What is Web Analytics and How it Helps a Website Owner?

One of My clients was asking that how to read an analytical report and what is this and what is that? From these questions, I thought to have written few notes about the analytical reports which would be beneficial for my clients and the readers of this blog.

Definition:

A web analytics is a series of reports of quantitative indicator of the behavior of the visitors of the website. It tracks the movement of visitor and the reason of his/her visit. In other words, it provides the clear report of the performance of your website and the trends. From these reports and trends the website owner creates and implements more effective program to increase sales.

Web Analytics are based:

1. Collection of visitor's data from logfiles, and 2. by tagging each webpage with a Javascript.

A third web analytics method is a combination of the two whereby more relevant data can be produced than what is possible with either of the two methods.

Web Analytics Terms:

Number of visits means that how many visitors landed on any page of your website from any source. In the case of log files of server, it will log several files for each visit, while the page-tagging script will only consider the page as a whole seen by the visitor. In either case, each web analytics data will clearly identify if the visitor is new or has come before.

Page Views means different for the two web analytics methods. While tagging script considers the whole page as one request, the logfile on the other hand will record multiple hits (one for each file, including images, .js and .css) within a single page-view.

Hits denotes requests for files from server and is recorded only in logfile.

Unique visitors means new visitors, it is noticed by logfiles as well.

The length of time a visitor spends in seeing a website.

The keyword phrase used to arrive at the website.

The unique IP address and therefore the country from where the visits generated

Visits duration

Files type etc

Data transfer to and from the server is always recorded in server's logfile with clockwork precision. And these files can be easily viewed in web analytics programs such as Webalizer, Awstats, etc. which analyze raw logfile data and portray valuable visitor information in easy-to-follow graphics.

What is difference between Logfile and Page Tagging:

1. Logfile analysis is usually already available in the server. Page tagging is an outsourced option, which means that visitors' data is captured by provider's remote server. 2. Logfile analysis can be viewed only in provider's website, while Google Analytics and Click Tracks are examples of page-tagging web analytics. 3. Since page tagging requires javascript to be installed on every webpage, there is always a possibility that some visitors' browsers do not allow the script to run. Whilw logfiles have no such issue. 4. Logfiles enter transfer of all files, including images and scripts, and therefore certain parameters like hits and page views are not as accurate as with page-tagging web analytics. 5. While logfiles record visits by search engines, page tagging does not. 6. Logfile web analytics record failed visits too. Page tagging takes a request into account only when a webpage is successfully displayed.

Web analytics is a type of feedback from visitor which is available all times. These reports are a great source by which you can analyze relative strength and weakness of your website. From these, you can find which pages are most visited and which keywords are more related to your web site.

Please remember, no one can give guarantee of position one on any search engine as far as Search engine optimization is concened. However, professionally experts do their best and follow the procedures and maintain quality and required quantity, than there is no doubt that we can bring your website on the top position of any search engine. For More information visit our quality search engine optimization blog.

About the author
"Nawaz Lakho is the owner of LakhoSoft, An IT Intelligence and quality on-line web service. He is web designer and developer. LakhoSoft has build a worldwide reputation in web design and development, graphic design and presentations, search engine optimization, link exchanges, data management, data entry and sourcing, virtual administration service to clients in North America. They are also offering freelance services for our offshore clients

Source : seoarticles4u.com

Increase Return Traffic to Strengthen SEO Services

When businesses get into search engine marketing, their main objective is driving new visitors to their website. Almost all optimisation strategies devised by webmasters are centered around the same objective, and this is possibly the greatest mistake they can make. It is true that new visitors pep up the traffic influx of a website; but is it wise to neglect the importance of old visitors?

Apart from catering to new users, webmasters have to formulate strategies to bring back old users in the form of return traffic. All web users have certain favourite websites, that they access frequently for daily doses of information and entertainment related to their fields of interest. If webmasters can get their sites to this level, it'll definitely spell success for their SEO campaigns.

Web analytics is one service that can be extremely useful in driving return users to your site. It'll help you analyse prevalent online trends and customer behaviour. The log files of your website will also provide a good insight into visitor reactions, thus helping you identify pages that are retaining or repelling users.

People who bookmark your pages are quite likely to come back once in a while. Buyers - prospective or otherwise â€" will, in all likelihood, visit your site more than once. Return traffic also fosters viral marketing - when users buy something from you, they talk about it to their family, friends and peers, thus publicising your business by word of mouth.

Retaining users is not as easy a task as it sounds to be. Your website should have appealing content matter; something that users have not read elsewhere, something that interests them enough to make a return visit, and above all, something that benefits them. You also need to upgrade your site constantly, catering to latest SEO service guidelines and design techniques. By doing so, you can ensure that users will not find your site boring or static.

