Set Measurable Goals

Most businesses set goals in every aspect of their operations. They set goals like sell 1,000 units this month, do $100,000 in business this quarter or reduce operation costs by 20% this year. The two things these goals have in common is that they are measurable and they have a timeframe. You would be able to tell if you sold 1,000 units this month, did $100,000 in business this quarter or reduced operation costs by 20% this year.

I talk with lots of business owners who tell me they want to increase traffic to their site or convert more visitors into leads. These are poor goals because they are abstract, lack the ability to be measured and a timeframe. When you set goals for your website they should be things like increase traffic by 10% month after month or increase our ecommerce conversion rate to 2.5% this year. Each website is unique and presents its own challenges and opportunities. So each website will have its own goals. It wouldn’t make much sense to set a goal of increasing your web sales if your website is a blog. Likewise increasing your RSS subscribers probably would not be a good goal for an online store.

So remember to set goals for your website, make sure they are measurable and make sure they have a timeframe.

Key Performance Indicators

On our way to our goals there are other items we should be measuring and tracking to see if we are improving our website’s performance. Of course we need a system to be able to measure these indicators. This is accomplished through installing an analytics program on the website. There are many analytics programs out there. You can read about some of them here and here. Probably the most well-known application for tracking your website’s performance is Google Analytics. Of course if you can afford it I recommend Omniture.

As with our goals we discussed earlier, our key performance indicators or KPIs will be unique for each website. On some websites it is important for people to spend lots of time on the site or visit many pages. On other sites it is all about the number of visitors per month. By comparing your KPIs to your website’s goals you get an understanding of well it performs with your visitors. So you need to think like your visitors and envision how you want them to use your website in order to analyze your KPIs and determine if you are getting closer to your goals.

For example if you run a photoblog you update several times per day you probably do not care about the length of time people spend on a page. If you think like a visitor you will see that most people will not spend a long time evaluating your photographs. They will simply go to the page, quickly view the image and then move on. Time on page might not be an important KPI, but the number of pages they visit per session would be the KPI to look at.

Here is another example. If your website provides content in a specialized niche you want your visitors to read that content, so the important KPI to analyze is the time on site for each visit. If your time on site drops you know that your content is not engaging your visitors and you probably will not reach your goal of increasing the number of visitors to your site. On the flip side, if your time on site increases you know you are engaging your visitors with what they are searching for and you’ll be one step closer to reaching your goal. Read more about KPIs on the Search Engine Journal.

You should now be ready to set your web marketing goals and after installing an analytics program you should be able to find the KPIs that are important to your site. Join me next week for another Web Marketing Wednesday when I discuss one KPI in particular – search engine rankings and the tools you can use to analyze them.

Myth #1 – I have a website for my business. That’s good enough. People will find it.

HALF-TRUTH: As I state on my search engine optimization page, the mantra for the web should be; build it and they won’t come. Today your website is competing with hundreds of thousands of other websites. Even for local searches, also called location based queries, you probably have a few thousand other websites that show up when people search for general terms related to your industry.

Now if people search for your business name then yes, they will probably end up finding your website. However, the number of people searching for your business name specifically is probably a fraction of a percent of the number of people searching for general terms related to your industry. Don’t you want some of that action?

Myth #2 – My website has been up for a number of years. Doesn’t it have more credibility that way? Won’t it show up in the search results because of the that?

HALF-TRUTH: It has been proven that age of your domain does play a factor in where your website ranks with the search engines. However, that does not mean because your domain is old the search engines will give it more credibility than other sites. Older sites can inherit some barriers that prevent them from ranking well. This is especially true if your website has not been updated in a long time. Search engines like fresh, new and relevant content.

The Answer to Why

So now that we have dispelled these myths, let’s get back to the question of why. As with regular business, your website also needs to be promoted and the concepts that you use to promote all other aspects of your business are the same online as they are in your physical location. You probably pay for advertising in some form (yellow pages, TV ads, radio ads, etc.), you probably already network with other businesses and business people in your industry and outside of it and you probably rely on some referral business from friends and family or past customers.

All of these activities can be done online to market your website and they should be a continuation of your other marketing efforts. Telling people (websites) about your business (website) is the way to build a successful business website that is an extension of your physical location and other marketing efforts.

So what is a successful website? Join me next week when I cover key performance indicators (KPIs) and determining goals.

*** WARNING! Major digression coming on! ***

Speaking of the term “expert”, I despise it. I loathe it. To me, if you call yourself an expert it means you have nothing left to learn. You’ve mastered all there is to know regarding a particular subject. You’ve maxed out conventional wisdom in your area of focus and are now operating on the bleeding edge of the discipline. I doubt even industry recognized “experts” such as Rand Fishkin or Andy Wall would use that label on themselves.

I consider myself a practitioner. Much like a craftsman or a doctor, I am continually honing my craft. The techniques are evolving and so I continue to evolve with them, learn from them and grow. I guess if you stop learning then you can call yourself an expert.

