6 Metrics to Improve to Increase Visitor Time on Your Website
The goal of most websites is to capture and retain a visitor's attention. The longer a visitor stays, the higher the likelihood of conversion, whether that means making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource. To optimize the time visitors spend on your site, it's crucial to monitor and understand specific metrics. Here are the key metrics you should focus on and tips to improve them: 1. Bounce Rate Bounce rate is a vital metric that measures the percentage of...
Spring Clean Your Website
Today is officially the first day of spring! As the days grow longer and flowers bloom, now is the perfect time to revitalize your online presence with a digital spring cleaning. While many focus on decluttering their physical spaces, don't neglect the virtual space representing your business — your website. Here are essential tips to ensure your website is in tip-top shape: 1. Create a Comprehensive Update Checklist Start by creating a thorough checklist of all elements on your website...
Landing Page Tweaks to Increase Conversions
While there are many different types of landing pages, they all share the same objective: generate conversions. A conversion happens when a website visitor completes a desired goal, such as making a purchase, filling out a contact form, registering for an event, etc. Whether creating or updating landing pages, making these tweaks can increase your landing page's conversions. 1. Clear Headline The headline is where visitors’ attention first goes, so it’s important to make the most...
Lead Magnets: Turning Your Website Into a Lead Generation Machine
Right now, your prospects are out there searching for a solution to a problem, which is why your website needs a ‘lead magnet’ that helps them while also generating leads for your business. When you’re able to offer them that first step to a solution, they’re more likely to become a customer. In this article, we’ll explore this powerful digital marketing tactic so you can turn your website into a lead generation machine. What Is a Lead Magnet? A lead magnet is an...
Implementing the Security Best Practices of 2015 on Your Website
Website security is an ongoing concern for businesses. Compromised security communications have resulted in large amounts of revenue loss and damaged reputations of small and large companies. While extremely important, because of its technical complexities, many companies running websites ignore or fail to keep themselves informed about the latest developments and the practical ways to protect their websites and their customers’ information. In this article we will provide you with some...
Mobile Web: Search and Social Still Conquer Apps
With the introduction of even bigger and smarter phones, how are the trends changing in relation to the time being spent on them? The interesting thing is; it’s not. While more and more apps are introduced into the marketplace every day, the majority of time being spent on the mobile web is through search and social media channels. A report released by IAB shows that search and social media are the primary ways that mobile users discover new content on their smartphones. So what does...
5 Tips for Choosing Your Domain Name
You’re ready to take your business online. You’ve got your business plan, mission statement, your logo, etc. when you run into your first roadblock, choosing your domain name. Your domain will be your website’s identity and should be associated with your actual business. This will determine how easily your website will be found on the internet. Here are some tips to keep in mind when selecting your domain name: 1. Keep it Simple Along with most things, the simpler something...
Mobile Websites are Becoming Crucial to Every Business
By the end of 2013, over a third of Internet usage came from smartphones and tablets, according to Walker Sands Communications’ Quarterly Mobile Traffic Report. This statistic alone is enough to make it crucial to have your website display correctly on a mobile phone. 4 out of 5 smartphone users say they do some online shopping on their phones. This means if your website is hard to read on a mobile phone, you are losing customers! One way to convert mobile users is to keep the most...
How the Latest Technology Changes are Affecting our Web Surfing Habits
Every article on device sales shows mobile device sales going through the roof and PC sales declining. Does that mean that people have stopped buying computers? Not from what we've seen. Gartner estimates say there were about 325 million PC and Macs sold in 2013. That is more than one computer for each person in the U.S. The mobile device that seems to be affecting the PC sales the most is the tablet. Not everyone has a tablet... yet! According to Pew Research, as of September 2013... 42% of...
Creating a Successful Mobile Experience
In the year 2013, the traffic of mobile websites almost doubled. Almost everyone now owns smart phones instead of regular cell phones - in fact, the second quarter of 2013 was the first quarter in which smart phones surpassed other phones sales. Because of this, more people are turning to their smart phones to make mobile purchases, or to visit websites and gather information. What do you need to create a better mobile experience for your users? First and foremost, you need to understand that...