It is also imperative that you do away with elements that irk visitors. Things like drop-down menus, scrollers, dragable objects, colours, fonts, etc. have to be dealt with smartly. Review the content of your site periodically. This will help effective Search engine optimizationredirects as much as possible.

When people come back to your website, they would definitely not like to see the same mistakes on your pages. Let your users feel refreshed after every visit to your site. This return traffic will ultimately go on to benefit your campaign in a major way. Use it to your advantage!

About the author
Lalita Negi works with ePurple Media, an SEO Company dealing with various services of effective Search engine optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, web development etc.

Source : seoarticles4u.com

SEO Tips- How to Write a Press Release for Optimal Web Marketing

What is a Press Release? Press releases are among the most effective ways - if not the most effective way - to get one-way links from high traffic news sites, but you must follow a certain set of guidelines or it will be nothing more than wasted time and your press release will never be published. A press release is a statement of announcement used for publishing and distributing company information or business news throughout the Internet via web media distribution channels. General news releases, event announcements, business news, new product release announcements, and social media news all qualify as valid content for a press release.

How Press Releases can help your SEO and Web Marketing Press releases play a very important role in SEO and web site marketing. Currently, one-way links are more valuable to your search e rankings than ever before. This is due to the fact that two-way links - most often referred to as "reciprocal links" - have decreased in value with regard to Google's "Page rank" system, with most others soon to follow if they have not already. With that in mind, playing an active role in generating news for PR web can serve as your best resource for getting one-way links and generating new traffic to your site without paying a dime. Be aware however, that credible PR web sites have strict criteria for the content that they publish. For example, it absolutely must be newsworthy, grammatically correct, without spelling errors, it must sound professional, and it must give the impression that a decent amount of time was put into it.

The benefit to you is that you may publish your company details including the services you offer, your web address and contact details along with your press release. Be careful not to make your press release sound like an advertisement though, or it will not be considered for publishing. The key here is to go into it with the objective of creating something valuable and informative for the reader.

There are a lot of news websites available that provide free services for publishing your news releases. The real advantage though, is that these websites provide services for distributing that news to subscribers of their news feeds. What this means, is that while you may publish your release to five PR web sites, it will likely end up on twenty or thirty different sites if it follows the criteria stated above. The important thing to remember is that the more valuable and informative that you make your content, the more it will be picked up by additional web sites. Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing your press release:

Tips for writing an effective press release:

* The press release headline should be short, clear and to the point. Treat press release headlines and sub-heads as the ultra-compact version of your entire press release content.
* Your press release summary should be informative. Try to avoid the use long sentences and lengthy paragraphs.
* Start your press release with the "5 Ws" - who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how. This will make your press release more enlightening and attractive to the editors of the sites you are publishing to.
* Don't forget to include your company information below the press release content. Prepare a brief summary of your company services with the contact details, your website name, and email id for communicating. Most PR sites offer a "company bio" section, which appears under the published release.

About the author
Vision Media Corporation is a Phoenix & Las Vegas based website design and Search Engine Optimization, software, and ecommerce development firm specializing in new approaches to information technology and its relationship to mark

Source : seoarticles4u.com

The importance of SEO

Search engine optimisation, SEO, is one of the vital aspects of any website, but it is often overlooked or neglected. A website may look beautiful, the systems may be flawless, but with no visitors, it is a waste. SEO is the process of getting visitors, traffic and ultimately business to your website, primarily through achieving high rankings for your web site on search terms with high volume.

Studies have shown that Internet searchers are a notoriously impatient bunch. Almost 82% of all searchers do not go beyond the first 30 results. More than 60% don't go beyond the first 10 results. If your website is not in the top ten, you are missing out on over 60% of your potential clients. This can prove to be a very costly exercise. Even if you are happy with the traffic you get to your website, and let's say it's 40%. You can get an extra one and a half times that quantity of visitors and business or more as the result of an effective SEO campaign.

There is always advertising available as an option, but that is substantially less effective and more costly. On Google, 70% of searchers prefer the natural results to advertisements. Say the term your site is optimised for has 100 searches a day, and you are in position 12. You'll only get 40% of your potential visitors. If you're in position 21, you'll get about 25%. Position 31 and you'll get less than 19%. If you are number 1, you'll get 100 of them. If you buy an advertisement, you'll get 30% and you pay for each visitor. The moment you stop paying, you stop getting visitors. An SEO campaign on the other hand lasts for years. Once you are at the top, it takes a lot to move you down the results. As such, SEO is the most cost-effective and efficient method of marketing your website.

You also need your site to rank well for the correct keyword or search phrase. One of my favourite examples comes from research I have conducted into the job industry as part of an SEO campaign. The term “search jobs” has 21 searches a day. The term “job search” has over 6000. Number 1 for “search jobs” will give you 21 visitors. Number 1 for “job search” though will give you 6000. Choosing the right keywords is an important part of any SEO campaign.

