Ok, fine. Man you are not alone in this universe facing this seemingly weird problem. As far as the intelligence reports [just kidding] are concerned, on an average 88% consumers leave shopping cart in the middle.  Though it is impossible eliminate shopping cart abandonment for once and all, there are tips that you can easily incorporate in your shopping cart as well as in your marketing campaign to reduce the number of abandonment to a great extent.

 Image Source: http://www.listrak.com/sca-index/

Tip 1: Be frank about the Shipping

People hate the idea of paying heavily for shipping. So, if you are charging heavily for product shipment, you need to rethink your marketing strategy. However, there are some sly marketers who hide this information from the customers and add the cost just before the customers are going to make the payment. But this is the worst marketing approach. People will always be dragging their feet seeing that they are going to pay a hell lot more than what was promised before. Do not do this. Be upfront about the shipping policy and let the customers decide whether they want to buy your product or not.

Tip 2: Do not force your visitors to get registered

Do not force the visitors to get registered with your website to be able to buy a product.  I do not see any reason why you should be asking them to get registered when the purpose should be making them buy the products.

Moreover, people are averse to the idea of creating new passwords as they most likely to forget it. Probably this is the reasons why some people have chosen to scrub a toilet than going through the grinding process of creating another password.

But some webmasters may argue that they really need people to get registered because they need the data for future communication and marketing initiatives. Well, in that case, you can try “Guest Checkout option”, which is less irritating and more users friendly.

Tip 3:  Make People aware of the rewards throughout the Checkout Process

Just because a visitor has added a product in his cart, it does not necessarily mean that he is going to get converted. Buyers are strange species; they change their minds when you least expect it. So, you need to make them aware of the value proposition of your website throughout the transaction process otherwise, they may leave in the middle.

For say, if you are offering free shipping, you need to make the buyers aware of this throughout the process so that he does not think otherwise.

Tip 4: Persistent Cart

People may not always be in the mood for purchasing. They may be in the mood to browse the product and add them in the cart for future payment. So, do not always force them to make a payment whenever they add something in their cart. Rather you should allow them to purchase when they feel that they are ready for it.

Tip 5: Simplify the Process

A lengthy conversion form is probably the last thing on earth that you would like to encounter. As far as the statistics are concerned, there is a negative correlation between the amount of time a user spent on filling out a form and the conversion rate. So, you need to make sure that the mandatory fields are kept to a bare minimum in the form.

You also need to remove some other types of frictions in the conversion path that includes removing the phone number unless it is absolutely a necessity, add the “same add billing address” field just to make the visitors feel relieved for a second or two and do not forget to add a green progress bar [I love this color, however you are free to change the color as you are living in a democratic society] displaying where the customer is at present.

There was a time when local businesses just had to get listed in the Yellow Pages. Do this, and you were assured a steady stream of business. With the popularity and reach of the Internet, it became slightly more complicated, because the businesses needed to have a website. It was worth it, because they could reach out to more people easily. The wider the reach, the better the business prospects!

With Web 2.0, it suddenly looked more difficult. Just an online presence was not enough anymore. The Internet had become social. It was no more just a one-way communication from the company to its audience. Everybody could interact online, between themselves and with the business. But this presented a great opportunity for the local business as well. It could attract and engage with many more people in a digital format. The Internet had become mainstream.

The Reach of Social Media

Generation Y has increasingly taken up social media. Online consumers today are looking for up-to-date information and feedback before considering buying a service or product. And social media is playing a role here. Research has proved that personal recommendations always work better than simple advertisements. In other words, if your friend “likes” something, then you tend to believe it more than what the company or some celebrity says about it. Yes, the “perceived value” certainly goes up in a social network. Of course, the local business can gain much more if it can make it viral.

Today, the small business does not have a choice. Even a local business now has to go in for social media. Local Yellow Pages listing or a simple website is not going to be enough anymore.

So what can a local business do? Let’s take a look here.

Local Business Marketing with Facebook

Facebook marketing is the absolutely “must do”. It is free, and it allows the local business to reach out to potentially thousands of hot prospects. Of course, there are paid plans too that allows the business to reach out to even more people. If you are planning to build an online presence and create a brand following, then there is hardly anything better than Facebook.

