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To keep a leg up on your competitors, you need to know what people are doing on your site.

If you don’t have appropriate tracking in place on your site, now’s the time to get it. Not knowing how visitors are behaving once their visit your site is only going to hurt you. You could be monetizing basic visitor actions that would make you thousands of dollars if you were only paying attention.

Here we’ll discuss a few free, basic analysis programs available for your website, and how you can best utilize the information they can provide.

Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

Google provides some very useful, and very free tools that could help you make the most out of the various elements on your website.

Google Webmaster Tools can be found at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ .

With this powerful tool on your website, you can get an SEO analysis of various page factors, as well as an idea of where you stand in SEO rankings. It’s fairly simple to install on your site, and will give you a lot of insight.

Google Analytics is even more useful, in that it will show you how users are interacting with various parts of your website. http://www.google.com/analytics/ . Using Analytics, you can take a look at how long users stay on a page, what sources are giving you the most clicks, and what pages users are “bouncing” from, or leaving, quickly. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to make changes and improvements to your web page that are consistent with your conversion goals.

Another tool worth looking into is Wassup for WordPress. http://www.wpwp.org/ . Wassup is advertised as a “real-time” WordPress plugin, allowing you to take a look at visitor source and the visitor’s path through the website as they browse. Google Analytics and many other analytics tools take a while to process visitor information, and display that to you on your dashboard. Wassup claims to take the time out of that process by giving you real-time visitor info.

I Have the Tools – Now What?

If you have Google Analytics or other tracking services in place, your first step is to wait and gather some data. After a few weeks, you should have an idea of how users are behaving once on your site.

Begin by viewing the different reports available in the interface you’re using, and ask yourself what that tells you about your users. Is there a certain page, or a certain part of your conversion process, where you’re losing the most users? Do you find that people spend more time on some pages than others?

Our next blog entry in this series will talk about specific scenarios where your Analytics information could benefit you, so you’ll know exactly what to look for. Until then, do yourself a favor and put tracking into place that will give you info about what visitors are doing! You may be missing out on much more info than you think. Get started today!

So, you’re coming up with a social media plan for your website or blog, and you want to ensure as many people as possible are going to find you via bookmarking, following, and connecting on various social media websites.

Great – so how do you do that?

There are a few approaches to getting your website out there. We all know that if you don’t start social media profiles and have links to those profiles (like the famous twitter icon), people won’t necessarily know you have a Twitter account. You don’t want your readers to dig through your text to be able to follow you on Twitter.

You also want people who love your blog to be able to get updates from you on social networking services, and to know when you’ve posted something new or updated a feature on your site.

… And of course, the more you’re talked about and the wider your social networking reach goes, the more you’re going to be indexed. If you’re searching for yourself and you’re not seeing your social media profiles in the first few pages, then you have some work to do.

Twitter Me This

People love Twitter. Microblogs give us the opportunity to find out what’s going on without having to read a lengthy blog. The more convenient we can make updates for our readers, the more they’re going to be interested in keeping up with us – and possibly going to your site, where they can dig in deeper.

Twitter profiles and entries tend to index quickly. With such a large number of users interacting and exchanging data, this isn’t surprising.

I’ve worked with people who have 2-3 twitters going on just for one brand or enterprise. They have their Seesmic or Tweetdeck desktops open throughout the day, tweeting and interacting. Is this a good thing to do? Well, if you can keep up with it, refrain from posting too much duplicate content and if you can keep your followers interested, then it’s absolutely a good thing.

Multiple Twitter accounts or too much presence within one social media network becomes bad for your brand when Twitter is as far as you’re going.

Deepen Your Reach

There are far too many great social media networks out there used by people across the world to engage with users in Facebook and Twitter only. If you’re only using these two networks, consider branching out. There are plenty of great social media tools that will allow you to manage multiple social media networks at once.

Consider some of the following tools:

Knowem.com – Knowem will show you what your social media presence is throughout different networks, and can help you find networks that would give you good exposure for your brand.

Ping.fm – Ping will allow you to implement and manage several social networks at a time. It also has nifty plugins for WordPress and other similar services.

Hello.txt – Hello is very similar to Ping.fm, but you can manage multiple Twitter and other accounts using this network.

There are plenty more options out there, needless to say. Even if a social media network that gets less traffic than other networks turns one user on to your site or product, it could be well worth the time you invest in your profile.

Selecting the right keywords for your website content and html tags is still one of the most fundamental parts of any SEO strategy. While anyone starting a website or blog is likely to spend a considerable amount of time selecting the keywords they think will get them top search results, how often should you revisit the task, and how can you determine whether you have selected the keywords that are working the hardest for you? The following tips can help you keep your SEO strategy fresh, and your keywords the most effective they can be for your website or blog.

Evaluating your results

The first thing to consider when deciding whether it is time to rework your keywords is to determine whether they are performing as they should. There are a number of great tools on the market, both free and proprietary that can make this a fairly simple task. One of the best free keyword tools is part of Google’s popular Analytics application. If you haven’t signed up for this application then you absolutely need to. It is a great tool for your overall SEO strategy, and the keyword tool can help you determine the overall search results for each of your keywords.

If you are in the market for a more customizable SEO tool then you may want to consider purchasing the top selling SEO PowerSuite, though you may also want to think about the rather expensive price tag before making this decision. It has a variety of features that can really help you maximize your SEO strategy, and the keyword tool will not only help you evaluate your keyword results, but give you suggestions for more effective keywords as well. Though Google Analytics also has this feature, SEO PowerSuite is much more effective overall, and will improve not only your Google ranking, but your overall ranking online.

