Now that you have successfully implemented a Web Analytics program to evaluate visits to your website, what should you be looking at? Whether you are utilizing the Blizzard ROI Tracker, Google Analytics or another type of analytics software on your website, these resources can provide valuable information about the effectiveness of both online and offline marketing efforts.

Bounce Rate – tells you the percentage of visitors that only viewed one page on your website. There are many possible scenarios that cause websites to have high bounce rates. If the content on your website is outdated, you will typically lose visitors looking for the newest information about your business. How often do you update the content, specials or packages, local events, etc… on your website? Are your keywords reflective of what your visitors expect from your website? If the keyword phrases you are using, both in your optimization and paid advertising don’t give visitors what they are expecting from your website, they will most likely not make it past the first page.

Average Time Spent on Website – It is crucial to monitor how long the average visitor spends on your website. If your content keeps the visitor engaged, they are more likely to view more pages, which often lead to conversions or a request for more information. Pay attention to pages that show an unusually high time spent on the page, as there could be an issue with the page.

First Time and Returning Visitors – It is important to spend your time and efforts attracting new visitors to your website. It is just as important to see an increase in returning visitors, an indication that visitors are interested in learning more about what you are offering on your website.

Top Referring URL’s – This will help to determine which directories and search engines are bringing the most traffic to your website.

Top Keywords that send visitors to your website – analyze whether the most relevant keywords for your business are really the ones that are sending the most qualified visitors. Which keywords are resulting in more conversions?

Top Keywords by Search Engine – Analyzing the top keywords by search engine will allow you to determine what is working best for you in the organic rankings and your pay per click advertising.

Paid vs. Organic search engine referrals – this will help you to analyze your organic and paid marketing efforts. Are you investing enough money for Search Engine Optimization or Pay Per Click advertising?

Visitor Demographics – You can analyze where the majority of your visitors are coming from by Country, State, or City and focus marketing efforts in these areas.

Conversion Rate – The number of visitors that complete the desired action, such as reserving a room, signing up for your newsletter or filling out a request for information form. It is important that you or your webmaster define the conversion pages.

Other Links – Are the other link building efforts, such as lodging directories and authority websites, sending visitors to your website, if so, are they also converting?

Don’t forget that the purpose of your website marketing efforts are saving money, increasing traffic, increasing conversions, increasing your return on investment and decreasing the bounce rate of visitors to your website. The analysis is as important as the online marketing itself.

Bounce Image Courtesy bigwibble6

Purchase image quaziefoto

HiPPO is an acronym for “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion,” coined by Google Analytic guru Avinash Kaushik.  This person can be your boss, their boss, a client, or anyone who makes important decisions for an organization.  Much like the surly member of the animal kingdom that they get their moniker from, the HiPPO is usually in a position to trample all over those around them, leaving disaster in their wake.  This person often has final say over what goes on a website, even though they may not be the best decision maker in many situations.  Ultimately, this person’s opinion ends up seeming to be more important than that of the market you’re trying to attract with your website because they have the loudest voice.  The HiPPO often thinks that they know best what their customer base is looking for from your site, and this is where they are most dangerous to the success of your website.

How to prevent the hostile HiPPO takeover and make your HiPPO work for you:

• Proof- Web analytics and tracking results  empower marketers to prove to their HiPPO who is visiting their site, what those visitors are responding to (both good and bad), their click paths, entrance and exit links, and where they’re leaving the site from.

Show analytic data with graphs and charts so that your higher-ups can visualize the results you’re showing them.  The information will sink in faster, and doesn’t have to be as closely read through.

Don’t over-report.  Provide the data that is pertinent to the point you are trying to prove.  Often, we provide too much data simply because we can.  This is overwhelming and often causes more confusion than clarification.

• Testing- Utilize both your ideas and your HiPPO’s with A/B or multivariate testing, and show them why what you have proposed is valuable.  Create multiple versions of your site, one with their ideas, and one based on data you’ve received through analytics.  After several months, show your HiPPO which site is performing better, and why.  There may be aspects of each site that do well, combine them for a third test version.  Continue to test until you achieve desired results.
• The Spin- Make it their idea.  Take something your HiPPO has said in the past, and use it for the foundation of your plan.  Let them know that they sparked a great idea that you feel that both your customers and your company will benefit from.  Most people are a lot more likely to agree to something when they feel that it was their idea in the first place.

Be careful with this –we are not advising you to try to trick anyone or be dishonest, it never works out in the end!

Be sure to tell them why you think their idea is a good one, and offer more ideas that build on this main concept.