Local Business Marketing with Twitter

Twitter is a great marketing platform for a small business. Just sign up, reserve the account for your business and start tweeting. It is completely free. Follow other tweet accounts, and in time, you will be able to build up a healthy number of followers yourself. By tweeting from a business name, the local entrepreneur can create a smart community of people and other businesses who are following every announcement or communication. This is a great way to announce new launches, or just keep people interested in the loop and let them know about the local business.

Local Business Marketing with Google Places and Google Plus

Local businesses should definitely use “Google Places”. “Places” is a location based Google search result. The key thing here is that, the search result comes with a map of the region, seeing which, people can easily find the local business. This is a unique way for vendors and customers to interact with each other. Say for example, if you are running a pizza shop in Mumbai, and if you have your Places or “Plus” account (discussed later), then your store will be promptly displayed with the map of Mumbai on the search result page for relevant keywords. Local businesses can publish videos, pictures and content.

Another great idea is to open a “Google Plus” account. This is a good social media platform much like Facebook. In recent times, Google has integrated many “Plus” accounts with “Places”. This presents another unique opportunity for local businesses.

Conclusion

Increasingly, search results these days are becoming local as Google realizes that most consumers are looking for a local service provider or a local solution to their problems. It presents a great opportunity for the small local business too, that really does not need traffic from another corner of the world. Just a local presence on the web would do just fine. Social media can be your tool for not just improving the local web visibility, but also engaging with your customers and hot prospects. In fact, there is no better way.

Need local business marketing help with social media? Don’t hesitate to ask us.

Search Keywords Report: It is bad but the thing is that people may not use exactly the same keywords that you have selected. They use weird combinations of key phrases, long tail keywords [sometimes the length can drive you nuts], and sometimes misspelled words to find your ads and then land on your website. To figure out which keywords visitors are actually typing to get to your website, you need to follow the process. Click on the campaign tab >> Then Click on the Keywords Tab >> Scroll down a bit and then click on the Keywords Detail option.

Select “All” from that option. However, Adwords need some data to be able to display any information. So make sure that you have selected “This Week” from the drop down menu:

Now, you will have all the data. Do not get shocked to see the data. Yes those are the phrases people are using to land on your website.

Clearly, complete wastage of your honest effort and hard earned money. First thing first, get all the data downloaded in CSV format:

The above screenshot shows some searches terms that are not related to the campaign. So people are searching with unrelated these terms and clicking on the ads and wasting our money. To stop this, we need to set these key phrases as “negative keywords” so that Adwords stop showing them when people make a search with those terms.

First we select those keywords that we wish to set as negative and then click on the Button – “Add As negative keyword”.

Once we set those keywords as negative, a red square box will appear against those search terms that are set as negative as illustrated in the below image -

So, we have done this finally. No more of our ads will appear against unrelated key phrases – thanks to the effort of Niladri Bose.

Ideas to generate Negative Keywords – But I do not really like  the idea of checking the Search Query tab and then figuring out irrelevant keywords that are costing us money. It would be great if we can create a list of negative keywords proactively; creating a probable list of negative keywords that can cost you money.

Try Google Keyword Research Tools – When you are making a search with a particular term for say – “Distance Learning” in Google Adwords Keyword Research tools, you need to find out those terms that are related but you wish to make your ads appear with those key phrases.  Selected are the key phrases that we do not wish to target because they belong to branded keywords of some other institutes –

In the negative keywords section, we can set the following terms as broad match –

SMU
IMT
Symbiosis
MIT
ICFAI
Sikkim Manipal University

So, search query containing any of the above mentioned term will not trigger our ads anymore.

Trending Topics: If you have set the key phrases as broad match, you need to keep a close eye on the trending topics because it might happen that some trending topics may match with the set keywords and people start clicking on the ads but bounce back immediately realizing the fact that it is not what they are looking for. So, make sure that you have excluded the terms as soon as they started gathering steam.

Remember, it is extremely important to optimize your website if you plan to make something out of it. Some strategies need to be followed to ensure that your website is optimized. Enhance the rank of the website in the search engine results with these strategies and thus, generate more traffic. You can only feel satisfied when you see more than one pages of your website appearing in the top results of a search engine when enquiring about a single keyword. To do this, you should have a clear idea about what should be your SEO strategies for maximum benefits.