*** Now we return to our regular programming. ***

So starting tomorrow I will be initiating a weekly series aimed at busting these myths and half truths. I hope to deliver real, actionable items that any business, big or small, can utilize to improve the performance of their website. I hope you enjoy it. If there are topics you want me to cover please do not hesitate to leave a comment or contact me.

1. Replace the Word Press logo in the Administration Area

By default Word Press has a small Word Press icon in the upper left hand corner when you are logged in to the administration area. You can easily replace this icon with one of your own. All you need to do is add the following code to your functions.php file inside your theme directory.
<?php
add_action('admin_head', 'my_custom_logo');
function my_custom_logo() {
echo '
<style type="text/css">
#header-logo { background-image: url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/path/yourlogo.png) !important; }
</style>
';
}
?>

One thing to keep in mind is that your image should be 32 × 32 pixels. Upload your logo to a location in your theme directory and change the path in the code above and you are good to go!

2. Customize Your Word Press Login Page

There is a very easy way to customize your Word Press login screen without hacking your Word Press installation files. By following these steps you can have a custom login screen and maintain your ability to upgrade your Word Press installation.

Step 1. Add the code below to your functions.php file. This code sets up your login page to use a custom stylesheet you specify. I call mine login.css.
<?php
function custom_login() {
echo '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="' . get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/login.css" />';
}
add_action('login_head', 'custom_login');
}
?>

Step 2. Create your custom stylesheet in your theme directory. The code below outlines the declarations you will need to include in this stylesheet. I’ve added comments to help you understand what each one does.

html {background:#F3F6FD url(img/body-bg.png) top center no-repeat;} /* Change the color or include an image for the background of the page. */
h1 a { /* This is the Word Press logo. Remember to update the height and width your image's dimensions. */
background:url(img/login-logo.png) 0 0 no-repeat; width:300px; height:73px;}
body.login {border-top-color:#fff;} /* This is the background color of the bar at the top of the page. */
.login p#backtoblog a:link, .login p#backtoblog a:visited {color:#3572b8;} /* Link styling for the text link in the bar at the top of the page */
.login p#backtoblog a:hover, .login p#backtoblog a:active {color:#484848;text-decoration:underline;} /* Rollover link effects in top bar */

That’s it! By implementing these two quick tips you can remove almost all of the Word Press branding inside the administration area and on your login page.

There’s no room for mistakes. Period.

And yet, I see these type of mistakes almost on a daily basis. Some are due to technology while others are simply human error. My response is simple. First, technology should never stand in the way or negatively impact business operations or messaging. Second, more than one person should always review or have some insight into the project and human errors should be fixed prior to being exposed to the public.

In this case, the error I am referring to is allowing your test page or development site to be indexed by the search engines and made available to the public in their results. I’ve tried to illustrate this with the screen capture below from Google. Let me explain what is in it and how I found it.

I was trying to track down an ex-colleague that I knew ran a freelance web development business. So, I hit Google and searched for his business name. The first two results were for his home page and his bio page on his website. The third result, however, was obviously a test page he had developed for one of his clients. There it was, sitting fat and pretty in the #3 spot on the first page of results for his business name. (Click to enlarge thumbnail. All identifiable information has been blurred out.)

Imagine if you were given this designer’s name as a referral and you popped online to find his site. What would you think about seeing his in-development project right there, live to the world? I would wonder if he would expose my project with the same carelessness and lack of regard.

That led me to do a search on the client’s name and product name. Again, the first two results showed the client’s website and the #3 spot had the web designer’s test page sitting there. Now indexing and ranking can happen overnight, but it is extremely rare for a page that is online for a very short time to show up in the top ten results. This had to of been there a while. I’ve checked it 3 times since the last week of April, with the last one being on May 30th. All 3 times I have received the same results. So not only has it been allowed to be indexed, but it has stayed there.

There are several ways to prevent this basic mistake that with a little more quality control on the part of the designer would make sure this kind of thing would never happen. At the very least it can be blocked with a robots meta tag that includes noindex. A second way would be to lock out the search engine robots with a robots.txt file. Third, you could put it behind a secure login via htpasswd. If you’re a developer reading this and you don’t know what any of those things mean, you can start by googling those terms.

Again, the bottom line is that stpuid web design mistakes like this should never, ever happen.

The first one I am offering is my flaming apple iPhone background. Enjoy!

For too long I tried to make that site all encompassing. It was my personal blog, my professional blog, my test bed, my portfolio, and my professional image. I needed to make this change in order to seperate those things. I needed a focused, professional presence for my freelancing and where I want to take my work. You’ll notice some new options, namely low-cost/high-value web design packages and SEO packages. You’ll also notice support for agencies, email marketing design and opportunity for extended projects (yes, I’m stepping up my freelancing work).

I have also seperated my personal blog from this professional presence. You can find my random writings and more at clustrfck.com. Look for that website to progress and grow into more than just a blog in 2009.

In all I am very excited about 2009 and the opportunities I know it will bring. I also recognize I have a long road ahead with lots of work and really I am ecstatic about it! Join me on this journey.

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