1. Conversions – I would track the conversion ratio of people filling out your online request or completing a website sale.  Although this excludes people viewing your contact page and calling you on the phone it does narrow down to a specific demographic of people taking a definitive action to learn more about your products or services. It  captures those people requesting more information.

2. Visitors – This metric is fairly obvious as to why it is important – to see how many people are coming to your website.  This will encompass overall marketing efforts (search engine optimization, pay-per-click, online marketing, tradeshows, events, offline marketing, etc.) and if they are bringing more eyes to your website or not.

3. Bounce Rate – This metric shows how many web visitors came to your website and immediately left.  This is a good analytic to monitor to see if the quality of traffic is good or not.  If web visitors are searching for a product/service you do not offer or if you do offer what they are looking for but your website does not do a good job of portraying that you offer that service/product users will immediately leave.  The lower this number becomes the better.

4. Time on Site – This is a good metric to watch as it shows the interest level of web visitors and if they are finding the information they are looking for.  If they are staying on your website for a long time they are most likely digesting useful information.  Although in some cases the opposite is true (users may be on the website for a long time because they are searching for information they can not find).  In general this is not the case as internet users have a very short attention span and generally leave a website if they can not find what they are looking for.

5. Top Web Content – This report is useful in determining characteristics of your target audience (at least the ones making it to your website). You can find out what information they are looking for the most, where they are spending the most time reading, what webpages are more likely to encourage someone to contact you in the end, etc.

6. Keywords – This report is more in-depth than the above reports but is useful because it will show you the top keywords people are finding your website on.  It will help you learn more about your web visitors by learning what keyword phrases they are using, what they are looking for, , and how they reference your products & services.  You can also filter out your company name from the keyword list to find a better list of terms of people who are looking for what you offer but do not necessarily know about you yet.  You can also filter between paid and non-paid keywords.

*I would always compare these to the last month so you can see the difference and how things are improving or becoming worse, what areas need help, etc.  There are tons of reports and metrics in Google Analytics which you could waste all day mulling over.   If you want a quick snapshot of what is going on, making positive strategic decisions based off of these, and learning more about your target audience every month these are the metrics I would focus on if I were you.  If you need help putting together your first month analysis I would be more than happy to help you understand what to look for and how to gain useful insight from it.  Contact me anytime if you want assistance.

1.  http://www.ice.com/ – they do a good job on the homepage mixing
promotions and products together well.  On the homepage some key
elements are the contest, why shop ice, search dropdowns on left,
newsletter subscription, ‘features’ categories on left, etc.  Their
product pages have good photos, some even have videos, customer
ratings, (small add-to-cart button is bad, it should be bigger),
product details, and live chat (price should be more noticeable too)

2.  http://www.shoeline.com/ – on the homepage they do a good job of
categorizing shoes into every possible category but keeping it easy to
find what you are looking for at the same time.  Brand is important to
them so they list those well too.  The product pages have nice big add
to cart buttons, price is easy to see/view.  The ‘return history’ is
something that really helped them out, the product descriptions are
shorter than I would like but very descriptive and use bullet points.

3.  http://mycacties.com/ – this one is a magento store.  They do an
excellent job on the product pages of keeping it simple yet giving the
information required in order to make a decision to purchase or not.

Our philosophy is basically centered under the idea of “if no one goes to your web site what good is it???” We help our clients use the internet as an effective marketing and sales tool; we make web sites that people can find.

We do web design that is focused on getting you business, one that should attract customers through internet marketing and help increase your revenue. Our services are best suited for start-up businesses or small business’ that need a web site to help their company grow.

We accomplish this through internet marketing methods such as search engine marketing and pay per click advertising. We will setup your web site so that people searching in the major search engines for keywords related to your business will find your website. For example if you sell picture frames someone may go to yahoo or google and type in ‘picture frames’ and your site would come up as on of the first selections they have to choose from.

We focus on web design and internet marketing and are located in Utah but can work with any client nationwide.