Decide the Correct Keywords for Your Website to Earn More Revenues

The very first thing you should do is to decide the correct keywords for your website. Targeting the wrong keywords means that the customers will never be able to find you. This will have a negative effect on your PPC campaign, resulting in loss of revenues. Hence, the keyword research is the most important thing that you should perform at the very beginning.

Update Your Website with Fresh Content

Attract your visitors using the content of your website. Post high-quality content in the website on a regular basis.Keep in mind that the search engine of Google has a technique to check out all the content that is updated on a regular basis. It evaluates the content both in terms of quality as well as quantity.

Provide Authentic and High-quality Content to Attract Visitors

Providing authentic and high-quality content will ensure that the visitors who come to your website will return to it again. Help your website to be considered as an authority in your domain. This, in turn, will be a great way to build a regular base of visitors for your website.

Blog about Your Business to Increase Traffic

Do you practice blogging as a hobby? It can be really helpful in marketing your website as well. Write about your business in the blog and create inbound links from the keywords to your website. Once a visitor clicks on the keywords, they will be directed to your website. This will help you increase the number of visitors to your website a great deal and, in turn, increase revenues for you.

Post Articles in Directories and Hyperlink Keywords to Create Backlinks

There lots of website owners who depend on article directories for marketing. You can do that for sure. Write articles on the topics you are dealing with. Ensure that the keywords are properly hyperlinked to create backlinks to your website. You can post all these articles in different article directories. If a visitor from any of the article directories read your article and click on the hyperlinked keywords, they will be directed to your website.

Post Your Link in Relevant Blogs to Create Backlinks

You can find several blogs in the website that are relevant to your business domain. Many of these provide the opportunity of commenting as a guest. You can make some comment and create a backlink in the space provided for posting a website address. This is going to drive a lot of traffic from the blogs to your website.

Use Social Media Marketing as an Effective SEO Strategy

Social Media has become an important way of reaching out to millions of people everyday. Use websites, such as Facebook and Twitter to let your target audience know about your business. Social media marketing is emerging as one of the most effective SEO strategies in recent times.

Follow these strategies to ensure your website is optimized in the best possible way and gain maximum traffic.

Stop Whining

So, rather than wasting your time sniffing around and cursing your boss for this devilish plan to get you involved in Local PPC accounts, take your gloves off and get ready for some serious actions. Contrary to what you believe, managing local PPC accounts is not that difficult.  And here we are going to share some tips that can help you manage them efficiently without getting yourself or those small business owners into trouble:

The Limitations

Yes, managing Local PPC accounts is like walking on egg shells. Their budget is small and the geographical location where the ads are going to get featured is limited. So, it is quite expected that you will eventually run into trouble when maintaining the perfect balance between limited budget and geographical restrictions. But this should be the case, here is how to manage these local PPC accounts without leaving the end customers feeling fleeced and frustrated at the end:

Account Set up

  Just like any other PPC accounts, the set up process is vastly similar. Rules of thumb are basically the same – creation of closely related ad groups and attention grabbing ad texts. There can be some exceptions depending on the size of the account but the rules remain the same.

Keywords Matched Type

 Since Local PPC accounts are cash-strapped as always, you simply do not have the luxury to go for the Broad matched keywords at the initial stage to gather some valuable data and then figure out which combination works best for a particular ad group. Broad Matched keywords will lead to loads of unproductive clicks  that these small budget PPC campaign cannot afford simply.

So, unlike other PPC accounts, where you ample time to play with the keywords, here you are left with little option but going for the Exact match and Phrase match keywords from the very onset.

Now, both these keywords have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. For say, if you decide to go for the Exact Match keywords and start serving the ads to a small geographical location, the campaign may end up stuck in a limbo. Impression could be so small that you will find yourself struggling with spending the budget set for the day. So, this does not make any sense.

So, board match keywords are the way to go. You just need to make the most of negative keywords option so that ads do not show up to people, who are not your targeted audience. Here I am assuming that you know the difference among broad match, phrase match and exact match negative keywords.

Ad Creation

 Since local businesses server local customers (and that is why they are known as local businesses), you need to focus on geographical location while creating the ads. As the targeted audience is most likely to make an appointment or call the business owners, you need to make use of the following extensions -

Call and location extensions are the best bets. When the purpose is to make an appointment, you should be better off with “Click to Call extension”. Now, if the purpose of the adwords campaign is to feature the business location so that prospective customers can drive down to your business’s physical location easily, location extensions is something that you should be looking forward to.