• Be Honest- Any superior is going to respond better to someone they know is trustworthy and above board.  Don’t engage in petty or underhanded behavior.  If your HiPPO knows they can count on you, they’ll be much more responsive to your ideas and feedback.

This goes for everyone you encounter internally and externally.  If people feel that they can trust you, it makes every aspect of doing business with them easier and more enjoyable.

• Surveys- Most of us thinks that our own plan is the best plan, which is what started the whole HiPPO problem.  Ask who matters most –your customers.  Your customers know what they want, just ask them, and they’ll tell you.  Compile the results of customer feedback and supply to your HiPPO with the results of your analytics research.

Ask visitors what their goal was when visiting your site, and if they achieved that goal while visiting your site.

Ask what you can do to make their experience better in the future.  People are often irritated by the impersonal nature of the Internet.  Give them an opportunity to feel like their opinion matters. 

Respond to your customers when they take time to give you feedback.  Even a simple “Thank you, we appreciate you taking the time to help us make your experience better in the future” goes a long way.

• And if all else fails…

Flattery- Nearly everyone responds well to some honest, well-timed compliments.  Your superiors are no different.   We’ve all had to resort to flattery in order to get someone to listen to our ideas, be sincere and genuine to ensure that what you say is well received and believable.

Working with our HiPPOs is always going to be a part of doing business.  Utilizing some of these tips will help to make that relationship run a bit more smoothly and be more enjoyable.  Remember, we’re all working towards the same end goal!  The HiPPO is not going away –from our personal or professional lives.  If it seems that they have, take a look in the mirror, the HiPPO could quite possibly be you! 

Photo courtesy  digitalART2

 I’ve talked before about the importance of learning what to look for when managing your brand and reputation online.  As someone who does mainly SEO and Reputation/Brand Management – I see brands neglected in so many ways.  Like a child, you’re obligated to nurture and keep your brand alive and growing.  Without growth and outreach, a brand is just a domain – with some content on it that will mean little to your visitors.

Review Sites
Making sure you’re checking review sites and posting management feedback where available is an important step in this process.  Being approachable and involved in the conversation is key to cultivating a favorable online reputation.  Don’t get defensive, own up – explain the issue – and give available solutions to lead the conversation to a favorable outcome for all parties involved.

Nobody can manage online reviews FOR you – it’s something each hotel, resort or property management company must do on their own.  As a marketer I can tell you where to look, what to look for, and some suggestions for responding.  If I were to respond myself, and represent myself as someone in a position of power at your lodging property – it would be unethical – and a lot less effective.  I don’t have the power to make decisions FOR you – but you do.

Branded Search Engine Results Saturation (SERS)
In my mind, branding and reputation management walk the forest path hand in hand.  Having a strong online brand can alleviate the impact of minor reputation management crises.  Let me explain this concept further:

If you’re strong in the top 10 results for your brand name, in many cases negative reviews will have less impact for brand-based searches.  Saturation for a brand can take many forms – sometimes its sites that are owned, operated and populated by content that can be controlled.  Sometimes its listings that are not all “owned” but can be somewhat controlled – see a search for Starbucks.  If I were in charge of marketing for Starbucks, I would approach the brand managers there with the following tactics in an attempt to move “ihatestarbucks.com” and “starbucksgossip” out of the top 10.

1. Get a Facebook page – optimize for brand name and the word “official.”  I see some applications and some other profiles that “might” belong to corporate, but they’re under-utilizing the potential here.  Yes it takes man hours to do this, but the payoff could be HUGE if they do it right.
2. Start a blog on a subdomain of starbucks.com where anyone in the company can post – or where your corporate employees post information on what’s happening around there.  There are many things that can be done on subdomains – I suggest taking a look at a search for “Zappos” and looking at the first few pages to see search engine results that include content from various subdomains that target a portion of their business.
3. Start some sister sites (on completely different URLS) that address most popular features of Starbucks “PikesPeakBlend.com” or “StarbucksWIFI.com” are examples.
4. Get involved on Twitter – link to your website from your profile and GET INVOLVED.  I found a Twitter profile for Starbucks that hasn’t been used and is protected.  I’m not sure if this is an “official” profile – I somewhat doubt it.
   Now not all of these are “guaranteed” to work – but they can have an impact which is exactly what you want when trying to “own” the top 10 in Google.
   Paid Advertising

Branding and Paid Advertising 
Ignoring the impact a brand campaign can have on your paid advertising is a mistake.  Because some brands are pretty obscure (hotfrog), and some are pretty generic (Island real estate) this can have different levels of success.

