Web Metrics

The under-the-hood muscle of online marketing

Story by Jessica La Plante-Wikgren

WHEN E-COMMERCE MADE ITS DEBUT in the mid-1990s, many companies that did business on a regional or local scale were skeptical of the benefits of online advertising. After all, a medium with worldwide distribution didn’t seem like the most efficient means of marketing to a geographical niche-audience.

As it turns out, the Internet is ideal for niche marketing, including small to medium-sized companies that do business on a regional or local basis. Using a combination of Web measurement tools and search engine optimization techniques, more northeast Wisconsin businesses are learning how to leverage the Internet to connect with local customers.

Intelligent marketing with landing pages
WEB METRICS CAN BE USED to measure the efficacy of not only online advertising, but also newspaper ads, radio spots and television commercials. Without having to ask customers a single question – by using behind-the-scenes tracking code combined with Web logs and reports – businesses can easily learn how visitors discovered their site, how long they stayed, what browser technology they used, and even their geographic origin.

“The Internet is the hub of the entire marketing package and you can measure everything you do if you use the Internet properly,” said Jim Dobinski, managing director of Neenah-based Stellar Blue Web Design. Dobinski uses “landing pages” to demonstrate how Web metrics can help businesses evaluate and hone their entire marketing plan, including offline advertising.

A landing page is a special Web page created to serve as a Web site portal for consumers of an advertising campaign. The landing page’s Web site address – rather than the company’s homepage – is promoted in all print media and television/radio ads. Web metric tools are used in tandem with the promotional page to gather detailed insight into traffic patterns and consumer demographics.

Customized analytic tools – such as the graphical dashboard Stellar Blue Web Design offers its clients – provide a visually rich, user-friendly interface for wading through the jungle of raw data generated by Web server logs. Using that interface, Web site owners can monitor the number of visits, unique visitors, pages viewed, pages viewed per visitor, and the average duration of each visit. A gallery of charts and bar graphs depict Web site traffic by the day of the week and time of day.

Analytical dashboards and Web logs are “a social networking tool,” Dobinski said. “They observe how clients are using your Web site and you adjust your Web site accordingly.”

For example, by studying Web logs, “you can see that 98 percent of the people are using Flash. You have true data on how to code and develop an interactive Web site.”

Interactivity is the one feature of Web site functionality that sets it apart from all other media, said Tammy Schultz, president of Virtualtech Web Site Design & Promotion in Appleton. For example, there is no way to know how many newspaper subscribers actually read an ad. With pay-per-click advertising, consumer response is easy to track. Because of that feature, Web marketing offers businesses more built-in feedback about an ad campaign’s success than any other media venue.

Log reports maintained by Web hosting providers are underutilized resources, Schultz said. By studying log reports, businesses can learn not only “how visitors got to your site and from what search engine, (but also) how many people have added your Web site to their favorites list. It gives you the time of day, the time of week, and tons of other marketing information.”

Schultz advises businesses to place a premium on Web measurement tools and report-analysis training when shopping around for hosting providers. Web hosting providers need to reach out to their business clients and educate them about the logs and built-in analytical features that are standard for many Web-hosting packages. Businesses concerned about Web metrics should ask to view a sample log in advance before signing on with a hosting provider, Schultz said.

An alternative to viewing the raw reports generated by a Web site’s hosting service is installing a free, user-friendly monitoring and reporting tool, such as Google Analytics.

At a minimum, businesses should review their Web site logs on a monthly basis. 

“The sole purpose of your Web site is to generate new business or to support existing business, and it’s foolish to not monitor the traffic you’re getting to your site,” Schultz said. “In no other marketing media can you have all this great information and track it so well.”

Why Web metrics matter
ONE REASON BUSINESSES SHOULD BE MINDFUL of Web metrics is because of the importance search engines assign to such data. Even if a Web site owner does not keep track of how many visitors have linked to their site, how they got there, and how long they stayed – search engines do. Top-ranking search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN evaluate a site’s popularity among users of certain keywords and search terms.

So, how can a Web site owner penetrate the enigmatic secrets of search engine algorithms and leverage keywords to their advantage? Products such as Google AdWords can be used to test theories about the market appeal of certain keywords and phrases, said Larry Stopa, owner of the Oshkosh-based E-Power Marketing.

Stopa launched E-Power Marketing in 1998 and now offers a mixture of search engine optimization assistance, pay-per-click advertising and e-marketing services to companies nationwide.

“Google offers a tool in its AdWords section where you can put in a keyword and it will tell you all the related phrases that are searched and give you a monthly average of (the number of) searches,” Stopa said.

Web site owners can use information gleaned from Google’s keyword suggestion tool to strategically cull keywords for meta tags – the section of a Web page’s code that describes the page’s substance and subject-matter – and weave those keywords throughout the site’s content.

Ultimately, all search-engine optimization is rooted in creating rich content, Stopa said. Businesses should build each Web page around a key phrase or keyword – the more precise, the better – and incorporate that search term throughout the page’s title, headline, body text and hyperlinks. However, businesses should keep in mind that more is not necessarily better when it comes to a keyword’s popularity among search-engine users.

“By using a very broad phrase, you will get a lot of clicks, but you’re really not getting the audience you want,” Stopa said. “The beauty of the Web is how you can market your niche very precisely and that starts with keyword selection.”

“Long tail” search phrases – consisting of a string of three to five words – are best.

“If you think of the English language, the same word can have so many different meanings, that if you’re a searcher and you’re not finding what you want, you quickly try to make a search more precise (by using complete phrases),” Stopa said. 

Web site owners “should really target phrases more than keywords. To use a short phrase that a searcher might use – to be absolutely relevant – is the key to success.”

Choosing keywords and search phrases wisely is especially important for businesses that engage in pay-per-click advertising – where advertising rates are based on the number of visitors who view or click on the ad. A high click-through rate doesn’t always translate to a good response rate or higher sales figures, Stopa said. It all depends on who’s doing the clicking.

“You’re paying for every click, so it’s real easy to spend a lot of money real fast if you’re spending money on phrases that are too broad,” Stopa said.

Customizing content
THE SEARCH ENGINES OF today are a lot savvier than their 1990s forerunners. Shortcuts, such as over-relying on meta tags instead of writing descriptive copy, no longer score points with top-ranking search engines. Like users, search engines prefer Web pages overflowing with relevant, informative content.

“It’s not just a matter of putting keywords in the pages and you’ll come out (on top) in the search engines,” said Mike Pulvermacher, president of Oshkosh-based eBizResults. “Content is key; the more text, the better the site. Google has really raised the bar; they want good-quality content.”

Participating in the Web 2.0 movement also boosts a site’s standing in search rankings.

“Your Web site has to build rapport with people,” Pulvermacher said. “Search engine optimization is not just adding content to your site but also participating in other areas – blogs, social networking sites, even YouTube.”

Although Web metric tools are strictly behind the scenes – not part of a site’s interactive content – such detail-rich data is key to creating a truly interactive site that responds to the needs and preferences of users.

“With RTownShopper.com (another business owned by Pulvermacher), we look at (Web metrics) daily,” Pulvermacher said. “We look at new visitors, how many actually became customers, and how many orders we get that day. We watch that closing ratio.”

Jessica La Plante-Wikgren is a freelance writer based out of Green Bay. She previously worked as a feature writer and staff reporter for The Door County Advocate and the Green Bay News-Chronicle. La Plante-Wikgren can be reached by email at jlaplante@centurytel.net.