes. What keywords are they searching for? What “risks” do they have that need to be addressed. What “knowledge” are they lacking that they need first? And how can they trust you?

This last part, trust, was mentioned at a recent post by CopyBlogger, titled “How to Overcome Skepticism” where he outlines how tutorials can be a great help in marketing. Tutorials would be just one part of an overall strategy, obviously.

Our attempt at “Personas”

I’ve been trying to go through personas with SoloSEO. I’m not sure how successful or on-the-point I will be, but here’s my thinking. Those looking for “Do-It-Yourself” SEO are:

• Economical - Can’t pay for a big firm, or hire new staff
• Control - Want control over their “marketing”
• Self-Learner, Independent - Willing to put time and effort into learning and doing it himself

So then from this list, I have put together three “personas”:

1. Sam, the SEO amateur - Sam has three sites of his own that he is running. He’s started to make some money off his products or advertising, but doesn’t have the funds to hire an SEO firm to take him to the next step. He likes learning about SEO, but is not at expert status.
2. Ingrid, the In-house Marketer - Ingrid is an assistant to an executive, and wears several hats. The company has a decent website but needs some work in marketing. Ingrid has some working knowledge in marketing, and is asked to help market the company website.
3. Paul, the SEO professional - Paul is a professional SEO, has several clients. He does not have a programmer, nor wants to hire one, but he wants to use some tools to organize his SEO clients and track each client’s progress.

What do you think? Am I missing a “persona”?

As I came up with these personas, I also thought that this works out quite nicely with the idea of “Siloing”. See Bruce Clay’s and Graywolf’s write-up about Siloing if you’re lost. Essentially you come up with “topics” for your site, essentially a vertical within your site. Within each topic you have specific keywords, content, and links that are related to this topic. If your topics are personas, the visitors fitting the persona should be able to find the content and resources built for them. This “topic” or “Siloing” is integrated into SoloSEO, so all your keywords, content, and link strategies all fall into “Topics” that you create.

Instead of scaring our customers, let’s make them feel happy and at home. Give each “persona” of customers what they are looking for, and you’ll have less scared customers, and hopefully more confident (and paying) customers.

3 comments Visited 11069 times September 18th, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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Finding the Perfect Domain Name

Posted by Michael D Jensen on September 12th, 2006

How many hours have you spent searching for the perfect domain name? I probably get a new domain/site every month or so, sometimes they are even great ideas. But in the past I would spend hours researching the right keywords, then jotting down ideas for domain names, then searching the availability of the domains. In the last month or so I finally put together an arsenal of sites (okay, it’s more of a small drawer of sites) for quickly finding the perfect domain name. SEOmoz recently posted on How to Name a Web-based Business, and this inspired me to write about what I do to find the domain.

Resource 1: Overture Keyword Search, Google

If your customers are searching for X, and that domain is available in a nice .com without any dashes (okay, just one is not bad), why not. But you can’t get a domain of Y if a customer doesn’t relate Y to X, when they are truly looking for X. Use Overture’s interface for searching keywords and find various forms of your keyword that people actually search for, and see how popular they are. Next consider googling it and see what comes up. You might want to make sure it doesn’t come up with adult content, or other undesirable relations to other sites. Also, if it is important to you that people search for your domain right from Google, you may consider finding something that doesn’t come up with a lot of hits (low thousands).

Resource 2: DomainsBot.com

For years I used directnic.com and godaddy.com for all my domain checking. I am never going back now! DomainsBot.com has an AJAX (think Web 2.0) enabled search tool. As you start typing, it starts searching. Check plurals, mix up the words a little, or whatever, but you only have to wait for your fingers to type it. It’s fast!

Resource 3: Thesaurus search

If anyone knows of a sweet web service Thesaurus, do share. For now you can just go to Thesaurus.com and search for a word that describes part of your message, and then see if another word will take care of it.

Other resources

If your immediate domain is not available (yes, business.com is taken) then you will need probably need to add another word into the mix. You could add a number, but that makes for an ugly domain name (unless you are 97thfloor.com). You also might want to stay away from “theYOURDOMAIN.com” and “myYOURDOMAIN.com” unless those are just exactly what you are looking for. To get some fresh ideas (though some might be stale), go to DomainFellow and try tacking on one of their more generic words/descriptors onto the beginning or end of what you are looking for. At the very least, it may give you some ideas. For more ideas, and I still have no idea how in the world I found this, go to a long text page of lots of words. Not only do they have some word ideas at the top, but they have domain names (some taken, some not) generated from combining various words. The most use I have gotten out of this is from just finding words I wouldn’t have thought of before.

Buying your Domain

I just found a great way to buy domains for a discount, at least for the first year. GoDaddy will give you a discount if you (1) search for “cheap domains” at Google, and (2) click on the GoDaddy ad (probably right at the top) advertising domains for $6.95. The discount will be applied, all you have to do is checkout with your selected domains.

Before too long you should find a domain, preferably “the perfect domain”. And if not, make it perfect by branding it and customizing it to be what you want it to be.

2 comments Visited 5036 times September 12th, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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If you don’t have a Company Blog, Get One

Posted by Michael D Jensen on September 6th, 2006

Do you really have time for a blog? Running a company is enough to keep you busy, and then some. Let’s get outside of the company for a minute, and think of what at least some portion of your customers are looking for. They want transparency, to see what the company is really like, to make sure you are real, and make sure you aren’t a stagnant rock. A company blog performs all these functions, and simultaneously serves your SEO strategy by increasing content on your site (more breadth, more entrance pages).

Blogs and Company Transparency

You’re still a customer, don’t get back into your warm company seat just yet. You are looking for X services or X product. You have your choice of companies to deal with, as your search results just pulled up 10 million + pages, along with 30 google ads for your search term. Where do I start? Which company is real? Call it luck, but they get to your site. The customer wants to (quickly) know a few things, more than likely: 1) Do they have what I need? 2) Can I trust this company? 3) How much for the product/service X?

Optimization of your site will handle #1 and #3, but #2 is hard to get out of a product description, or “features” page. Even your “about us” page will struggle at answering #2. But a blog, that’s a lot different than any of your articles, content pages, FAQ, or even help section. A blog has flavor, it has a sense of “down-to-earthness”, particularly a CEO’s or other executive’s blog.

You can easily integrate a blog into your site, just put up a Blog link somewhere accessible. Then start writing. Write about your industry, some thoughts you had on the way to work this morning about something related to what you do. Write about an employee that has done an exceptional job at something. Be yourself (if you fake it, they’ll know it). Talk your company up, when you have a new feature, new event, new product line. Even if your site stats tell you that no one is reading them, keep at it.

Blogs and Company Activity

Your customer not only wants to know that you are real, but to know that you are not stagnant, sitting in the same pool that you were in 5, 10, 15 years ago when you started. You should be up on the latest blogs that are in your field, and you should link to them (except direct competitors…). Don’t be afraid to point to someone else on a topic because you were enlightened by it. Chances are your customers will gain your trust because they know you are out there and watching what else is going on in the industry, and you will be able to provide tip top services/products, even if the customer conversion does not occur for days, weeks, or months in the future.

If you’re not harnessing the power of a blog on your site and for your SEO strategy, get over what is holding you back and get a blog. You’ll be glad you did. While you’re thinking about a blog, visit randfish’s blog post on 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic.

Add comment Visited 2062 times September 6th, 2006 Michael D Jensen

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