This mistake is so common that it is impossible to fix. Although I admit sometimes it will work it usually does not; for two reasons: First, search engines don’t like to be tricked, and while a shady web site marketing technique may work for a while eventually Google/Yahoo/etc. will find out and your site could be banned from teh search engine forever. Second, and even more important, many web designer get so involved in getting high rankings in search engines they forget about their customer. They end up with a website that comes up #1 in their keywords, but people click on it and leave after 2 seconds. Why is this? Because all the effort has been put into marketing and none into quality content/information and layout. You can have all the traffic you want but if they do not take an action on your website it is all in vain.

2. Develop Quality Web Content

Quality Content is far too often under-valued. The effects of quality content go beyond search engines into the realm of real internet marketing strategies. This is also a very difficult internet marketing strategy to master. You really need to delve into the minds of your customers or clients and discover what they are REALLY looking for. Usually what a company owner or web designer thinks a customer wants is far from the truth. A simple example would be a car dealership; the car dealership puts out pictures of available cars and features, however the customers are really looking for a price on cars and financing options. If you find the right information to publish online you will be light years ahead of your competition.

3. Be Proffesional

A customer’s first impression is often the company’s website. You need to make a landing impression the first time they visit, be professional. I am sure there are some of you out there who have went to a website and thought it was fabulous just to find out the company was a little hole in the wall in a slum area of town, or the opposite can be true as well (a poor-looking website for a outstanding corporation). Remember to match your website with your organization as well. Customers will already have an idea of what your company should be like from your website, and if this doesnt fall true they may decide to abandon you.

4. Use other forms of advertising

Of all things; please don’t rely on internet marketing and internet advertising as your sole source of your marketing efforts. You need to combine your efforts and have them coordinate with each other. Does this mean having an expensive television commercial campaign? No, it means just mixing things up a bit. You could send out a newsletter to your customers, try direct mail, cold calling, networking, handing out business cards when you have the chance, etc. Just dont get too caught up in internet marketing or you may be ignoring other gold mine marketing opportunities.

5. Use Online Promotions

Just like any other form of marketing online advertising may require a little ‘boost’ to get your customer to take the finally dive into deciding to use your company for their needs. Promotions are the ideal way to fill this gap online. You can use such methods as discounts, specials, online-only prices, bonus add-ons, limited-time offers, etc.

In order to allow new customers to try our web site marketing solution we offer several web site design discounts. Please select from the following web design discounts below:

• non profit web design discount
• new business web design discount
• struggling business web design discount
• single product web design discount
• home based business web design discount
• church web design discount
• government web design discount

We know that non-profit firms have had to run on tight funds during the last few years. We support non-profits and want to help them with their mission by creating a marketable web site that will help drive traffic to your site.

By having a web site combined with internet marketing non-profits can expand their advertising capability and attract new clients. Our company actually started when the owner made a free web site for a non-profit adoption agency; he became obsessed with helping them attract clients to their web site via search engine marketing and decided to start a business because he had a passion for doing this.

If you are a non-profit firm use our web design services and you will get a 25% discount. To qualify for this non profit web design discount you must provide a copy of your 501(c)3 letter. We are excited to help your non profit grow through a superior web site made by web site design specialists!

Our Web Designs Include

We make web sites and its a passion for us. We don’t make normal web sites though; we make marketable websites. It is important to include ‘marketable’ in the description because this is what makes our service unique. We produce web sites that have several objectives which include: websites that visitors can find through search engines, websites that encourage a user to take a specific action, websites that are pleasing to the eye, websites that are easy to navigate, etc. We do not design web applications; this is not our specialty, but we can refer you to someone who does.