Improving your Keywords

Both Google Analytics and SEO PowerSuite can offer you tools to improve your keywords through suggesting ones that may be more effective. While this can get you started on improving your keywords, what sort of strategy should you have to maximize these results? The temptation to “keyword stuff” can be overwhelming, and while this can temporarily improve your rank, if your content quality goes down this may have the reverse effect on your revenue stream from PPC links or donations. One way to get around this is to try including keywords in areas of your website other than the content. Using meta tags in your pages title, using multiple domains, and working on your backlinks can all improve your overall ranking.

So in general, developing a regular routine of checking your keywords with some sort of SEO keyword tool and making improvements based on the provided suggestions, as well as your own experience will keep your website or blog where you want it to be.

If you own a business, then using local SEO could launch your efforts into to the top results for search engines like Google and Yahoo, and ultimately be the key to your success; but there are other ways you can get your local business advertised online. With applications such as Google Maps and websites like yellowpages.com getting people to find your business can be simplified by using this strategy. So what are some of the most popular and effective ways to use local SEO and marketing?

Facebook Local ads

If you use the mega-popular social networking site Facebook at all, there is no doubt that you have noticed the ads that show up on the right hand-side of your wall; but have you ever noticed that the majority of these ads are selected for relevance by your location? Getting your local blog or business advertised on Facebook couldn’t be easier either. By fillings out a quick form, and uploading any relevant images, you can have your ad appear on Facebook before you know it.

Google Maps

Google Maps’ business results are perhaps one of the most effective ways to market your local business. By using the right tags and keywords, you can have your business highlighted when people in your area search for products of services that you offer. Since these appear at the top of the page, and offer map locations based on proximity of the searcher by IP address to your business, it can have a real impact on both your website, and in-store traffic.

Yellow pages.com

Those bulky phonebook, while out of date, still remain a major way that people find local businesses. While it does cost a small fee to advertise on the yellow pages website, it may be worth it, especially if you offer products or services that appeal to the users of sites like yellowpages.com, such as seniors.

iPhone and Blackberry apps

The use of applications for both the iPhone and Blackberry smartphones is becoming one of the hottest mobile markets. Within this booming market the map or business location apps are among the most downloaded, and getting your business listed in one of these apps can really boost your sales.

Local SEO includes not only targeting particular websites and online or mobile applications to include your business, but also involves using your location as part of your keyword meta tags, and while this is the main way that Google Maps works for example, it will also get you hit results on other search engines and for general searches as well. It is all just another way to get the most out of your SEO strategy and make your online business marketing a success.

The growth of YouTube is apparent to anyone who uses the internet on any kind of regular basis, and the number of hits that the most popular videos on this mega-site gets can number in the millions. So how can you capitalize on the most used online video platform? While the answer to this question is virtually limitless, if it is a website or blog that you are looking to increase traffic for, then YouTube can be another great tool that you can use to maximize your SEO strategy and get those ever valuable backlinks.

Using YouTube: The basics

If you run a blog or website then using YouTube to market your product, service, or even yourself is as simple as creating an account and uploading videos. The trick to making this effort a success, however, is ensuring that your videos are interesting, relevant to your business or blog, and are quality. No one will want to watch a video with poor sound or picture quality. It is also important that if you are going to appear in your video as an expert, then looking the part is important. While is should seem obvious, wearing professional clothing and appearing well groomed will make people more likely to recognize you as what you are portraying yourself to be.

There are also many options for video uploads that don’t involve you personally dispensing advice. Including videos of relevant events, interviews, and general interest topics can also be very successful. Just make sure that they are relevant to your website or blog, and that they are free of any copyright, or that you yourself own the copyright for them.

Using Youtube to get back links

The way that your YouTube video campaign will be a success, in terms of your SEO strategy, is in the marketing. Firstly, making sure you include your blog’s or website’s URL in all the videos, as well as a link to your site. Also, embedding your videos, or other videos that are relevant, to your website or blog will get you those sought after backlinks. YouTube includes links to pages that embed their videos, so this will get you not only backlinks, but ones from a very popular source; thereby making them even more valuable.

While this is a great first step, making sure that you market your videos will get the number of people viewing your videos up, and will therefore be more likely to increase your web traffic. Posting links to your videos on relevant forums, or even producing press releases can get your videos out there. Also making sure that you correctly tag your videos will ensure that people can find them through a YouTube search. While this is just another way you can get your website or blog to produce the type of revenue or results you are looking for, it can also be one that allows you to get a little creative, and have a bit of fun.

Keeping up to speed with all the SEO strategies that the industry professionals are using can be a time consuming task. The work required to write your blog posts, and contribute to industry forums leaves little time to make sure your SEO strategy is up-to-date. Like any one who is trying to keep up to speed with the SEO market, you know that backlinks are the key to success, but getting quality backlinks without paying a fortune can be difficult.

One of the newest and most popular ways to get backlinks into your SEO repertoire is by submitting articles containing links to your pages to popular and top ranking article websites. Websites like ezinearticles.com and e-how.com are sites where users can submit articles on virtually any topic, and even get paid for hit results. The following are a few tips on submitting articles for free, and getting the quality backlinks you want.

Keep your articles topic relevant

Let’s face it, writing what you know is much easier than not, and writing articles that appeal to your potential customers or blog readers will get them interested in checking out your website. Contributing to topic relevant forums and blogs can also establish you as an industry expert, and will create even more backlinks through other’s linking your work.

Keep the quality of your articles

Avoiding the temptation and even the advice to “keyword stuff” will make your articles more readable and interesting. If you lack the skills to make your articles great, then there are plenty of freelance writers who can help, and they are often worth the investment.

Do a bit of research

Keeping up to date with topics being discussed on industry forums, and identifying your competitors can keep your articles fresh and relevant. This is also another great way to establish yourself as an expert and will keep people clicking your links.