Digital Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0, Web Analytics, Web Design

by Dawser Al Hadidi

We all want to form better business decisions and drive more sales, so why aren’t we rolling up our sleeves and digging into web analytics data?

Businesses! Web analytic data is your magic eight ball. This data will tell you how your customers are dealing with your website and where you can improve upon your site and how to get better conversions.

Since you have the web analytics tool, If you don’t have the web analytic tool, Google does, for free! check, Google Analytics. The best way to get started is to define your customer segments and the mindsets of each segment. This can be simply done by pondering the questions:

Are your visitors in search of information, buying a product, comparing prices, or looking for career opportunities? What is it they want from you? The answer to that question is always a good start.

Another way would be to define your content groups:

1. What are you saying to your customers? Is it relevant?
2. Are you meeting each customer’s mindset expectations?
3. And finally, what is it you would ideally like the customer to do?

By defining your conversion path, you have something to measure against.

Gathering this data and using it to optimize your site to reach your objectives, will vastly improve traffic and response to your site and with the aid of the analytics tool you will get tangible and concrete results.

Analysis can be performed in several ways; one is visitor type analysis:

New comer – the unique visitor who has not seen your website before

Return visitor – the visitor who came back for more

Your objective is for the new comer to become a return visitor and for the return visitor to become a retained one. The data coming from the analytics tool will inform you of exactly that. Didn’t I tell you it’s the magic eight ball?

Another way is content type analysis; it looks at how you’re presenting your content:

1. Is it structured and aligned with overall site objectives?
2. Is it relevant to each customer segment?
3. Do you have expired content that doesn’t change, ever?

The data coming in from the user’s interaction with the content groups can help you improve your site’s performance and achieve your business goals.

Of course there are also the analytics that touch upon the technical side; analyzing the interactive parts of you website, your forms for instance, are they too long? Are users abandoning them half way through?

I won’t get too technical here, but there are many ways to analyze user data to get better insights into your site.

The information you get out of the analytics data, can give you the directions to better serve your website visitors. The key point here is not to get too thrilled with the increase in the number of visitors, rather, have a better look at the quality of those visits and then, only then, can you retain those numbers and increase them.

by Dawser Al Hadidi

The term “marketers” has a broad meaning – it may mean anyone who wants others to know about something and act on it! For example, it can be a mother inviting her son’s friends to a birthday party. She must first decide how to design the invitation, and then how to send it. All this work would be to ensure maximum attendance and a successful birthday party – and eventually, loads of gifts!

All jokes aside, whatever your message is or whatever it is you need your customer to do, the web offers many tools to deliver your message. And guess what? Some of these tools are free! Some are not, so do not get too excited.

The web is an exciting tool for you, dear marketer. It offers you a flexible platform where you can collect information about your customer without forcing yourself upon him. On the other hand, if you send a strong message, he will willingly give you information. If the customer simply visits your website, you can track his visit to learn how he reacted to your site; you can track which pages he selected and how long he viewed them. This is now possible with the fantastic technology of web analytics; these matrixes and numbers can give you much more than you ever dreamed of! Of course, it all depends if you know how to use these numbers! Studying, analyzing, and researching the analytics results is all part of the game.

Email marketing is another incredible tool which web digital media offers. If your aim is to invite people to an event, start with mass mailing to a permitted mailing list. This means sending your invitation to email addresses that opt-in to hear from you; otherwise, you are at risk of being blacklisted by ISP’s. If you do not have your own mass mailing technology, use a professional company, as there are plenty in the market.

The format in which you send your email is the most important matter. I receive invitations for events in image (JPG) format with links to RSVP and URLS which I really cannot be bothered to type in my browser. Even worse are invitations sent in print format and through email as .tif images! These are real killers, as they are often so large they can crash your computer. At the very least, you will not be able to read the message, let alone RSVP!