Our Web Sites Added Value

• Websites that receive a large amount of traffic from search engines.
• Websites that receive a large amount of traffic from online directories.
• Websites that receive a large amount of traffic from other websites.
• Websites that attract potential customers that are looking for a specific product or service.
• Websites that are of professional in quality and pleasing to the eye.
• Websites that offer a better return on investment compared to pay-per-click internet campaigns.
• Websites that are dynamic, easy to navigate, and easy to maintain.
• Quick turn-around time for development.
• Maintenance service to continually improve marketability.
• Prompt response for website technical support and changes.

One of the main differences between our web design services and many of our competitors is the fact that we will not drop our service with you once the job is finished and we have a built-in internet marketing system in every web site that we produce. We will actually spend several hours just looking at your industry, company, and competitors to analyze how to make the most effective web site specific for your organization.

We feel that a web site may look cool and be the best, but if no one finds it or visits your web site it is essentially of no use to you, that is why we put such a strong emphasis on developing marketable web sites.

On-going Maintenance

The websites We create will initially attract a lot of internet traffic. However, if you choose to do so, we will provide our services and update your website to consistently improve your internet marketing rating. The web hosting will be optional. Updates to your website can be performed by the us or you may elect to perform web updates yourself.

Web Design Values

Web site design and internet marketing is a passion for us, its not just a ‘job’ for us. We have a hard working staff that sincerely wants to see your business succeed on the internet and we are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

This company started when a few web developers made some web sites for their friends and non-profit organizations for free; but they liked doing it so much they decided they wanted to make a career out of it; that is truly how most businesses should start, with passion and dedication.

If you have a suggestion for us on how we can improve our service please let us know, we encourage all input and are always looking for ways to improve our service to you, do not hesitate to tell us what you think, good or bad.

We have seen many of our clients view the internet as a useful tool in their marketing and sales efforts, we hope to be able to assist your company in reaching your goals.

We also value strategic business to business relationships and are always looking for business partners, if you are interested in referring clients to us for website design and in turn we can refer our clients to your business please contact us.

Our Mission Statement

“We strive to increase our clients’ profits through a combination of technology and marketing. We do this through providing quality web design services and ethical internet marketing strategies in a timely manner. We value long-term client relationships and positive business partnerships.”

I want to help you gain that competitive advantage over your competition, not just today but everyday. I will continually track, monitor, analyze, and adjust your internet marketing efforts to help you increase profits and be successful. This is our passion and I love to help our clients climb to the top of their competition in the internet battlefield.

There are many aspects to internet marketing, as our client I will research your industry so I can better assist you, not all industries compete in the same fashion online. Because each industry is unique I discover the methods of marketing that will best benefit your organization. Some examples are search engine optimization, pay per click campaigns, newsletters, providing useful information for your potential customers, offline advertising in magazines or radio, building links from other industry leader websites, etc.

When you succeed I succeed and that is something I will not forget.

Free Internet Marketing Review Offer

If you are looking for a free internet marketing report then you are in luck. You probably have a website but it is not very profitable or not as profitable as you would like.

I will review your website for free and send you some suggestions for improvement. This can range from natural search engine optimization suggestions, link building suggestions, affiliate program management, newsletters, interactivity, PPC, special offers, conversion improvement, professional design, etc.

Of course I could help you with those suggestions if you wish, but if not we hope that you will find the information useful and keep us in mind if you pay someone for the services. Contact me with your website, name, and email address and we will send you your free internet marketing report.

Why Me?

Web Site Marketing: Your website will be easy to find for your customers. We design every web site with your customer in mind. We will build a web site that is marketed on the internet and search engine optimized.

Custom Made Web Site: Your web site will be custom-made. We make every web site by hand, every web site is unique to your industry and your company.

Industry Research: We will research your industry and company. We will spend several hours researching what your business does so we can make the most efficient web site for you. Through the research we will also be able to ask you specific questions to get information from you to promote our ‘easy web site design’ value.

Web Site Design Price: You may think we charge more than others when it comes to web site design price. However, you must remember that EVERY web site we design includes web site design services and web site marketing services, sometimes known as search engine optimization. Many business spend thousands of dollars a month alone on internet marketing alone and most web design firms do not usually include this service complimentary.