I recommend every client w/ paid advertising have a branded campaign.  This campaign doesn’t have to have a large budget; for the most part branded searches are fairly inexpensive.  Be sure you set these up right and use negative keywords to make sure you’re not showing for brands that are similar, but not related at all.

I looked at one client in Gulf Shores, AL and their branded search terms that brought traffic to their site from January 1 through June 26, 2008.  If we combine paid and organic conversions, branded keyword searches resulted in nearly $530,000 in revenue during that time period.  They don’t spend money t o optimize for branded terms, they don’t have particularly spectacular saturation in Google for their brand, and they only spent $1506 in paid advertising for their branded campaign over that time period.

$530,000   x100 = 35,192% an INSANE return on investment!!!
$1506

Your brand is something that needs to be nurtured, protected, fed, and exercised – just like a child or a pet.  It’s your legacy and ignoring its “upbringing” can result in severe problems with its future.  You put so much effort into creating it, if you don’t take care of it you can consider that time wasted.

Would you build a building without blueprints?   Would you set out to a place you’d never been before without consulting a road map?  The answer to these questions for most people would be a resounding “No.”  However, we at Blizzard are often asked if we can “just get started” on a marketing or design project and skip the initial research.  Below are a few critical benefits to having thorough research results in hand before beginning any website marketing or design project.

• Save Money - Like the building built without a blueprint or the road trip taken without a map, a marketing or design project launched without research is bound to take more time and incur more costs.  Why?  Because inevitably some of the work will need to be altered mid-project in order to meet unforeseen needs or concerns.  Lee Odden posted a great internet marketing article earlier this month where he describes a scenario all too familiar to online marketing professionals.   A redesign is to be published on Monday and Friday afternoon someone decides to ask, “How does this look with regards to SEO?”  The result is twice the time spent cleaning up what could have been avoided had thorough research been applied at the outset.
• Minimize Risks and Realize Higher Returns – Having research as the foundation for your marketing plan is the best insurance for that plan’s success.  If your marketing team is able, through proper research, to identify risks and weaknesses at the start of a plan, they are able to allocate marketing funds towards those initiatives that will mitigate weaknesses while building upon existing strengths.   Let’s take the example Lee offered in his article.  If instead this project had begun by creating a research team before launching their redesign, a thorough migration plan could have been in place before one piece of code had been written.  The SEO team would have been given the opportunity to identify successful, high ranking pages to preserve in the redesign process and to pinpoint underperforming pages that offered opportunities for increased visibility in the new design, resulting in increased returns from the finished product. 
• Gain a Competitive Edge - A successful marketing initiative doesn’t exist in a vacuum; a complete analysis of the competition provides a panoramic view of the marketing landscape in which your initiative will perform.  Competitive analysis will find weaknesses to be capitalized upon, strategies to be emulated and opportunities for growth in market share.  

At the beginning of a marketing project, the Blizzard Internet Marketing team may implement a number of programs to glean as much as possible about your design or marketing plan prior to implementation.  Here are some examples of the types of research your team may conduct:

• Keyword Research – We utilize several tools in order to assess which phrases will bring your website the most traffic, which will offer opportunities to expand market share and which are being overlooked by your competition.  If you want to try it out for yourself, Trent has listed a couple free tools for keyword research.
• Website Navigation Roadmap – At the outset of a design or redesign, our SEO experts map out the recommended site structure from an SEO perspective.  This research helps create a website that utilizes the latest techniques in website usability and search engine optimization.
• Competitor Research – Competition research includes search engine rankings and the various elements that affect them, including SEO and linking strategies.   Your project manager will use these findings to your advantage when creating the marketing plan for your project.
• Website Baseline Research – Your marketing team analyzes the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities associated with your website based upon industry benchmarks for page saturation, inbound links, age of domain, usability and conversion rate.  Historic traffic trends and website statistics are also recorded, if available.
• Demographic Research – If your website analytics software has the capability, your marketing team will evaluate the demographic profile of website visitors based upon location, channel and platform utilized.
• Paid Advertising Research – Pay-per-click campaigns can make up a large portion of an online marketing budget.  Detailed research prior to account creation can help maximize the return on this investment by targeting the most cost-effective keywords to include in the campaign.
• Directory Research – Our directory experts analyze your current internet reach and identify new resources to build traffic to and conversions from your website.
• Online Reputation Research – What are your customers are saying about your company or your product?  Online reputation research involves reviewing social media sites so that marketing efforts can capitalize on what your clients like while addressing any issues that may be uncovered by the team.

What’s the moral of this story?  Don’t start driving until you know where you’re headed!  Whether embarking on a design or marketing project, comprehensive research will provide a strong foundation for any project’s success. 

