A website left unattended once it has been built, however, guarantees its owner no results.  It’s really important that business owners measure, understand and improve upon the usage of their websites using a solution such as Google Analytics.  There is no value in driving visitors to your website if you are not measuring the results of your online campaigns such as Google AdWords or Facebook.

There are still around 1/3 of websites that do not have a sufficient web analytics package in place to measure and understand their visitor’s behaviours, don’t let your business fall behind because you don’t have Google Analytics in place. Some older content management systems (websites) do not always work well with web analytics and sometimes it can be cheaper and easier to rebuild the site.

Google Analytics is a great solution for business as it is now the largest web analytics solution available to business and is designed to make it easier for marketing managers to understand the value of their websites. Google Analytics also fits great into Google AdWords campaigns and the team at WebNerd can talk to you more about how to develop and run a successful online marketing campaign.

The above chart shows some of the common web analytics solutions used by both small business and large corporate clients, each package is slightly different in cost and functionality.  Google Analytics is beneficial to your website as it manages to offer much of the functionality with less of the setup and ongoing costs required by solutions such as Omniture or webtrends.

Google Analytics is added by most web developers such as WebNerd by default as they understand its value to your business intelligence.  If you haven’t had a website refresh in several years, speak to James at WebNerd about how their Website in a Day package can give your business a boost and some better business intelligence.

Here are five reasons why your businses should be on Facebook:

1. Extreme Targeting and Testing of your Market

Facebook Ads allow you to target the audience of your ad campaigns down to: city, gender, age, occuptation, interests, relationship status, education level and workplace. Where else do you have that degree of targeting online?  You pay per click – with a daily limit that you’ve set  – and you can access reports that help you determine what’s working and what’s not.  Set up multiple campaigns and evaluate which specific demographics are clicking and/or which are buying.

2. Facebook is GREAT for promoting events

Use Facebook Events to promote your next event.  Once you’ve filled in the details for the event it’s a click of your mouse to invite your ‘Facebook Friends’ and to monitor their replies and RSVPs.  As a latin dancer I am invited to dance events every week and the smart latin dance event promoters are milking it for all its worth.

3. Friends of Friends – the viral effect

When someone RSVPs to one of your events, their friends can see this.  There have been many occasions on which I have decided to attend an event (even a 3-day seminar in another city!) on the basis of a seeing a friend sign up to it.  You can even set up your Event so that your invitees can invite THEIR friends.

4. People want to do business with…?

Facebook allows you to re-connect with people you’ve met and discover others with similar or complimentary interests.  Online networking works for the same reason that offline networking works: people want to do business with their friends.

5. Facebook helps you demonstrate that you’re good

Facebook allows you to set up a ‘Facebook Page’ for your business(es) and people can become ‘fans’ of your business.  A ‘fan’ can be a friend or a happy client or someone who simply thinks you do good work.  I have a Facebook Page for my photography, for example, and I have attracted ‘fans’ whom I’ve never met or known before.  Again, when someone becomes a fan of your business, their friends can see that and might be inclined to check it out.  If what you’ve got on offer is interesting enough, it can potentially spread through the friend networks virally.

Your action items

1. Sign up to Facebook and import your address book – look me up, too!
2. Look up old friends with whom you’ve lost contact
3. Set up a Facebook Page for your business
4. Set up a Facebook Ad as a trial to see how it works
5. Participate and play… experiment and see what works for you

That photo, entitled “Kid Tested, Kid Approved” appeared on my Facebook page when I next logged in and, being the die-hard fan that I am, I immediately copied and pasted it into the BrisbanePhotography.com community forum.

Whereever the photo was shared and copied the photo drew discussion about where and how the plush toy could be bought.  It was usually in the form of an excited exclamation-point-emphasised sentence that clearly conveyed just how excited that particular fan was about the prospect of purchasing yet another novelty item to add to the bookcase.

About a week later, as a subscriber of the free What the Duck newsletter, I received an email telling me, and the other email subscribers, exactly how we could order our WTD plush toys online before anyone else could.  Did I feel spesh’?  You betcha!

What were the two very clever things that Aaron did?

First, he created buzz by releasing a simple teaser photo but no “how to buy” info.  Would he have generated as much enthusiastic chatter around the various social networking sites if we could simply click through to make our purchase and then immediately return to making efficient use of company time?  Not a chance!

Second, he rewarded his biggest fans for subscribing and staying subscribed to his mailing list.

Clever, huh?

Get your What the Duck fix

The What the Duck comic strip follows the day-to-day encounters of a cartoon duck who happens to be a professional photographer.  The insightful and dry dialogue between our hero and his various colleagues and clients is hilarious – and anyone who has ever freelanced in the creative industries will surely relate.

Check it out at www.whattheduck.net