]]> http://www.softzsolutions.com/blog/struggling-with-local-ppc-accounts-here-is-how-to-do-it-like-a-jagger/feed/ 0 http://www.softzsolutions.com/blog/silent-conversion-killers/ http://www.softzsolutions.com/blog/silent-conversion-killers/#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:25:31 +0000 Niladri Bose http://www.softzsolutions.com/blog/?p=767 As a webmaster, admin, or the Internet marketer who cares about the conversion rate of your website, and its ROI, you need to be concerned about the holes that are leaking money.

Do you think you have a domain that is working very well for you? Perhaps it is! Well done! You have reached the first step in conversion optimization. However you should realize that there are bound to be a few improvement areas. In fact, there isn’t a single website out there (the Amazon’s and the eBay’s of the world included), that cannot be improved. That’s where your conversion guy can come in.

You probably have some idea about what to do to boost the conversion rate further. As a web marketer, you could be concentrating on price-point testing (for ecommerce websites) form optimization (length of the form, call-to-action button, copy etc.), the copy, headline, banner vs. no banner, scratch-through pricing, text testimonial vs. audio testimonial, positioning of the credibility logos, navigation structure, refund policy among many others. As the web marketer, you should keep testing them always.

But did you realize that there are many silent conversion killers in your website as well? The factors that are usually overlooked by most people. Here, we will be discussing these silent killers, and will try to find ways to overcome them.

Identifying the Silent Conversion Killers

• Not displaying your product up-front on the Home/landing page – A lot of websites makes this mistake. They would go for a Flash movie or a huge Hero banner believing that it makes the website look impressive. Sadly quite often, the image of Flash file won’t even have products displayed with links. You need to realize that most surfers on the Internet have very little patience. If they can’t find it quickly, they would look elsewhere. So don’t waste their time, and yours. Put it up, straight on the face. Make it count. Chances are, it will work for you.

• Not driving visitors deeper into the website – In other words, do everything possible to improve the stickiness of your web pages. The longer the person stays with you, the better your chances of making that sale or getting that lead. What can you do to drive the person deeper? You could post a review of the product in the product landing page. There could be links to reviews of similar products that you are carrying. You should do this with cross-selling of course.

• Not creating scarcity – A lot of people procrastinates. They would rather do their research before buying with the intention of returning later. But of course, most of them don’t. And this means, lost opportunities. Don’t let this happen. Create a scarcity – a ticker that shows X number of products left in stock or a timer with a time-bound special discount offer. Of course, you need to make it look genuine.

• Not capturing the lead – Sure, you are an ecommerce website that wants to make a sale. You may even believe that lead capturing is for the lead-generators. But remember, to become a leader, you need to capture leads – you can’t ever undermine its importance. A lot of the people who are visiting your website aren’t ready to buy yet. You could give away a freebie for that email address. Or better still, you can start a newsletter service or email campaign to keep all these hot potentials in the loop. The right approach would be to look at conversions as a long-term thing.

• Not reducing friction – There is a lot of friction everywhere you see. In the sales funnel, form submission steps, finding the right product, navigating through the website, and such others. Take a second look at what you have. Ask colleagues, friends. Talk to experts and conversion gurus. You are sure to find improvement areas.

Have some questions? Don’t hesitate to ask them. Do you need any conversion optimization help? Just send a line to us.

Webmasters and primarily content writers often come across situations where they need to weigh between keyword-optimised content and keyword-stuffed content. Which is the borderline one needs to follow in practice?  Selecting the right keyword linking pattern is also in a dilemma at times. In fact, the Google panda update has left us with so many ifs and buts, that you need to solve them only by learning and practicing.

Unfortunately many of us end up with vague answers when it comes to using keywords in a content optimally.

In this post we will try to answer a few of them.

1.What is the difference between keyword and keyphrase?

Generally speaking, a keyword is a single word. A keyphrase consists of 2 or more words. Keyphrase can also be termed as long tail keyword. Long tail keyword is basically a compilation of words that makes a short phrase or sentence. A long tail keyword usually contains the main keyword in different forms and positions.

