MikeCohenMedia.com » Maintenance and Promotion

Web Site Maintenance Overview

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:59:33 +0000

Web site maintenance is the ongoing process of updating content, design and functionality of a web site. The options for web site maintenance are:

DIY – Do it yourself. You can learn the relevant technologies and software programs that will enable you to update all aspects of your site.
Content Management System – If your site has some sort of content management functionality you should be able to make most content additions and updates yourself. Design changes and functionality enhancements will probably require a call to your web developer.
Contract with web developer – Part of your agreement with your web developer might include a monthly or quarterly fee that covers a basic amount of updating of some or all aspects of your site.
Pay per event – pay your web developer hourly for updates on an as-needed basis. Major functionality upgrades or changes might require a new proposal and contract with a set project rate.

Content Management Options

It is possible to manage most content changes on your own, whether you have a static site or a database-driven site.

Static site – a static site means that content changes will have to be entered into the HTML file, meaning you must be familiar with HTML or be able to use a program such as Macromedia Dreamweaver to update content and re-upload the file. Alternatively, Macromedia Contribute is a desktop application that allows you to manage web pages in with a much less technical interface than Dreamweaver and is a viable option for managing a small to medium-sized sites, not a good option for larger sites.
Database-driven site – a database-driven site will have a user-friendly interface that makes adding and updating content easy. This is essential for a large site with many pages.

Web Site Promotion Overview

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:58:05 +0000

Web site promotion is the continuing process to promote a web site to attract more visitors to the web site. This process is an ongoing and fluid process and could be a combination of most of the methods listed below.

Search engine optimization (SEO)
PPC Advertising with Google and/or Overture
Social Media Optimization
Affiliate programs
Shopping Search Engines
E-mail list (self developed or purchased)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:57:06 +0000

Search engine optimization is the process of discovering keywords and optimizing your site so that it will rank highly in the search engines for them. How a search engine works: Search engines send out small programs called spiders or robots that basically surf the web and grab key information about the pages they visit for storage and analysis. The search engine then uses an algorithm to compile this information into a ranking for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. When a user searches for a particular term or phrase in a search engine, that term or phrase is referred to as a keyword or keyword phrase.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consists of:

Researching the keywords and keyword phrases that searchers are likely to search for to find your site
Optimizing the pages of your site with respect to these keywords and keyword phrases. Optimizing a site means making the pages as “search engine friendly” for the keywords that are important to your site.
Analyzing the performance of your site for the keywords you are targeting, and making the necessary adjustments to the keywords, and the site.

Keyword Research

Based on your knowledge of your business and industry, your content and your initial ideas of what searchers might be searching for to find your site, you will come up with an initial list of keywords and keyword phrases. The next step is to utilize a keyword research tool such as WordTracker.com or the Google Keyword Suggestion tool to find other terms and to get an idea of the competition for the terms you plan to use. These tools suggest alternate terms based on your terms, and show how often all terms are searched for, and how many sites are buying the keywords in PPC programs such as Google AdWords. Ideally you will find keyword phrases with little competition that you hadn’t thought of initially. These are prime keywords to target, as it is more likely you can achieve a high ranking on less competitive keywords.

Optimization

To optimize a page for a particular keyword, that keyword should appear in the title tag, heading tags and main text of a page. It should also appear as linked text on the page, and in the alt attribute of images on the page. The meta description and keywords tags should also include the keyword. If possible the file name of the page should also contain the keyword. The page attributes the search engines generally look at to arrive at their rankings is listed below:

Title tag
Heading tags
,
etc.
Keyword density in the main text of a page – the ratio keywords to total words
Linked text – the text that a visitor clicks to use a link
Alt attribute of image tags – the alt attribute should contain keywords
Link relevance – the number of inbound links
Domain name and file name of the page
Meta description – should be included, but limited support with major search engines
Meta keywords- not used anymore by many search engines, including Google

There is also the concept of landing page optimization, in which the content of the actual page that the visitor hits is changed to increase effectiveness. Experiments such as A/B testing are performed to gauge the effectiveness of pages with identical content, but different presentations. A certain goal is defined, and Page A is tested versus Page B to see which converts visitors more effectively. This process can be continually repeated.

Analysis

Once enough time has passed for your pages to begin appearing in the search engines, you will test your keywords by searching and seeing where your pages rank. There are many software packages available to automate this process. Your analytics program will also log the search terms used to reach your site. You may discover new terms or determine the most effective terms in this manner.

SEO software examples: WebPosition Gold, Web CEO

Other SEO practices:

Link Exchange

Google revolutionized search with the concept of measuring inbound links and having that play a part in the search engine ranking. For this reason, Link Exchange can be a valuable tool in increasing your rankings. Link exchange is the process of seeking out links from other sites to your site in return for doing the same. The more links that exist on the web pointing to your site, the higher your link relevance, which should contribute to a higher search engine rank for the keywords relevant to your site.

Content Development

The more relevant, meaningful content your site provides, the more sites will begin linking to your site. This will increase traffic and increase the number of inbound links, which will have positive effect on your search engine ranking. Also, since more content means more pages, the site will have more possible entry points. Blogs are useful tools for adding content to your site, as they allow you to easily publish articles on various topics related to your business. Each article is a potential entry point to your site.

Directory Sites
There are many directories on the web that accept business web site submissions. Listing your site in these directories can increase exposure and the number of inbound links to your site.