Tips on Choosing a Good Domain Name
Choosing a domain name is probably the most important step in getting your business online. When choosing a domain name for your business there are several factors to consider before you make that final purchase..COM – The.com domain extension is probably the most recognized and trusted domain extension. Now if you are a non-profit or healthcare organization you may want to consider the.org domain extension. And whatever you do stay away from the.info. The.info domain extension has...
Is Your Site Search Costing You Sales?
Recently we were attempting to establish why there were a proportionally large number of visitors leaving a site from the site search results page. In other words, a customer would search for a product and then leave without clicking on any of the products. We decided to install a sniffer to watch what keywords users were using when they performed a search. We not only wanted to find failed searches we also wanted some more in-depth intelligence on the customers and their intentions when they...
System Integration: With or Without a Website
Wikipedia defines system integration as 'the bringing together of component subsystems into one system and ensuring that the subsystems function together as a system." It is also about "value-adding to the system, capabilities that are possible because of interactions between subsystems." In the application development world, "subsystems" may include a mixture of hardware web servers, database servers, networks and firewalls and software SQL Server,.NET, html, php, classic ASP, etc. A...
Hackers Can Steal Your PageRank
Recently John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google, reported on his personal blog that hackers have been stealing PageRank from websites. He writes: In this particular case, a "massive amount" of sites were hacked and likely redirected through suomi.co.in. The Hackers were able to 301 redirect pages for search engine spiders only so the webmaster and site visitors never saw a change on the site. By redirecting the Spiders this way the Google believed the site had moved and began...
High Bounce Rates Mean It's Time To Revise Your Website Content
Updated: Feb. 2015 A bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits to your website where the visitor left from the same page that they entered. A bounce rate for a website can indicate many factors. It can be an indication of user experience and satisfaction, as a high bounce rate could mean that the reader didn't find the information valuable or what they were searching for at all. It can also be a sign that your landing pages or content aren't enticing enough to keep potential...
Small Website Changes That Can Add Up to a 50% Sales Increase
Updated: Feb. 2015 It was 10:43 p.m. last night when I logged in to check the daily e-commerce sales. The results; ip 20% for the day and for the month, up a whopping 50%! "Yes!" I said. This would seem routine if I worked or owned the company, but I don’t. I am their Digital Marketing Manager and live hours away from their business. I was ecstatic. All the little changes and adjustments we have been working on all year are now paying off, as they are swamped with huge sales increases...
Mergers, Acquisitions and Websites
Recently we have seen several of our clients purchase additional businesses or be purchased by another company. My first question to my clients is "What is going to happen to the web site?" This is often followed by a "Huh?" and a statement like "We buying a business and not a web site." and that is where I reply you are buying both.
In many cases people know how to value a business but not how to value a web site or even understand how a successful web site plays into the success of a...
The Importance of a Good Hosting Company During Website Launch
When you're ready to launch a new website, it is easy to forget the little things, like search engine rankings. Enamored by the glitz of a fresh looking website and new images, often redirects are overlooked and the old site is just forgotten. However, Google does not forget so easily; unless properly told so. Why Use Redirects Your old website and Digital marketing efforts worked hard to climb up the rankings, slipping past competitors and nestling on the first page. Often the old...
Website Asset Rather Than Expense
Updated: Feb. 2015 There seems to be a misconception by many businesses that a website is an expense. Of course this is true to the extent that a properly built and marketed website costs a decent amount of money, but so does a new building to facilitate your employees and day-to-day business. As a CEO or business owner, it is easy to see why a building, the equipment used, and your brand name and logo are assets to your business, but a properly optimized business website is now just as...
What exactly is a PING and how do I do it?
A Ping is a basic internet program that allows one to verify that a certain IP address exists and can accept requests. Pinging acts as a notifier to search engines that you have updated your RSS feed on your site. Once a search engine receives the ping they will typically schedule an immediate refresh of your feed so they have the latest content. This is the easiest way to get your blog or RSS feed indexed by the search engines. There are two easy methods to ping a search engine. You can use...