Google Analytics Features for Business Owners

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I think it’s safe to say that small and mid-sized business owners have to have a website. It lends credibility, establishes trust and professionalism, and often is a much less expensive way to market your service or product than old fashioned paper advertising. Usually small business owners are running around trying to do their business and can’t get caught up marketing their business, and they therefore know very little about what’s going on behind the scenes on their website.

There are some basic Google Analytics features that all business owners should take a look at from time to time.

1. Business Conversions

The Conversion tab is one of the most important areas for business owners because it shows how many people are reaching your contact form or other specific page where an action is required, and the exact number of leads and conversions. If the site is an ecommerce site, the conversion tab also indicates the $ amount of sales generated in the current month and allows you to compare this month’s sales figures with previous months.

2. Traffic Sources

This is the second most important area for business owners because it shows where their website traffic is coming from and gives a strong indication of where to invest marketing dollars. This feature also tells exactly how the visitors arrived on the site – through search engines, other site links, etc.

3. Traffic Location

This is similar to Traffic Sources and tells about where the traffic is coming from and which area is bringing in some solid leads and sales. On the other end it indicates potential locations that you can invest in future.

4. Browsers and Mobile Technology

This tells you what browsers your visitors are using and what mobile phones they are using. It’s important to test your website on a variety of browsers and phones. If the site is optimized for Internet Explorer and iPhones and most of your visitors are on Chrome and a Windows Phone, you can make an adjustment to make sure that the site is optimized for the bulk of your traffic.

5. Top Exit Pages

This tells you which website pages visitors usually leave from. It would make sense that the home page and the contact page would be a top exit page. But if a product or service page is a top exit page, it might indicate that you should make some changes to the content to get people to either stay longer or move to another section of the site.

 

New Top Level Domains Available

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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), founded in 1998, was created to ensure a stable and unified global Internet. One key responsibility is introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names, while ensuring the security and stability of the domain name system (DNS).

In 2005, ICANN initiated a process to add to the existing top level domains (.com, .org, .net, .edu, etc.). Organizations had to apply to create new TLDs. To see all 1923 of them, visit: https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus.

What’s interesting about this is you can now reserve the new top level domains. They won’t actually go into play until the end of 2013, but there are about 1,000 new top level domains. This is interesting for marketing purposes. I could buy, for example, connect4.consulting or a law firm like Arnold & Porter could buy arnoldporter.law. A local pizza place could be mytown.pizza.

Browse the entire list yourself.

How To Make an Animated Gif

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I received a call today from a colleague who needs an animated gif. That sent me down the research road and I discovered that the world of animated gifs is really not very complicated.

If you don’t have Photoshop CS3 or later, you can use the following free sites:

  • www.picasion.com
  • www.gifninja.com

Picasion lets you create an animated GIF by uploading individual photos. First you will need to resize them all to be the same dimensions.

Gifninja will create an animated GIF from videos (smaller than 20 MB).

If you want to use Photoshop, follow these instructions:

  1. Using Adobe’s image editor, versions CS3 and up, to create an animated GIF is as simple as opening a new image file. A 72 pixel-per-inch resolution is all you need for display on the Web. Drag all your individual image files into Photoshop and they should stack up as layers in the same image. You may need to rearrange the order.
  2. Photoshop will also open videos in MPEG, MP4, AVI, and MOV formats. When you open it, select Range to Import to get only a few select frames—the fewer the frames, the faster the animated GIF. It will import the frames as layers, which you’ll convert back to frames for the animated GIF file. You can even resize and crop the layers to produce a smaller the animation.
  3. Go to Window menu, select Animation, and you’ll get a new palette menu to Make Frames from Layers. Set the duration for each frame and how many times it will loop. Then go to the File menu and Save for Web & Devices for the final animated file.

Searching for the Best Portable Rechargeable BlueTooth Speaker

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One of the hottest gadget niches right now is the Portable Rechargeable BlueTooth Speaker.

You might think to yourself “Why would I need one of these?” Imagine you’re sitting outside – at the beach or the pool – and you want to listen to music with friends. The old school option was the boom box. Hard to find one of those these days. Until recently, the options were very limited and expensive, but now a simple Google search yields about a dozen relatively inexpensive, user friendly, portable speakers that connect without any wires to your iPhone or smartphone.

I chose the UE Boom. Logitech makes it. It costs about $200 and is at the upper end of the Portable Rechargeable BlueTooth Speakers, but what makes it fantastic is its small size, portability, ease of use, and sound. It also has some additional features that are very cool:

  • If you buy a second UE Boom, you can pair the two together for BlueTooth stereo sound;
  • If you press the + and – together, a voice will tell you how much battery time is left;
  • It is water-resistant;
  • There’s a smart phone app with an EQ that lets you select from a variety of equalizer settings

They come in a variety of colors and the accompanying marketing material even suggests that you might put it in your bottle cage when you go for a bike ride…might have to try that myself.

Without a Mobile Presence You Will Be Left Behind

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It’s time to get Mobile!

Without a mobile presence you will be left behind. Take a look at these figures and then take a look at your own website on your iphone or ipad or other tablet or smart phone.

  • There are presently more than 5.3 billion mobile device subscribers.
  • There will be nearly as many mobile devices as there are people in the world by 2015.
  • There are 48 million people in the world who have mobile phones, even though they do not have electricity at home.

The issue is not that everyone has a mobile device, but that these devices give them Internet access – and many of them access the Internet only through their mobile device.

So ask yourself. Am I prepared for this mobile opportunity?

People don’t surf the mobile web. They know what they want and act on it. They want immediate information – your address, news, social media, product information. They recommend, buy, and follow up more than desktop users do.

Mobile Presence Website Requirements
  • Load time – slow kills
  • Mobile searches – you want in
  • Mobile browsers – don’t support video, flash, image galleries, proprietary scripts
  • User experience – convenience matters
Mobile Presence Website Must-Haves
  • Click-to-call buttons
  • Social media buttons
  • Share and Enjoy
  • Google Maps
  • SMS
  • Event Calendards
  • Location Check-In
  • Multimedia
  • News/Blogs
  • E-Commerce
Mobile Presence Website Best Practices
  1. Keep it simple
  2. Prioritize Content – mobile visitors have different priorities from desktop users
  3. Focus on conversion – make it easy for visitors to take action
  4. Take advantage of mobile features – access user location information and offer a more personable experience
  5. Think “Tap-able” not “Clickable”
  6. Navigation – go vertical
  7. Minimize scrolling
  8. Be concise

All of our website redesigns are responsive – mobile friendly. Improve your mobile presence with Connect4 Consulting.