Maintain Sitemaps

A sitemap is a page of links to all pages of your site. It is easily scanned by search engine robots and enhances the chance that your entire site will be indexed into the search engine. In addition, Google has a program called Google Sitemaps that allows an XML sitemap to be fed to their system, theoretically keeping your site’s pages up to date in their databases.

Social Media Optimization

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:56:43 +0000

Social Media Optimization is the process of creating profiles for your business on various social networking sites, maintaining these profiles and encouraging site visitors and customers to interact with you on these social networking sites. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and others are effective tools for communication and can increase the exposure of your site and business. Linking from these sites to your main site can also increase search engine rankings as well due to an increased number of inbound links.

Benefits:

Increased exposure
Increased communication with customers who use these sites
Increased search engine rank due to increase in number of inbound links

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:55:22 +0000

These services generally sell paid listings on a pay-per-click or PPC basis. They are also sometimes called CPC or cost-per-click search engines. Advertisers pay for every click the search engine sends them, and those who agree to pay the most per click generally get listed higher.

Main Providers: Google Adwords, Overture

Affiliate Programs

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:54:58 +0000

Affiliate programs are programs in which other site owners will place links to your site and/or products on their site. If/when a visitor clicks a link from their site to your site and makes a purchase, a program of some sort will track that purchase. You will then pay a commission to the site owner that sent the customer to your site. This service can be part of your web site, but is generally better if outsourced to a company like Commission Junction (cj.com) or LinkShare (linkshare.com). Affiliate marketing companies like CJ provide the software and tools to manage your affiliate program and a pool of affiliates who might choose to sign-up as an affiliate for your company.

Shopping Search Engines

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:50:27 +0000

These list products from many different companies in one place and can be a good source of sales for your company. With the exception of Froogle, the sites mention above will take a percentage of each sale that is generated through their site. Froogle, provided by Google is free at the moment. The sites offer varying ways of maintaining your product listings with them. Usually you can upload a database of your products to their site.

(Froogle.com, BizRate.com, Shopping.com, NexTag.com ,Yahoo Shopping, Ebay.com, Amazon.com)

E-mail Marketing

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:40:54 +0000

Your site should always have an e-mail list sign-up. This is a very useful and important marketing tool. Giving an incentive to sign up can be a good way to encourage more sign-ups. Incentives might include free shipping on their first order or a promise of special offers for list members only.

Managing Your List
Most hosting companies provide some sort of basic mailing list management. At the very least you should be able to send text-based e-mails to your list after the mailing list is set-up. For more advanced features such as sending HTML e-mails there are two options:

1. Install software on your server: List management software can be installed on your server that allows you to collect e-mail addresses and send HTML e-mails. Examples include: SendStudio by interspire.com, ListMessenger.com and many more

2. Hosted solution: Companies that store your list for you and provide and interface that you can use to manage the list and send HTML e-mails. Examples include: ezinedirector.com, constantcontact.com, gotcorp.com, verticalresponse.com, campaignmonitor.com

Measuring an E-mail Campaign’s Success

Most hosted solutions will provide useful statistics on the number of e-mails sent, received, opened, bounced (not delivered) and the number of clicks for each link in the e-mail. If your site is equipped with an advanced statistics program such as Google Analytics, you will be able to track the effectiveness of the campaign from a revenue perspective. These programs allow you to set up campaigns, and measure sales, ROI and conversion ratio for the specific campaign.

Web Analytics

Mike Cohen — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:30:21 +0000

Web analytics software enables you to see how many visitors your site is getting, where they are coming from and what they are doing while they browse your site. Using this software enables you to do several things:

Learn how users interact with your site
Learn how users found your site
Measure the success of your promotional efforts
Revise and optimize your promotional efforts

Basic web analytics programs are usually included with your hosting plan. More advanced analytics programs can be purchased from a variety of vendors. An excellent web analytics program is offered by Google.com free of charge. Understanding the various data provided by a web analytics program is essential for understanding certain facts about your site visitors.

§ Unique visitors – number of unique visitors who visit a site in a given time period

§ Page views – how many web pages were served in a given time period

§ Hits – Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a ‘hit’. The requests can be for anything… html pages, graphic images, audio files, CGI scripts, etc. Not a very precise or useful statistic.

§ Browser/operating system - the type of browser and operating system used to visit your site – ie. Internet explorer/WinXP or Safari/Mac or Mozilla Firefox/Win2000

§ Referrer – the site they clicked from to visit your site

§ Search term – the keyword entered in a search engine to arrive at your site.

§ Entry/exit pages

§ Most viewed pages

More advanced programs allow you to track, measure and gather more information about your visitors. These are especially pertinent for an e-commerce site, where it is essential to measure data about the success of your marketing campaigns. These programs measure the following key metrics about your site and/or about a particular campaign, such as an e-mail campaign or Google advertising campaign.

§ ROI: Return on Investment – sales as a result of a particular campaign

§ CPA: Cost per Acquisition – cost of acquiring one customer

§ Conversion Ratio – percentage of visitors that result in a sale, typically between 1-4%.

§ Click trails, path analysis – the path a visitor follows on your site

§ E-commerce funnel – where visitors leave site during checkout

§ Goal tracking – track a particular goal, such as purchase or e-mail list sign-up

Some advanced web analytics providers:
google.com/analytics, indextools.com, onestat.com, livestats.com, webtrends.com, omniture.com