Example:

Keyword – Toronto Real estate

Keyphrase -

• Toronto luxury homes for sale
• Toronto foreclosure homes for sale
• Toronto condominiums for sale
• luxury homes for sale in Toronto
• Toronto Single-family homes for sale
• Toronto townhomes for sale

2. Should I use direct keywords as well as keyphrase both within a content?

You may use both, but in a ratio, say 25:75.

3. Should I use keywords in the title and subheadings?

Yes, you may use keywords in the title and subheads of content, but with intelligence and precision.

NB:

Title or H1 tag is what search engines look at to decide what the topic your page is about.

Supportive heading tags (or subheads) H2, H3, H4 that incorporate search terms and support the main title helps to build up topic authority and fulfills search engine placement goals.

4. How many times I should use keywords within a piece of content?

There is no ideal number or percentage to use a keyword on a web page. However, you may have heard people saying 2-3% keyword density with 20% to 30% variation is the ideal. The number may vary depending on the type of content you are writing. Therefore, instead of brainstorming on keyword density, concentrate on relevance, uniqueness and real value that you are providing through the content. Keyword should naturally appear in the content at a reasonable rate.

However, if you want to play safe,  an article of 500 words can have direct keywords 2 to 3 times and keyphrase 5-6 times. Keyword-stuffed content that does not have substance will only lead to higher bounce rate and no conversion. keyphrases that support your main keyword, avoid keyword over-optimisation effect and give direction to the content are worth gold.

5. Why use keyphrases or long tail keywords within a content?

1. From site owner’s/webmaster’s point of view:

When it comes to ranking in SERPs long tail keywords/ keyphrases face little competition as compared to single keywords. The exact match keyphrases are worth gold because that is what searchers may have typed in Google.

When it comes to driving quality traffic keyphrases are more focused and specific than a single keyword. One needs to understand the psychology of a phrase.

For example, you are a property agent in Toronto looking to sell condominiums. If you use the keyword “condos”, you may end up targeting a wide range of audience who have nothing to do with buying or selling condos. More you go specific better is the output you get.  Keyphrase can only get you into that.

Here is the hierarchy of developing keyphrase based on human psychology:

1. Condos
2. Condos for sale
3. Condos for sale Toronto
4. Cheap condos for sale Toronto

Single keyword has got too much of popularity and there are a number of bogus sites that rank for single keywords, though they are not relevant and useful for visitors. Therefore, original buyers are now trying to find their products by typing long tail keywords or key phrases. Keyphrases are getting popular day by day.

More accurate keyphrase = More targeted traffic = Better conversion.

2. From link builder’s point of view:

Google penalises websites that are building loads of keyword-based links month after month. This keyword over-optimisation leads to unnatural link building. We all know over-doing anything is treated as spam activity in SEO world. By using keyphrase it is possible to control the usage of direct keywords as anchor text and thus dilute the over-optimisation effect.

3. From content writer’s point of view:

• Contents with high keyword density are often rejected by quality article directory sites. Using keyphrase is a safe bet in this regard.

• Guest bloggers are no more in a  mood to entertain such posts that are written only to optimise a keyword. They are particular about maintaining keyword density.

• It is easy to use keyphrase than pushing a keyword into a sentence forcefully.

• Keyphrase can be used as a subheading or as a statement as you feel the best use of it.

• Keyphrases help you avoid awkward use of keyword in a sentence

6. How should a keyphrase look like?

Potential search term that is naturally occurring and is useful to readers. A content writer may look at it as an alternative to the main keyword. A search engine may consider it as a phrase or groups of naturally occurring texts that are relevant to the topic, title of the content and  outgoing links.

7. How will I develop keyphrase?

This is the most important brainstorming activity a content writer needs to perform.

Think in terms of keyword taxonomy. Taxonomy is like a tree-shaped structure that gets more specific as you move to end of the branches.

If you are writing for an e-commerce site that sells shoes you may use this taxonomy –

Shoes> Men’s shoes> Boots> Boots Chelsea style> Boots Chelsea style Ankle height

Focus on these points while developing and using keyphrases:

Business goals and the type of the website you are writing for. For example, if you are writing around the keyword “cupcakes” and your business objective is to sell cupcakes by taking customers to your product section , think how  a visitor will react to the keyword you have used. Will they prefer clicking on just a link called“cupcakes”? The chances are not high.

If you develop  keyphrases around the main keyword, for example“Types of cupcake flavours  to choose” or “colourful and cream-filled chocolate cupcakes on display” that will easily register in the visitor’s mind. Positioning of keyphrase is vital in this regard.