How do you target the site towards a specific search phrase or keyword? By having the keyword in the title tag, the description and in the content. It should also be in the anchor text of links pointing to that site. If you are in a reciprocal link exchange, and the link to your job site is the name of your company, that is far less effective at promoting your website than a link saying “job search �" company name.” It's a simple step and seemingly obvious, but many website owners do not do that and their site suffers in it's ranking as a result.

With the right proportion of the key word in relation to your content and sufficient inbound links with the right anchor text, your website can become the number 1 site for that term. There is more to SEO than just that, but those are the 2 essential factors. Without good content, or links, your website will never rank well and will never bring in all the business it could. For more info, check out SEO - Sigil Online

About the author
Russell Qually is a practicing SEO specialist in South Africa. SEO - Sigil Online

Source : seoarticles4u.com

Tips to Select the Best SEO Company

A good looking website is not enough to give your online business a boost. Instead a website that attracts potential customers is what all online firms are looking for. The competition is fierce and every website wants to earn high search engine rankings and maximize website traffic. Making it SEO-friendly is the only way to attain high-rankings. Undeniably, the selection of the right Search Engine Optimization company can be a strenuous task looking at the numerous SEO companies all claiming to help you achieve business goals. Here are a few guidelines and tips to help you select the right SEO company:

Get a thorough knowledge about Search Engine Optimization Before you find out about the SEO company, do your own SEO research and get a basic understanding about the SEO process. SEO is not rocket science and you can easily understand how it should be done by reading loads of informative websites. This knowledge will help you find and hire a good SEO company and spot the ones that are fake and use blackhat methods. By gaining SEO knowledge, you can also help the SEO company you hire in making decisions regarding SEO implementation.

Get Price Quotes & Find out how good the SEO Company is Get price quotes from multiple SEO companies, and select the best among those. But do remember, high price quotes does not make an SEO Company the best. Go for a company that offers realistic prices. Check the websites of the SEO firms to find out how good they are at their job. Do see the Google PageRank -- a good SEO Company's website must have not less than PR 5. Check out their web design, content, navigation structure, sitemap, etc. Check out if the content is well written and has relevant keywords and hyper linking. The navigation structure must be neat and web design must be well-laid out and striking.

Check if the SEO Company promises you No.1 ranking in various search engines It is next to impossible to attain No. 1 ranking, so if an SEO company guarantees you no.1 ranking, then you should perhaps look for another company that is honest in its marketing approach. According to Google SEO selection tips, no one can guarantee no.1 ranking in a search engine like Google.

Get references for first hand information about the company's SEO work Ask your SEO company to give you the references of a few clients they have worked for. If the SEO company gives you keywords and rankings details, you must verify those once by entering them in Google. You can even call the website owner and get a feedback about the company's SEO services.

Services provided by the SEO Company Comprehensive SEO involves on-page and off-page optimization. Ask the SEO company about the on-page and off-page optimization that they will implement. The SEO company must be an expert in providing various search engine optimization services like website analysis, online competitor analysis, keyword analysis, directory submissions, site map addition, ranking reports, SEO content writing, website development, and overall effective online marketing solutions.

Ask specifically if Link Building, which comes under off-page optimization, is part of the SEO package. Linking is radical to make any website a success. If the SEO company can provide you back links from relevant sites with high PR, then this can be extremely beneficial to make your website an instant hit. Make sure that they have a streamlined link building process in place.

Go for Monthly SEO Campaigns As search engines constantly changes their algorithms, so it becomes important to make modifications in your website continuously as per the latest trends. SEO is an ongoing process and the SEO company that you choose should stay current with the SEO trends in the market to beat help you beat the competition. The SEO company should also be able to provide you with the monthly search engine maintenance plan that will help you maintain and enhance your rankings.

All the above tips will help you select the right SEO company for your website and will definitely help you achieve the desired results. Cybernet Media is an SEO company that enables websites get high rankings, higher conversion and business profits. Please visit http://www.search-engine-promotion.eu.com/ for more information.

About the author
Y Hussain is a professional author who has written many articles on various topics & this time writing article on Tips to Select the Best SEO Company. For more details about Tips to Select the Best SEO Company visit: http://www.search-engine-promotion.eu.com/

Source : seoarticles4u.com

Google Poisoning Giving SEO a Bad Name

Red Tape, the technology blog at MSNBC.com, has an interesting article discussing a new term to me called "Google Poisoning". Google Poisoning is when a group of sites organize a sophisticated attack to take over top spots in search results. The poisoners then use their top positions to redirect users to a maze of redirected sites in order to infect vulnerable computers with spyware and whatever else they care to install. You can see an example from the most recent Google poisoning attack in the picture provided by Sunbelt Software, the Security firm who first discovered the attack..

