How Does Google Analytics Improve Affiliate Marketing Conversions?

Google has come under fire recently for encrypting organic search referrals, so that webmasters see “not provided” instead of the searcher’s keywords in their referrer logs. This change has led to some webmasters questioning whether there’s any point using analytics at all.  That reaction is understandable, but it’s taking a rather simplistic view of the analytics service and what it has to offer.  Even with the removal of keyword data for an increasing number of searches, Google Analytics still has a lot to offer online marketers.

Social Media Tracking

Social Media is becoming an increasingly important marketing tool. Many webmasters get a huge percentage of their traffic from social media mentions, shares, likes and retweets. If this sounds like your business, then the reach tracking and social media monitoring features of Google Analytics will probably be more important than the now dying-out keyword tracking feature.

Intelligence Alerting

Intelligence Alerts are a handy feature of Google Analytics that will warn you if your campaigns go over-budget, or if you see a drop in conversions, a sudden spike in traffic or anything else out of the ordinary. Intelligence alerts are incredibly useful for busy webmasters. Simply define alerts for the things that are important to you, and Google will notify you by email when those things happen, so you can log on to your control panel and find out more about what’s going on, then fix the problem or take advantage of the circumstances that have caused the traffic spike.

Goals

Now we’re getting to the true meat of the Analytics service. If you aren’t using Goals, you are missing out on a huge intelligence advantage. Webmasters can define all kinds of goals. You can set up goals for “Subscribe to my email list” or “buy my product”, and then watch people as they navigate your site and travel along that goal. Tracking goals in this way is important because it makes it easier for webmasters to see what’s going on with their users. If you are losing a lot of customers at a certain point along the conversion process you can investigate that page and correct whatever issue it is that is driving customers away.

Goals and conversion funnels are an invaluable marketing tool that let you watch what consumers are doing on your website. This tool is great for fixing problems with squeeze pages and signup forms, and figuring out why your conversion rate is not as good as it should be. You can visualize your Goals using the analytics goals funnels function.

Affiliate marketing is a complex task, and you need to have everything finely tuned in order to be successful. If your keyword choices are poor, your SEO is weak, or your squeeze page ineffective, then your business will not be a success. Google Analytics, when used in conjunction with Webmaster Tools and AdWords, can help you to measure, track and understand what is going on with your website.

This article has been written by Philippa L on behalf of the Twist Forum. Philippa has a great deal of knowledge regarding affiliate marketing and has decided to share this knowledge with other affiliate marketers to improve their conversions.

How To Use Press Release Submission Effectively For SEO

SEO Press release is similar to a standard press release with just one difference. SEO press release will have content that is optimized for SEO to provide greater search engine visibility. By using PRs you can keep the journalists, prospective customers and existing customers updated about the products and services offered by you. Many businesses nowadays use press release submission as part of their SEO campaign to increase brand awareness. If you are interested to know more about what a PR is, click on the following link,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_release.

It is important to ensure that you write it properly caring the guidelines discussed in this article. It should contain embedded links that will direct users to relevant pages on your website. When a good SEO PR is submitted and distributed through a good press release distribution service, it will find its way into other third party websites and this will build a powerful set of backlinks to your website. This will improve the search visibility of your website as you have established a strong set of backlinks. In this post, we will look at a few tips that will help you to create it in a SEO friendly way.

Tips for effective SEO press release submission

Include your primary keywords

• Keywords are the most important aspect of any SEO strategy and therefore you should include your primary keywords in the press release
• Research to identify the primary keywords for your business
• Ideally, you should have your primary keywords 2-3 times in the press release.
• Ensure that the keywords are spread out and are not bundled close to each other

Create a compelling headline using your primary keyword

• Headlines play an important role in attracting users to your work
• The average length of a headline is 70 characters. So create a headline that will wow your audience within the 70-character limit.
• The title has to be short, sweet and attractive.

Create a content relevant sub heading

• Use the sub heading to provide information on the content
• The sub heading is as important as the headline and therefore it has to be attractive and relevant to the content and the headline

Use relevant links in the press release

• The content in the landing page for the links that you use has to be relevant to the content that is present in your PR
• Double check if the links you have provided work before you make your submission
• Do not link the same page to the keywords. Use different landing pages for maximum effectiveness
• Try to provide third party links inside that talk about research or surveys in your area of business. This will help bolster your work.

Provide current information related to you company

• Towards the end of the press release, add information about your company. Ensure that the information provided is the latest.
• You can add a few lines regarding your products or services as final additions to the press release.

Add images

• By adding a compelling picture, you will be able to attract more audience to your submission.
• Pick an image that is relevant and unique for maximum effectiveness.

Matthew Anton is the co-founder of BacklinksVault.com, a company specializing in SEO and Social Media services for over 8000 active businesses.

SEO - Stay Home Or Go Abroad?

How do you choose a good company to improve your search engine rankings and promote your online business effectively and profitably?

If you are a business based in the UK, it makes good business sense to keep this important part of your operations in the home market and choose a UK SEO company.  There are many good SEO companies offering excellent services but there are also many disreputable companies and it is a good idea to research the companies you are interested in working with to ensure they deliver the services they are offering.

Why Choose a UK SEO Company?
When thinking about outsourcing your website optimisation you should consider your own market and the people to whom you are selling your products.  You should also be aware of the way in which Google and other search engines present information to users in your area.

If the people you are trying to reach are searching the internet primarily in the UK, their search results will be based on mainly UK sites and will be presented by google.co.uk rather than google.com.  If your site is optimised for google.com then your page may not be shown to a user searching in the UK; potentially losing you valuable visitors and customers.

In view of the way the search engines behave, it makes sense to engage the services of a company who are experts in the demographic of the major search engines, in addition to understanding and being prepared for changes, when they come.

More importantly, you should be engaging the services of an SEO company in the same time-zone as your own company. This makes support much easier for you, since the SEO Company will be working when you are, meaning problems can be dealt with immediately. So if your site has problems and disappears from the search engine rankings, you will not have to wait for many hours to receive support – perhaps costing you substantially in lost revenue.

The Benefits of Staying at Home
In addition to the peace of mind you gain from having support during your normal working hours, an SEO company which is based in the UK will have a better understanding of your target audience and will be able to optimise your site for users and search engines alike.  This is an important point since you want quality traffic coming to your site.  For example, there is no point in someone from Alaska being presented with your site, by an international search engine, if you sell flip-flops in the UK.
Search engine optimisation is only part of the internet-marketing plan, the search engines present the pages to the user but the user must click on your site before there is any chance you might make a sale.  It is just as important to ensure the users who see your site are actually looking for your product.  A UK SEO company will enhance your online presence, in the UK, and help to drive more quality traffic to your website, making your online business more profitable.
Therefore, when it comes to outsourcing your SEO, it makes more sense to stay at home than to outsource to an international company who have no understanding of the culture of your target market - and will most likely be working to different hours than your own company.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source 

Written by Chris Mayhew:

Chris Mayhew is an internet marketer working for Marketing By Web. Working from their office in Bristol they offer professional PPC, SEO and social media management services.