 Photo from federico_marque

Ever wonder if your website design is giving visitors what they need to complete the actions you want? Is your navigation intuitive? Does your website give users an easy opportunity to reserve a room online or sign up for a newsletter? How much time do visitors spend on different pages on your website? With the new Google Website Optimizer landing page test tool, you can find the answers to these questions. Google’s Website Optimizer can work in combination with Google AdWords and Google Analytics to take the guess work out of knowing what aspects of your website are more likely going to convert into reservations, newsletter subscriptions, etc.  Website Optimizer allows you to experiment by testing different versions of your web pages.  That being said, Google Website Optimizer can be used independently of AdWords and Analytics – but packaging them together is easy and adds to the features available.

The “before and after” test is simple to setup with Website Optimizer. You can make a small change on a page to see if the performance improves. This test is uncontrolled since many factors can contribute to an improvement or decrease in the performance of the page.

We recommend using a control page (no change) and the test page (small change) to see how what you’ve done effects traffic and conversions.  Keep in mind, if your website traffic is seasonal, comparing March to April is probably not a valid measure, but comparing April to April could be.

The A/B test is useful for those that want to test small changes without a large amount of time investment or complication.  A/B testing allows you to change the content, the look and the overall layout of two or more pages on your website.

Multivariate testing allows you to test multiple variables on different versions of your web pages. This type of test can be used to change different aspects on the page, such as the header photo, headline, and the text content on the page. If these are areas you wish to improve, Google Website Optimizer would show visitors the different versions of each design aspect. Website Optimizer is also capable of showing visitors several different combinations of the page versions; for example, Headline #1, Header Photo #2, and Text Version #3) to see what brings the best response.

You can also use the test for the time spent on a page, to let you know if the content on your web pages is of interest to your visitors.

The test pages that are set up in Google Website Optimizer will be alternated by scripts when the page is opened in a browser a visitor. The tool does show the each unique visitor the same version of the page, even if they visit more than one time.  Soon after you begin your A/B or Multivariate testing with Google Website Optimizer; the tool will start showing you reports allowing you to decide which pages are leading to the desired results from your visitors. If the visitor ends up on the desired conversion page, Google Website Optimizer will record the conversion and display it in the reporting section of the tool.   It is important for you to remember that tests need to measure a significant portion of traffic before conclusions can be drawn.  One day is not indicative of a trend, but one month may be if you have high unique visitor counts.

By combining Website Optimizer with Google AdWords allows  you to test and refine your landing pages, ensuring increased conversion rates from your paid advertising.

For each text or local map ad within your Google ad groups, you can designate the landing page URL and utilize either Google Analytics or other tracking software to see the results of each click. You will also be able to see the results of any test you are running in the Google Website Optimizer tool. The scripts that you are required to use on your desired conversion pages will not interfere with any existing tracking scripts on those pages.

Testing different variations of your landing pages will allow you to increase conversions, decrease the bounce rate of visitors to your website, increase visitor approval, and increase the amount of time visitors spend on your web pages. While Google’s Website Optimizer is a new tool, just out of beta testing, it could prove to be invaluable in finding out what aspects of your website are attractive to visitors, leading to more online conversions.

I just returned from a vacation with my family and to tell you the truth – traveling with kids is a royal pain. My kids are 11 and 6 and they fight like you wouldn’t believe. The key to keeping a happy family on vacation is to keep everyone busy. Vacations are supposed to be about relaxing, but to be honest – when you’re traveling with young kids – relaxing on the beach reading a book is just NOT going to happen. Some things I don’t see hotels or vacation rentals doing to help draw the family traveler could be quick implementations and could also be great ways to tout your “family-friendliness” on your website.