Sunbelt Software found that a simple search for something like "funny dog picture" on Google directed searchers to Web sites hosted on Chinese domains. People who visited those sites were asked to install "Spy-Shredder" a rogue anti-spyware program.

Alex Eckelberry, the CEO of Sunbelt Software, says he was amazed at the scale and sophistication of the attack by people he calls "SEO Gods". In the most recent attack, Eckelberry says the criminals coordinated a large scale attack that put 40,000 to 50,000 of these malicious pages online at the same time and caused users "bad infections" if they visited those pages.

Google promptly took these pages out of their index when they were notified of the problem but Eckelberry state these criminals can "take any site and get it on the first page of the Google results." If that is the case, I'm not sure why these attackers are wasting their time with spyware, rather than getting some sites ranked for "viagra", "web-hosting", "insurance settlement" or any other of the high payout affiliate terms.

I dug through the Sunbelt blog's posts on the topic, which are here, here, here and here. But to summarize the attackers used a maze of sophisticated 302 redirects, fancy javascript, and operating system vulnerabilities to trick Google and its users.

When it gets down to it, 40k-50k is a relatively small number of sites but I hope Google is proactive in preventing this in the future before it gets out of hand and if any of you criminals are reading this, care to share your 'SEO God' tactics?

Last week alone, criminals posted 40,000 to 50,000 of these malicious pages in a single, coordinated attack, said Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt.

Posted By Evan Roberts

Source : marketingshift.com

Quick SEO Tips

Submitted by Richard Burckhardt

One of the features on my blog, The Web Optimist, is a tip box that shows a different random search engine optimization tip each time a page is loaded. As I come across little pearls of wisdom, I add it to the collection.

For the first time published anywhere, here are the first twenty of my Quick SEO Tips in no particular order and with on-site and off-site tips all together. More to come in Part Two.

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don't want the link.

4. Don't be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is "blue widgets" then link to "blue widgets" instead of a "Click here" link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don't design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won't cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues - www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you're splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html. Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem - you can't link to a single page. It's either all or nothing. Don't use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn't matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won't make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google's regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn't change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don't try to stuff your text with keywords. It won't work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you're not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

Whew. OK, try to digest these first 20 tips for a while. I'll be following up with the rest in 40 Quick S E O Tips, Part 2 once you've had a chance to absorb these thoroughly.

Source : webpronews.com

SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book?

By Ron Jones, Search Engine Watch

Have you ever wondered how the rock stars in SEO (define) became so great? How did they learn all that information about SEO? We'll explore the education of search marketers here in SEM.edu.

Experience or Knowledge

There wasn't much information available about search marketing in the early days of the Internet. So, some smart people decided to experiment. Look what happened.

Over time, a set of search marketing best practices emerged as some of these experiments worked out. This information was shared with friends for the most part, but there was no real formal body of knowledge.

After a while, some of this information was found in books. The majority, however, was surfacing through word of mouth and networking in forums to solve problems. As more search marketers tried out these new tips, they learned what worked and what didn't.

It's challenging to learn search marketing. The rules are made by the search engines and their algorithms (define). All we can do is try the tactics we learn from others and learn for ourselves what works and what doesn't.

We often find that what works for one Web site doesn't necessarily work for another. Once we go through this process and learn for ourselves what works, then we can start to be called an expert.

Once you read or are taught about search, you have some knowledge. Experience will make all the difference. You'll also need to a network of resources to tap when you hit a roadblock.

Staying Up To Date

A prospective client recently asked me to look at redesigning his Web site. I asked if he was planning to implement a search campaign.

"Oh," he said. "All I plan to do is fill out the meta tags on the home page. That should do it."

People often hear a single tip or trick that worked in the past, but those won't necessarily work today. While meta data still has a place today, it doesn't carry nearly the same amount of weight as it did in the late '90s.

The search engines are continuing to update and change their algorithms in an effort to deliver their users to the right pages. We, as search practitioners, need to continue learning what's working and what's not.

Where to Learn SEO Today

One of the most common questions prospects ask me is, "Where do you go to learn about search marketing?" Many sources have risen to the top in the past few years.

There are events, like Search Engine Strategies conferences, that provide opportunities to learn from the experts. There are Web sites dedicated to search. There are also formal courses, like SEMPO Institute, that offer a certificate of completion.

These are all great places to establish a foundation of knowledge on search marketing and help you stay up to date. Remember: this knowledge is as only good as your hands-on experience.

So, if you own a domain or a small business, go out there and join the ranks of SEO practitioners and start optimizing and marketing the sites you have influence over. Learn what works for you and maybe you'll find a niche that will make you the next SEO expert.

Source : searchenginewatch.com