You need to decide –

• What is that associated text (keyphrase) that induces readers to click on a link ?
• When, how and where to place such engaging anchor texts?

Useful practices

1. Apply keyphrases in the form of “How To Stuffs”. For example,  “how to  prepare cream-filled chocolate cupcakes yourself?” It is better to build a business or a brand by showing expertise rather than attempting to sell a product or service directly through the content.

2. Use prepositions, relative pronouns, stop words, synonyms to form keyphrases. You can also use different forms of a word such as noun, adjective or verb to construct a keyphrase. Using the past participle form or gerund form of a sentence is also useful sometimes. The idea is breaking the keyword in two or more words and then using preposition, related phrases, additional words to maintain the flow of the sentence.

For example,

If a keyword is “Tax Fraud” we can use following key phrases or try more variation:

• Tax related frauds
• Tax related fraudulent activities
• Tax evasion
• Tax related issues
• Tax related offence
• Tax crime
• Taxation problem
• Such legal matters
• This legal issue
• Such crime
•  In tax related crimes
• Tax fraud and crime

3. Use keyword research tools to figure out keyword variations and groupings. Google Adwords keyword tool , Wordstream keyword tool, Google insights for search, Google trends, Keyword grouper, Keyword niche finder are a few resources you may try on your own. They will make your job easier.

4. Use Compete.com, Alexa to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting. You must not copy their effort, but you can gather ideas about potential search terms.

8. What are the different ways to use hyperlinks within a content?

It is not necessary that we need to stick to the original form of keyword for linking. It depends on how you are using it and where. You may use some long tail keywords for hyperlinking, if it makes sense. One may also use related phrases, direct client name, brand name, client URL as an anchor text. To summarise a write should not use any word that a human being finds difficult to utter or to relate. You may compromise with keyword structure/components if it is required for the content. Sometimes a whole sentence can be linked if it is meaningful.

9. Should I use the same keyword insertion approach for all of my contents?

No, there should be a variety and originality. It is up to you to decide what suits the content best.

10. Is it fine to target multiple keywords  on the same content?

Whether you know or not , every piece of content that you write contain multiple keywords. It comes naturally. When you are using one primary keyword it is good to have multiple sub-targets in mind. This will optimise the page for other sub-target keywords or related keywords.

11. How to make best use of keyword in terms of ranking?

• Develop a unique, authoritative, resourceful page based on that keyword
• Target the keyword in video and presentation sharings so as to maintain variety in link profile
• Prepare a  number of long-tail keywords with variation and then use them while writing
• Focus on evergreen keywords that will drive the right kind of traffic
• Add real value through your content  and ask readers to comment on this
• Promote your work through social media and Newswire services

12. How will I know more about this part of content marketing?

If you have  the patience and time to do research work, there are a number of blog posts written on these topics. You can go through them and understand the basics of keyword usage. Following SEO expert’s suggestions will help you understand the latest changes happening around. If time permits you can experiment on your own.  Take a set of keywords and watch out which sites are ranking high for them. Continue this process for a couple of months and you will understand – how Google ranks a webpage based on its content value; what is the keyword density a good site maintains; how to use keywords through a page content and all.

If you have more questions in mind related to keyword usage or content marketing that you want share with us please comment here below. We will try our level best to answer your queries.

Next time when you log on to Google analytics of your website you will understand why and how.

The new version of Google Analytics is real teat to your eyes and minds. You can literally do much more with your analytics data –far advanced and far in detail that you never thought of. The look and feel   has also improved drastically.  Right from your analytics dashboard to reporting format everything has got a new appearance that you are sure to like and recommend others.

Webmasters and website owners are the most fortunate ones in this regard. They can enjoy playing with crucial data in any form and anytime they want. This was never before earlier.  It gives you so much of freedom, flexibility and fairness while dealing with site analytics.

The added features are also worth mentioning. Not only you can track your visitor’s profile like a hawk but also can do business conversions in better way. If you want to surprise your client with a complete set of site audit report this new version can get you right on job.

