Leveraging Web Analytics for Effective Web Design

This evening, I’m presenting at the Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup. This month’s topic is web analytics and how it should be leveraged as part of the web design process.

You can view the presentation below.

Chicago Web Analytics Meetup

Click here to check out The Chicago Web Analytics Meetup!

Kim, the organizer of the Chicago Web Analytics Meetup, offered me the role of Asst. Organizer, which I gladly accepted. Web Analytics goes hand-in-hand with web design, user experience, usability, and search engine optimization (SEO), all of which I am interested.

I sent out invitations to some polls to gather information on most convenient locations, day & time for future meet-ups. Looking forward to getting the ball rolling in September.

If you’re in the Chicagoland area and have any interest in Web Analytics, and looking to network with like-minded people, join this meetup by clicking the link to the right and create your profile.

I look forward to our first meetup in September.

Recipe for Success Online

The recipe to success with web sites is straightforward and common sense, yet we all too often disregard key ingredients.

• Findability
• Accessibility
• Usability
• Convertability
• Measurability

Tracking Metrics Between HTML Email & Web Pages

In the past few months, I’ve grabbed a hold of my client’s Email Marketing program (well, only half a hold*) and have begun to master it. One change was to move from using established templates offered by the email provider to using custom templates that I created.

While we lost the ability for my client to edit the emails (darn, I’m heartbroken), I did gain the ability to create a branded look & feel. I also obtain a better understanding of tracking between email (HTML) and web sites, which I’d like to share with you here. Note that I’m at the beginning stages, and there may be several inaccuracies or inefficiencies. So send me a comment if things could be done better.

Specifications

• Email System: Constant Contact
• Web Analytics: Google Analytics
• Web Authoring: Dreamweaver CS3

Creating the HTML email

I use Dreamweaver to create the email, as a copy will be online as a view option (best practice). Once I finish creating the email and tagging it up with the various tracking tags, I then copy/paste the styles and HTML code into ConstantContact.

Web Analytics: Why Conversions are More Important Than Pages or Visits

Remember back in the day when you could proudly show your boss or client how many page views or visitors your site was getting? And the boss would pat you on the back, possibly giving you a bonus for a job well done?

Guess what, the bubble bursted, many years ago. Like many things in life, it all about the bottom line, the almighty dollar. Businesses don’t thrive on lookie-loos. Would Macy’s stay in business if people only window shopped, or if they came into the store, just browsed the counters and racks, then left?

I run into people all the time with a “hit counter” mentality. So many site & business owners proclaim “Our website receives thousands of hits.” Yet, whether they currently know it or not, their online business is failing. It’s failing because they are unaware of what is really happening on their sites; what their site visitors are actually doing.

I have a client who, in the past, would exude a mood based on the number of inquiries that were coming from the website. Some days, when several inquiries came in, life would be good. On others when, no inquiries were received, a fire alarm was raised, questioning whether the web-based form was working. When I looked into the situation further, I discovered that we were losing 95% of inquiries as part of the form submission process. Through tweaks to the form, we’ve made positive progress. However, without this type of business knowledge, how can you possibly know the level of success you are obtaining?

To remain relevant, whether you have a business to support, or just a personal blog, you must have access to the intelligence to understand what is happening on your website, what people are doing, are interested in. The only way to do this is via a web analytics program.