I am hoping to start posting some specific examples of what I find works and what doesn’t with my SEO experimentation.  Publishing results from analytics, rankings reports, etc.  Sorry this is so short, but I will be back again shortly with more fun information.

Park City Alpine Slide

The alpine slide was the first activity we did.  You get to ride the scenic chair lift up to the top of a mountain, one near the base of the resort.  The chairlift is pretty slow, but its comfortable and gives you time to talk with your family or friends and have some quality time together.  I should note that you have the option to continue on to the next mountain peak and hike down, ride back down on the chairlift, or ride a bike down the mountain – I think the bike option would be a blast but you have to bring your own bike.  Once you are at the top of the mountain you can go either left to the alpine slide or right to the zipline.  You drag your alpine slide with you from the chairlift drop-off point over to a set of 4 alpine slide tracks.  We were there on a weekend and the wait was only about 5 minutes once you made it to the slide tracks.  Going down is pretty fun, and somewhat adventurous.  Our 4 year old and teenage foreign exchange student did start to fall out at one point and got some scrapes which the medic tended up nicely.  That is part of the thrill though I suppose, you know you can get hurt if you go too fast or are dumb and lean the wrong direction.  It is quick and gives you a good thrill though, similar to big water slide at a water park. Here is a video at the bottom of the ride, next time when I know I won’t die doing it, I will take a video as I go down!

Park City ZipRider (Zipline)

The zipline is also at the top of the mountain and you have to take the chairlift to get to it.  You do have to get a special ticket for the zipline because there are only 4 lines so it takes a while for the line to make it to the ride itself.  The ticket will give you a time frame of when you are supposed to be there, i.e. 2:00-3:00pm.  Once you are there they buckle you in and push your feet against a gate which they open and off you go!  It is a thrill as well but not a scary one, somewhat calm and relaxing to be honest.  It feels kind of like you are flying or floating down the mountain with the air rushing by your face and it does take a good minute or two to get to the bottom.  I was expecting a very abrupt halt at the end but they have a coil system in place to cushion your land so its actually fairly smooth.  I did notice when I curled up in a cannonball like posture that I went faster vs. having your arms and legs all the way out catching wind. I wish I would have had my camera out to take a video coming down, I will do that next time. Here is a video of some people coming down though from a ground viewpoint:

Park City Coaster Ride

The alpine coaster ride was by far my favorite.  This is the only one that has a line at the base of the mountain.  Since it was a weekend the wait was a bit longer, maybe about 20 minutes, but still not that bad.  The coaster cars are on an actual track so you can’t fly off of it like the alpine slide.  Once you are in a car it hooks up to a chain and pulls you up a nice little scenic ride up the mountain in between lots of trees, I think they were aspen.  You go through a little bridge/tunnel type thing (see video) and up a fairly steep incline after that.  It takes a good 10 minutes to get pulled to the top where your car take a sharp turn to the right and starts heading down the mountain.  At that point your car races in circles, back and forth, etc. at fairly high speeds.  It reminded me a lot of a roller coaster but a little more fun since you are in a small car just to yourself (or one other rider) and you can control your speed.  You can brake on your way down but its not advised as you could probably get rear ended by the person behind you who may not notice you are slowing down.  This was very very fun and I highly recommend it. Here are two videos of going up on the coaster, next time when I have time to ride it more I will be more adventurous and make a video coming down the ride:

Other Utah Summer Family Activities

Have a great time up in park city, you really should check out the resort and all it has to offer in the summer.  In addition to the above main attractions they also have miniature golf, a maze, carousel, jumping thing, rock climbing, cool restaurants, shops, hiking, horseback riding, and more.  I hope this guide was useful and if you do end up going please post a comment about your experience.

Useful Park City Resort Summer Links

Summer Family Activities Report - find out which rides are open and which ones are not (i.e. if its raining or something)

Park City Mountain Web Cams – view the base of the resort to see people walking around, how crowded it is, what the weather is like, etc.

