Why Are Google Analytics Important for Web Development?

Posted by in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Industrial Marketing, SEO: Search Engine Optimization

By Anne Roos, Director of Content Development

How do you know where your website visitors are coming from? How did they find your site? Which keyword phrases did they insert into Google to find you? Google Analytics answers these questions and more. It’s your web development tool for discovering how to maximize your site’s ability to attract customers.

By monitoring how traffic gets to your site, who is visiting your site and sticking around, and which pages interest them the most, you’ll know how to tweak your website so that it can reach its full potential.

Here are just a few of the questions that Google’s powerful analytical tool can solve:

• Which pages do your visitors initially land on when they enter your site? Your website visitors may not always start on your home page. Perhaps they clicked on a link to one of your products, or a link to your blog, or a link to another interior page on your site. Armed with this information, you can increase the appeal of individual pages.

• Do your visitors continue to explore your site once they enter your site, or do they leave to surf elsewhere on the net? The Bounce Rate is an indicator of your website’s staying power. If this rate is high, you are not engaging visitors, and you’ll need further investigation to determine why.

• When your website visitors explore the pages on your site, which pages interest them the most? The Top Pages report will reveal the content that is working successfully on your site.

• When is the most traffic visiting your site? The Visits tool will tell you when to publish to your blog and launch new products. It will also tell you when to make site updates without presenting any downtime for visitors.

• Which pages are referring the most traffic to your site the most? This information can reveal volumes about your visitors and what attracts them to your site, just by knowing what other sites draw their attention.

• How often do visitors complete their purchases, sign up for your newsletter, download a brochure or e-book, view your videos, and fill in forms requesting more information? This data is found with the Conversion Rate tool. If you have a low rate of conversions, you’ll need to examine the content and design of the pages where you invite visitors to take action.

The speed of your site has a major influence on all of the above Google metrics, particularly the Conversion Rate. If your site is not mobile ready, or if it takes too long to load, you’ll lose visitors. From a web development aspect, the download speed of your website must be addressed in order to adequately assess the results of your Google Analysis.

To get a full picture of how your website is performing against your online competitors, contact our SEO experts. We’ll go through your Analytics with a fine-tooth comb and offer recommendations to improve your website’s bottom line. Contact us at 559-978-4096 to receive your custom-fit website performance review, or drop us a line at info@moorethanseo.com.

5 Fast & Easy SEO Growth Hacks to Improve Your Website in 2017

Posted by in Digital Marketing, Industrial Marketing, SEO: Search Engine Optimization

By Shel Moore, Co-Owner & Chief Marketing Officer

Here is our team’s short-list of fast and easy SEO growth hacks you can apply to your website right now:

1. Install Google Analytics for your website. GA will help you to understand how you’re doing and where you’d like to go. If your website does not have GA installed, you won’t have a clear picture of what’s attracting readers to your website, what pages they prefer, how they dropping off, etc. This information is critical for growing your business and brand presence online. Don’t be afraid of the data – it will only make your marketing smarter. Kick start your 2017 by installing Google Analytics right now. There is a great walkthrough on the GA site here.

2. Make sure your meta titles and descriptions include power keywords and that each page on your site has an original set. Don’t copy and paste the same titles and descriptions from your home page to everything else. And, don’t simply enter only your company name in this important text. A web page’s meta title and description provide the text that will compel someone searching for relevant information to visit your page to learn more. Tell them what they’ll find upon clicking-through the link. Include good keywords for improved SEO – but the text must flow nicely and not simply be chocked full of keyword phrases. Do you need a brief overview on finding good SEO keywords? Download our free white paper, “Launching a New Website – SEO Marketing Advice to Get It Right the First Time.”

SEO-Meta-Titles-Descriptions
Screenshot depicts the use of your web page’s title and description as displayed in typical search results.

If you’re using WordPress, we recommend the Yoast Plugin for better search engine optimization of your pages. This plugin makes it easy to enter titles/descriptions for each page and provides you with a simple red, yellow, or green light score to indicate the overall optimization of an intended page. Not sure where to start? Check out this complete walkthrough by WPBeginner.com and get started today.

3. Integrate social media links throughout your site and share your social business pages. If you’re using WordPress there are a ton of plugins that make this connection a breeze. Social signals are also considered when evaluating the overall quality of a website. Today, it’s possible for some social media posts to show up in SERPs (search engine result pages). Communicating on social media provides greater reach and encourages more traffic to discover your business website. Integrating social media accounts throughout your website offers a necessary channel between the two and provides important social proof that your business is trustworthy and valued. Read some great tips for social media integration for your website on the Hootsuite blog here. Are you searching for specific WordPress plugins? Check out this awesome updated list by Adam Connell at BloggingWizzard.com.

4. Detect and remove any duplicate content on your website. This includes stuff you might have innocently copied over from a manufacturer or parent company’s website as well as text you may have duplicated throughout your own website’s internal pages. Use Copyscape.com to quickly check every web page for free. Identify any problem areas and make a plan to revise any flagged text for originality. Then make it happen. Duplicate content can be a real drag on the overall quality perception of your website. Curious about the how and why to this? Read more about how duplicate content hurts a website’s performance.

5. Don’t forget to include your location on several key pages of your website & even in some page titles and meta-descriptions. Most businesses need to compete for local search as well – for some this is a primary focus of their online marketing. Make certain you include text that describes the local region your business services on your home page, on the about us page, and any other place you feel is relevant. Just be sure you make the text original every place you use it. (No copying & pasting this info on multiple pages – remember duplicate content hurts.)