Well so much has been told about its usability benefits.  Now let us see what actually the changes are:

1. Speedier Report making -

Google has announced three new features to improve data crunching during report generation. Now you can watch your reports load faster. There will be a visual indicator that will show the progress of loading. Now your reports on Google analytics will load once and it will be visible on your computer as long as it is open. You can just click on refresh report and see the updated one.  You can also control your report calculation with the help of fast-access mode.  It does not matter if the report requires calculation on 2, 50,000 visits, you get highly accurate data in return.

2. New languages incorporated –

Now Google analytics is available in 9 new languages. In total it is 40 languages. So from next time there is no reason to repent if you are a Serbian or a Hebrew. To change the language of your analytics account you have to activate the new interface and then visit settings page. From there you can select the new language.

3. Visitor’s flow view –

This is something to make you feel overwhelmed.  Visitor’s flow view provides a graphical representation of traffic source – both ups and downs.  The graph is highly interactive as you can hover over the node and get information at a glance.  Such visualizations give you better picture and more resourceful insights on how to engage users during promotions.

4. Goal flow view -

This allows site owners to set a target for better traffic conversion. After you define the goal steps and page group of interests you can track how visitors navigate each of the steps that you.  Thus the goal view   tells you how visitors interacted with your site and they were dropped off.

 5. Social media review -

Now measuring social media influence of your website is even easier. Just by viewing social engagement section you can see how many visitors of you are socially engaged and how many are not. You can also measure site usage, Ecommerce value and ad sense revenues of your site. Counting +1d of your G+ account is also easy with new analytics available to you.

There are more Google analytics has in offer for you.  Whether it is the advanced look of your ad words account, introduction of multichannel funnels, options of custom report making or measuring G+ effect on your site – Google is always at your service.

So next time, when you log on to your analytics account make sure you have activated new version of it. Say good bye to older version today only.

If you are not pessimistic about power of social media, FB is The Right Marketing Partner for you. With some effort, your good ideas and product values, you can become a fan favourite on Facebook.  There is so much to do with Facebook and its applications.

Yet, there are people who take a shy while capitalizing on this potential media. They still believe FB is only for fun and gossips, not for serious business. However, those who had eagle’s eye and applied smart business sense are already enjoying the fruits today.

If you do not want to be called among those backbenchers, it is high time you stop repenting. Rather take a quick lesson from those who started commercialising FB years back.

If you are not convinced yet, let us show you what Facebook can do to you and your business.

Pure branding:

Facebook fan pages are the profiles for your brands. It is like having another website under the brand Facebook.com. With FB fan page, you can talk about your business and its offerings to your prospects. You can share your domain knowledge and market experience to thousands of fans and friends.

It is a human instinct that people feel comfortable interacting through an open and neutral space. Since FB is a platform that people access out of their own interest, you always get natural and targeted traffic. You can easily engage people through your marketing skills and all these come at no cost. You will not find a better medium than this if pure brand building is your primary business concern.

Better reach, real-time communication, effective marketing:

You can integrate your FB fan page to your company website and drive traffic directly to your site.  Just having a website does not ensure your target audience see it and do necessary actions. Unless world’s largest social media giant backs your business site, you will not find an easy to reach your customers. Only when right kind of audience interacts with you, know your business and relate their interests with it, your marketing effort is successful.  After all marketing involves two-way communication. A fan page allows fans to post pictures, provide product reviews, post feedbacks and comments, which in turn attracts other users.

 Did you find any such tools before that could communicate with your customers in such a friendly manner? It is simply priceless. FB fan page gives you that chance to get closer to your prospects and build healthy business relationships.  You can join conversations both within FB fan page and user’s news feed section; update fans on special events or important business news.  All these happen real –time.

Cost effective promotion:

It does not matter if your business does not have a site yet.  A well-designed and moderated FB fan page itself performs better than a website. You can integrate multiple built-in applications of Facebook at almost no cost (exceptions are there for rich feature-oriented tool).  Only hiring a good FB marketing consultant and a designer cum developer would suffice your requirement. This obviously costs lesser than running and maintaining a website. Here you just pay for the marketing effort and that is all.

SEO and real-time indexing:

This is one great thing about FB fan page. All FB page contents are indexed by Google and it happens real-time like in Twitter. Most of the SEO professionals appreciate this SEO-friendly feature of FB.

Unlimited fans:

Unlike FB profile that allows you up to 5000 friends, FB fan page lets you make unlimited number of fans.  The group itself can be unlimited and you can send across messages to 5000 of them at a time. Do you see any alternative to such a wonderful online help? You will not.