Park City Utah Family Summer Activities – a list of summer activities for your family and friends.  Get info on the alpine slide, alpine coaster, zipline, etc.

Park City Mountain Resort Summer Pass Prices – get info on prices for the different activities and a link to the operating schedule/times.

Follow these steps in Google Analytics so setup social media marketing filters:

1. Click on ‘edit’ to the right of your website profile on the main login screen.
2. Click on ‘Add Filter’ in the ‘Filters’ section on the next screen.
3. Name the filter something like ‘Social Media Grouping’
4. Select ‘Custom filter’ as the ‘filter type’
5. Select ‘Advanced’ from the radio button options list
6. *In ‘Field A -> Extract A’ select ‘Campaign Source and enter the social media marketing sites you want to capture in the text box, see below for more information
7. ~In ‘Output To -> Constructor’ select ‘Campaign Medium’ or ‘Campaign Name’ and enter ‘social’ in the text box, see below for more information
8. Leave the rest of the ‘yes/no’ boxes as-is and save the filter
9. You will have to wait 24 hours to start seeing the traffic being filter in the manner you just setup

* Note: for convenience sake you can copy paste this text to add some of the most prominent social type sites on the internet to your filter: twitter\.com|facebook\.com|myspace\.com|flickr\.com|linkedin\.com|Wordpress\.com|blogspot\.com|youtube\.com|stumbleupon\.com

~Note: this will change the ‘campaign medium’ from ‘referral’ to ‘social’. There is one drawback to this as you will not be able to see the referring website url from traffic coming from your tagged social media marketing websites anymore. There is an alternative to this. Instead of marking the campaign medium as ‘social’ you can mark the ‘campaign name’ as social. Then to see your social traffic you will have to go to ‘traffic sources’ -> ‘referring sites’ -> select a site -> filter by ‘campaign name’ to see your ‘social’ traffic.

Screenshot 1: Setting up the filter

Google Analytics Social Filter (above)

Screenshot 2: Viewing Social Site Traffic

Social Filter Website Traffic Screen

Website Refresh Items

1. Define value from customer’s perspective and multiple personas.
2. Focus on emotion.
3. Focus on end-benefits (from all clients)
4. What are the customer’s real needs/wants?
5. “Why should I buy from you?”
6. What other options are there? Address them.
7. How is your product and company different from others?
8. What process does the client go through to buy the product/service?
9. What information do they need to know before they buy?
10. Establish trust!
11. Identify clearly points-of-action.
12. Internal linking! Link keywords to relevant pages.
13. Find “hidden area” – information they are looking for that they can not find anywhere else.
14. How? Why? Who? What?
15. Be relevant – address needs, values, beliefs.
16. Make copywriting personal! “you” not “We” – address feelings.
17. Establish confidence! Use emotion to appeal.
18. Scanning – use headings, quotes, links, bullet lists.
19. Homepage – communicate UVP and get them to click deeper.

Generating Leads

1. Time is precious to clients, value it and get their attention by showing how you can help their business by speaking in their terms.
2. Questions potential clients have:

1. 1. How will this service help my company?
   2. We’re doing okay, why do we need it?
   3. Is there another company out there that is better?
   4. Will their solution really work? Can they prove it?
   5. Is the company credible?
   6. Can we afford it?

1. Focus on the positive aspects, not negative pain points. Ask the client ‘where do you want to be after this project?’
2. Automate lead generation with items such as messagemaker that are based on actions and behaviors taken by the lead.
3. Use stories and case studies to communicate with your leads.
4. Increase the likelihood of closing deals:

1. 1. Design marketing communications for each phase of the sales cycle, from awareness through consideration to purchase.
   2. Focus your marketing efforts on points in the buying process where high potential prospects are leaving.
   3. Increase face-face time you have with clients.
   4. Track marketing leads that close.

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