• Put a comprehensive list of area attractions along with close to current pricing in EVERY room or rental. I had done some homework so we had a few days planned out, but the days we had planned to spend “relaxing on the beach” were overruled by cries of “I’m bored!” and “It’s too hot!” By giving me a list of stuff I can fall back on in a pinch, you’re helping me keep everyone happy and NOT fighting. No fighting means a happy vacation for mom.
• Vacation Rentals should be stocked with a few decks of cards and some simple board games. Things like Monopoly and Connect Four will keep kids occupied for awhile and they are also games the family can play together. I’m flying to my vacation and I cant bring these things with us – so having them available when I get there is a BIG bonus.
• Get the kids involved in planning by putting a few widget-type games on your website. Have a kid’s section that is dedicated to things they’ll want to see in the area and history or area fauna that will interest them. My kids are big into dinosaurs. In Plant City, FL there’s a big dinosaur attraction. A Web site for a hotel in Orlando might feature a fun little “watch the dinosaur eat the tourist” game. This sounds morbid but kids think this is hilarious and it would be fun for them to play. It could also win them over to your property so when mom asks “Where do you want to go?” the kids have an answer. If the parent thinks the kids are going to be happy, they’re more likely to be happy with the accommodation choice.
• If you have a pool that starts at 3 feet, you need to let the parents of small tots and babies know that. No kiddie pool means mom & dad have to float the kid around endlessly in the 3′ deep water. That can be okay for a few minutes, but not every time we go to the pool. My best advice? Build a kiddy pool that goes from 6″ to 12″ deep or something similar so mom and dad can lounge under the umbrella and watch the tots splash around.
• Small touches like a stuffed animal at check-in or a workbook of puzzles and games that is age appropriate is a great way to engage the kids and make mom and dad happy and more likely to book. A game room or arcade is a good way to keep families occupied during inclement weather. I would love ALL hotels have a small movie room where they could show family movies at certain show-times with popcorn during the hottest parts of the day and on rainy or snowy days.

Thinking of small things and some big things can go along way to proving to the travel shopper that you really ARE family friendly. Everyone may be saying it – and throwing some pictures of cute little kids on the beach into their website – but are they following through? Think about how you can appeal to your youngest shoppers and use your imagination – you never know where you’ll find the pearl in that funny looking oyster.

image courtesy MyAngelG

In email marketing, targeting every electronic communication to each specific customer’s interests makes it easier for them to buy from you. Researchers at Listrak have proven that customizing a newsletter and tailoring it to a client’s specific interests results in better response and feedback.

The key reasons to target and personalize your marketing emails are to:

Build Trust by giving clients what was promised when they signed up for your newsletters.

Satisfy Needs and Wants by giving clients what they desire.

Create Significance and Value by personalizing your email communications to the reader and helping you to remain aware of their needs.

Build Brand Loyalty. Clients perceive quality in a company when it meets their needs.

Strengthen Customer Relationships with regular communication.

Personalization
On newsletter sign-up forms, drilling down to the details about your customers helps you to target your newsletters to specific client needs. The more data you collect about your customers, the more targeted your newsletters can be.

Gather information about your subscribers that can be helpful in your marketing, such as gender, age, marital status, location, occupation, hobbies, number and ages of children, product preferences and more . For example, if you know someone’s address, you can then direct them to the location of your store closest to them or invite them to events taking place nearby.

Demographics
When creating the newsletter sign-up form for your website, begin targeting and segmenting subscribers with form fields that give you useful information, including their specific interests. Obviously, the relevant data you wish to collect will differ by type of business and industry.

In the hospitality niche, for example, you can add a list of specials or packages to your newsletter. This will allow you to find out what each client is most interested in and it can also help you discover their reason for traveling. Adding the right fields to your sign-up form is an important part of organizing data and getting as much information about the customer as possible.

Tracking
Another important way to gather data about your customers is by tracking their actions. Analytics software allows you to see which links subscribers click on in your emails and tell you if they bounce after reaching your website. Use a website tracker, like Google Analytics, to determine which products and pages subscribers look at on your website. Then, offer discounts or specials accordingly. Tracking is a very significant aspect to managing your subscriber data.

Dynamic Content
Instead of sending out an all inclusive email, use dynamic content in your newsletters to send specialized messages to specific subscribers. The crucial aspect of these types of newsletters is the management of subscriber data and targeting individual interests and needs.

Your content can target both first-time buyers and loyal customers. To gain new business, use special coupons or discount codes for first-time buyers. You may also offer different levels of discounts to subscribers. For example, you could offer 10% off to a one-time buyer, 15% off to a two-time buyer off and 20% off to a customer who has purchased from you 3 or more times. Once clicks and purchase history have been saved, the emails themselves are easily produced.

Here are a few other ways to use dynamic content:

Cross Selling
Once a customer has made a purchase, you can send out a dynamic email with related items they may wish to add to their original purchase. For example, with a room reservation confirmation, send out offers for add-ons such as breakfast, champagne or area activities.

Rewards
Dynamic content can also be used to deliver rewards to loyal customers. Rewards can also be given to recipients that forward your offer to a friend. Other perks may be based on the number of times a customer has stayed with you.

Customer Support
You can also use dynamic newsletters is to inform customers about website maintenance or to send out responses to customer inquiries.

Email Marketing Objectives
Email Marketing can provide a wealth of information about your customers and the services you offer. Managing your subscriber data takes work, but once the information is sorted, sending out your newsletters is simple.

Use email newsletter personalization and dynamic content delivery to its full potential and it can give you just the boost your online marketing needs.