The greatest thing about Facebook fan page is that even smallest businesses can gain from it.  It takes nothing more than passion and little marketing help to reap all the social media benefits.

In recent times FB has developed a global community of shared connections and interests that knows no cultural or region specific boundary. Business owners all over the world have started counting on Facebook experts for all their FB fan page needs.

So what are you waiting for?  FB has proven its worth on web. Now it is your turn to justify its value on your behalf.

Significance of social media promotion is beyond any introduction or explanation. It has already earned the name and  fame it deserves.

Today you won’t find any advertiser who does not know how to use Facebook, Twitter or Google+ for his business promotion.  It is too simple. You create a fan page; invite friends and followers to join your community; share reviews and make business out of prospects.

Even the number of social media marketers is growing fast.  Now you don’t have to call your marketer to get SMM quotes. They will give it you in the first meet only that too at affordable price and with lots of freebies.  On the whole organizing SMM campaigns doesn’t look like a head-breaking task anymore.

However things are not as easy as it seems. Here are the facts advertisers must analyze themselves –

Get rid of myths: It is serious

One must know that creating an application-rich Facebook fan page is not a big deal. Even increasing fans and friends for the page is just a matter of time and some marketing effort. For Twitter and Google+ similar concept applies. Your social media marketer doesn’t have to slog to get the job done.

But here are a few points to consider

1. Is that good enough for the SMM service you have paid or expected?

2. Are you complacent with social media report delivered at the end of the month?

3. Do you believe collecting 1000 FB fans or 2000 Twitter followers or 3000 G+ members  in one month is  a big achievement from your business point of view?

4. Are you aware of the fans and followers who are supposed to share your business updates? Have you checked if all your followers are active in social media?

5. Have they joined you willingly or it is done forcefully?

6. Do their social profiles exist in person or it is a manipulation?

7. Even if their profiles exist do they have real interest on your business?

8. Do you think such social media promotions can bring you potential and regular customers?

If you think “Yes” you may repent sooner or later.

Know what you deserve but didn’t get yet

1. This is for the advertisers who are not aware of what quality social media promotion is. Social media marketing is not about how big social community you have developed; rather it is how active the members are in sharing your business reviews.

2. You should know who are the people talking good about your business in FB, Twitter or G+?  You deserve to view their details and know what they take interest in.

3. You need real sharing from real reviewers. No impulsion should exist in this marketing process. Else results could get diluted.

4. Every social profile should have genuine interest to share your business reviews. Only relevant and targeted users can contribute to the best of their effort. The whole social media reviewing system should work as natural as they are.

5. Getting detailed social link at the end of the month is your right. It is not the number of fans and followers you should ask your SMM manager; rather it is the direct link that social media users are sharing though their profiles.  This looks authentic and shows ingenuity. You should have the evidence that your website links are being shared.  This will bring confidence in you.

Launching Social Genie – for all your help

Well, we are here to solve your problem – not just to discuss about it.

Softz Solutions, after a number of successful initiatives since 2002, is coming up with something new.  This time “We are Going Social – beyond Search Engine Marketing“.

Our recent launch for the New Year 2012 is Socialgenie.net – “Genie’s Magic Wand Is At Work Again “

This for our esteemed clients who want to develop social media links for their campaigns.

How Social Genie is going to work for advertisers?

1. First we will ask your social media marketing requirements. This includes campaign duration, preferred social media (among FB, twitter and G+), number of social media links required in a month and the web pages you want to promote.

2. Next we will create engaging marketing contents for each of your campaigns. This content is basically the reviews that social media users registered with Social Genie will share through their profiles.

3. Our SMM managers will keep a track of each review sharing time to time. Since reviewers will take part in this system out of their own interest, quality and relevancy will never be an issue. This is by default.

4. Our QC team is going to evaluate the link development process periodically.

5. At the end of the month we will collect unique social links against each campaign and send them for final verification.

6. Your social link report is ready to deliver. Just click on any link and check who has shared your social media reviews. It is so quick and transparent. You can verify all the social links generated through Facebook, Twitter and Google +.

To know more about Social Genie click here. You can also fill up “Advertiser Sign Up” form on main page and send your SMM requirements. We will revert back to you with pricing.

Hope to see you soon rocking at Socialgenie.net