Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category

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Google Analytics Overhaul

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Are you struggling a bit with the new look & features within Google Analytics? Well here are 5 key features that you should start using:

1. Keyword Clouds

If you aren’t familiar with a tag cloud then they provide you with a visual and textual representation of how popular a certain topic is. The bigger the font size, the more popular the topic is. You can now use these clouds to view the keywords visitors are using to access your website.

2. Real-time data

Remember when you used to run log files through an analyser and get yesterdays stats. Event Google delayed stats by up to 24hrs. Now it’s possible to get real time information, very useful for monitoring marketing campaigns

3. Site Speed

A slow site will almost always affect your audience and they will soon leave your site in a cloud of frustration. This new function allows you to keep an eye on the site speed – especially useful when launching new features or during periods of high traffic volume.

4. Flow Visualisation

Whilst the entrance and exit pages were previously available, you can now following the flow of visitors through your website. This can help identify flaws in conversion funnels such as a lengthy basket process or complicated registration forms.

5. Dashboard

You can now create your own custom dashboards providing information that is relevant to you and your measurements. This allows you to create a top level dashboard for the CEO – so he can see all the numbers going in the right direction, and a more detailed view for the Marketing Manager – so he can keep the numbers going in the right direction.

If you have not logged in to Analytics recently (Why Not !!), take a look for yourself – you’ll soon find yourself drifting into the immersive world of website statistics.

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Traffic Traffic everywhere….

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

But not a sale in sight !!!

Many clients are often impressed by the level of traffic that their website is receiving. It’s a very similar principal to walking down the high street and seeing  a busy shop. “Wow they must be raking it in”. Well the shop may be busy but how long is the queue at the cash tills? In a nutshell, people may be attracted to go in the front door, but are they buying goods?

The website is no different in this respect; high numbers of visitors do not equate to a high number of sales. So what are some the key barriers which stop your visitors making a purchase?

Navigation – can I find the product I want?

Price – not just the product price, think about the addition of VAT as well as any delivery charges which may be added during the checkout process. How much has that added to the customer’s inital outlay?

Poor Images – would you buy a product if you can’t see it?

Poor Descriptions – I want to know all this product can do for me and if you don’t tell me, Ill go somewhere else. However if you give me too much information which is badly organised, it will be too much to take in and I will go somewhere else. A fine balance – yet a very necessary one.

Stop Asking me Questions – if I have to fill out form after form just to buy a single item, chances are that I will be put off. Imagine just wanting to buy a pint of milk from the supermarket on Christmas Eve with queues stretching as far as the eye can see – just not fun

Attracting the wrong type of customer – if you don’t deliver abroad, the thousands of daily visitors from the USA are just leaving disappointed.

Non existent offers or promotions – make sure all you offer information is up to date. If you have a promotional code offering 20% off, don’t make the customer jump through hoops to get it – or worse find out that it no longer exists

All this information is easily managed via a website statistics package such as Google Analytics. This is free and can be easily installed within in your website by your web developer.

Using tools like these can help you identify areas of the website which require improvement as well as the sections which are working. Do your research before making knee jerk changes to the pages on your website. It’s your website, it’s your business – make sure it’s doing everything for you.

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Is it time for a spring clean?

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

Running any business can prove testing at any time but surely your website is doing everything it can to promote your business. Well is it?

It’s often the case that many small businesses spend so much time with their clients, the begin to neglect their own marketing material. It can often be very difficult to step back from your own brand and evaluate it objectively. Focusing on the business website, here are a few tips to help you identify some areas for improvement and perhaps a spring clean of the website might not be a bad idea.

First impressions count

Is your website up to date or is your latest news a few months old and the range of products and services out of date. Finding a website that has up to date content provides confidence to the visitor that you are on the ball and provides an instant impression of professionalism.

I want to make a change – Can I make the change?

Your website should inform visitors about your business in a clear and engaging manner. Keeping your services and products up to date is essential and having to contact your web developer or agency just to make the smallest of changes can be time consuming and costly.

Putting you in control of the content means you can easily manage the information on the site and with so many Content Management Systems (CMS) out there, you may want to ask the question “Why can’t I do this?”

I have no idea how many people visit my site.

You may receive a couple of enquiries a week from your website and be happy with this level of business, but how many people are looking at your website? Make sure you have a Google Analytics account and you use it. Getting information on the key trends, strengths and areas for improvements on your site will make your website work harder for you. Some of the results may surprise you.

Loads of homepage text – that’s good for SEO right?

People want to use your homepage as a signpost to the desired information. Are the most important / requested / profitable areas on the website easy for the visitor to find. if not, you need to look at the information hierarchy for the website and make sure that the visual language and typography reflects the required hierarchy. It’s no use burying Contact Us away in the corner if it is your main source of customer conversion on the website.

“What do I do now?”

“Well I’ve found the relevant information but I don’t have any visual stimulus to make the next step. I can’t find your email address, phone number, contact form – so what do you want me to do now”

It is surprising how many times this occurs and it will do nothing for the user experience. Don’t rely on the user finding the call to action, make sure they cannot miss it. If you have other relevant information, make sure they can easily find links to this.

If your site is exhibiting these symptoms, I recommend that you have a chat with your existing developer / agency and if you are not 100% happy with their response, why not have a chat with us on 0114 267 9277

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We’ve been a bit quiet – but for good reasons

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Well we have on the blog writing side of things, but that is mainly down to the workload we are experiencing – a nice problem to have. So what have we been up to?

Well, we have been developing the new Rab® website which is due to launch in the near future. Developing a user friendly content management system along with a unique intuitive design to showcase the technical products within the Rab® range has been an involving project.

Working with Muse Developments, we have moved their existing website into our content management system VCMS and provided them with some key new functionality to help manage the website.

We are working on a website for a new company called Steep Edge, which is an e-commerce site for selling adventure films. Everything from Abseiling to Wingsuits will be available to rent or buy from the website which will be launching in early March.

We are also pleased to welcome our new developer who will be starting on 14th February to help move the Web Design and Development from Vertebrate Graphics to a new level in 2011 and beyond… more news on that soon.

We have partnered up with Vertical Response to provide an email marketing system to all our clients. This is being tested at the moment but will soon be available to all clients.

So as you can read – busy times and long may they continue !!!!

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TEDx Sheffield – Richard St John and the 8 to be Great

Friday, September 10th, 2010

For those of you who are not aware of TEd, I would stongly advise that you visit thier site at www.ted.com to find out more about the organisation.

As part of their global interation, TEDx Sheffield was held yesterday at the Showroom cinema. With a great line up of some of the best speakers from all over the globe, I thought I would share one of the most inspirational speakers called Richard StJohn. He is a “success analyst” with a very successful work history as well as being a marathon runner – anyone who can complete a marathon in 2 hours 45 minutes gets my respect. He has interviewed a wide range of successful people from Business owners like Bill Gates or Larry Page to Celebrities such as Russell Crowe to try and find out the secret to success.

Whilst I don’t have the full 20 minutes presentation from yesterdays event, have a look through his short version and you’ll soon see why he starts to make so much sense.

For those that were there, or for some Friday disctraction you can also checkout Terry Tate – the office linebacker.

Enjoy

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