The RSVP process can be conveniently automated, with users filling a very simple form to confirm their attendance. The system will then follow up with an email reminder for attendees, or even give them the option of adding it to their Outlook calendar. How fantastic is that? You delivered your invitation via email marketing’s best practices; you got your invitees to register, and you have prompted them to remember the event! And the best part is that you now have the data which you can later use to market other events or promotions!

The latest and most interesting tool the web has given marketers is the social media. Social networking sites such as Facebook have completely changed the way businesses talk to their customers. Twitter, another popular social media site, has introduced a fun way for businesses to connect to their customers in a personal and simple manner. There are also business networks, which have provided a suitable environment for those who are not yet ready to take their mask off and talk face-to-face with the customer. I hope you noticed the “face-to-face” strategy – even though those social networks exist virtually, they are a bare exposure for your brand and your sales pitch. It is time for you to speak to your customer openly! If you decide to join a social network and stand in front of your customer, be prepared to use honesty and openness.

Social media sites have created a kind of closeness like never before. Whether on a daily basis or minute-by-minute, you can get in touch with your customer at any time! Try Twitter and you will get the feel of this closeness instantly.

The talk about the greatness of the web is non-stop, but I will leave you with this, dear marketers, and will continue in my next article.

by Dawser Al Hadidi

You might have heard about RSS recently. Do you know how to use this new technology trend to expand your web presence?

If you are part of the internet generation, RSS, would probably be a part of your daily internet content consumption already. However, if you are in the planning stages of developing a website to represent your business, you may not be too familiar with the term. Your agency may be selling you the new trend “RSS” and you are fascinated by the technology, maybe leaning towards having it on your future website. Well, first you need to understand that this new trend should serve a purpose. Don’t just add it to your site because it sounds fancy! This is not the purpose of RSS.

First of all, a quick explanation of RSS is appropriate at this stage. It is REALLY SIMPLE SYNDICATION, a form of web feed which sits on your site, aggregates content, and delivers it to consumers, who opt-in for it and consume it anytime and anywhere.

Now let’s step back for a minute. We said it aggregates content, but what type of content? Well, it can be text, audio, video, or images. Aggregation is a function which performs continuously as the end user requests it.

Let’s focus on the word syndication now. It is a function used in the media production industry, such as newspapers, television, and radio. For example, newspapers and news broadcasters syndicate content amongst their networks in order to reach a wider audience.

The whole concept of syndication and aggregation of content has existed for quite some time. I cannot exactly pinpoint as to when it started, but I would have to say it was before I was born. In case you are wondering, that was 1974. Thank God, I’m not too old for the internet generation!

The new media has reused this function and developed a new trend known as RSS, which is a form of Web 2.0 technology. The latest web service that enables user interaction, it is the opposite of Web 1.0 which ran in a completely passive one way direction; the best examples of Web 2.0 I can give you is, RSS, blogs, Facebook.

I will take you now to my main point, my dear business owner, as this is addressed to you. As I explained earlier, RSS is a widespread technology; it encourages user interaction and collaboration, and empowers users in controlling content consumption. Basically it delivers content to end users at their own convenience, and is an absolute luxury on both sides. From your side, it will help ensure that your content reaches users who are genuinely interested in your business at their own time and place. You also allow users the freedom of enjoying this content where and whenever they want.

BUT…

There are also some important questions you need to consider before you invest in RSS for your website, such as:

As a business owner, do I have content that users will want to download? Hmmmm!!!

• How often will I provide new content? Daily, weekly, monthly, once in a lifetime?
• Where do I want to deliver this content? To users’ inboxes, iPods, mobiles etc?
• Does my company organization structure support the fact that I need to dedicate a resource to actually produce and manager content? Hmmm, tough one!
• Will I get a return on my investment if I have content and insist on RSS? Will I get a return if I outsource this to a content provider to produce content for my site and provide users with RSS facility? What is the best approach?
• Last but not least, am I going to become an industry specialized publisher? Do I really realize the seriousness of this service?!

Consider these points first, and save yourself the trouble of investing way too much effort on your website than you really should!! They may save you from ending up with a fancy site with all these new trends that no one will ever bother using – not even you!