Building A Billion-Dollar Website
How much is your website worth? That’s not an easy thing to figure out (unless you happen to be facebook, in which case it’s approximately $104-billion). For the typical small business who doesn’t have an army of accountants at their fingertips, a website is often just another marketing outlet in the dizzying array of options out there. You just know it’s something that you need to have, it’s something you need to promote, and it’s usually something else on which to spend money. But determining its value is a tricky process.
So, instead of trying to reach the holy grail of full cost accountability for your internet initiatives, start with determining some easier numbers. One of the advantages of on-line advertising is that, when it is implemented correctly, you have a wealth of data that can be used to help determine its effectiveness.
When I start dealing with a small business, which has a website and possibly a few paid on-line advertising initiatives, it’s usually not of much use to ask what a visitor to their site is worth. Besides the fact that it is a very vague question, the business owner normally wouldn’t even know how to start this calculation. So, I break them into the numbers game by breaking down their cost of advertising.
The simplest calculation that I often start with is the cost per conversion for various types of advertising. Say that a business is paying for two types of advertising. They pay $1000 per year for an advertisement on an industry website, and they use a pay-per-click campaign that is delivering advertising at 40 cents per click. The analytics will easily track the number of people that each of these campaigns deliver to the business website, but that’s too basic. I always use the analogy that this is like owning a restaurant and counting the number of people who walk past your front door. You don’t want to count your potential customer base, but you want to count the contributions to your business.
This is where we look at the basic measure of cost per conversion. For simplicity sake, let’s just start with a website that has identified a single conversion. It could be that the customer fills out a contact form, it could be that they subscribed to your newsletter, or it could be that they made a purchase in your store. Whatever it is, you should have your analytics set up to count the number of times it happens, and be able to count the number of times a converting visitor comes to your website through your advertising.
At this point, the calculation is easy. In our example, say that we identify 500 conversions that come from the advertisement and 75 conversions from 800 clicks through the pay-per-click. What are our costs? For the advertisement, we have $1000 divided by 500 conversions for $2 per conversion. For the pay-per-click, we have a total cost of $320 (800 clicks at 40 cents per click), which when we divide by the 75 conversions, we get $4.27 per conversion. The business owner now has a bit more relevant information in which to make some business decisions.
Now this is simply a beginning calculation, using the most basic data, but I often use this to start getting the client into the mindset of what is possible with properly planned, designed, and implemented websites and on-line advertising. Of course, this does not take into account many other very relevant factors, both quantitative and qualitative, that need to be considered, such as:
- Is there value simply from a brand awareness viewpoint?
- Do these visitors become future customers even if they don’t convert right away?
- Are there other conversions on the website that have value?
- And most importantly, what is a conversion worth to the business?
But every journey to a $104-billion website begins with the first calculation.
We Are Ranked #1 On Google
Anyone who has a business on-line, and many people who don’t, will undoubtedly be familiar with these emails. They either try sell you a listing on their site, which they claim is #1 on Google, or sell their services in which they promise to lift you to #1 on Google.
Just recently, I had a sales call from a representative for such a company. Apart from Analytic-OR, I also have a newly listed rental property, which is available for weekly rental during the summer (check it out at www.peisummerrental.ca if you’re interested). This call was trying to sell me a listing on a vacation rental site. Over and over, the claim was repeated: “We’re #1 on Google.”
Now, I have better things to do with my time than debate SEO with a sales representative, so I quickly made it clear that I was not interested, and moved on to other things. However, I thought I would check out some of the claims that he made.
During the communication, he specifically indicated a number of keywords where they were listed #1. And with a personalized Google search, they were. However, I then started playing with the settings a little bit, and it didn’t take long to discover that there was a big assumption missed from the claim. They come up first all right, so long as your browser says you are already in the area. So, if my location is in Prince Edward Island, of course they come up first for the searches they claim. But change my location to Ontario, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, or various other locations, and the claim falls apart.
So, they top the rental listings for tourists who are already in the area, and not for those outside the area who are looking for rentals.
One thing to know about Google is that the results you see do not match the results seen by other people, even if you enter the exact same search phrase. They have put a huge amount of effort into personalization of results, taking into account your location and whatever they can tell about your previous search and usage history.
Now, I don’t want to be too hard on this group, since they do come up in the top 10 listings in any case in a competitive field, but I wanted to highlight that these claims of ranking #1 should not be taken as presented.
Measuring Your Online Advertising Effectiveness
John Wanamaker was a merchant who opened his first retail store in Philadelphia in 1861. At the time of his death in 1922, his estate was estimated to be worth $100 million, or the equivalent of over $1 trillion today. Considered to be a master of advertising and marketing, he was famously quoted as saying: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
Advertisers have always sought means to measure the effectiveness of their efforts, either to justify their existence, or to truly measure their impact. Today, in the digital world, although the medium has changed, the principle is the same. The difference is that we now have an outlet (the internet) in which it is possible to track customer and consumer interactions and activities like never before.
So how can we leverage the data to improve on Mr Wanamaker’s situation?
First, think about what we want to be able to capture. We want to have a better idea of the effectiveness of our advertising. In the context of a web site, we are asking what marketing sources are driving peole to our web site and inducing conversions.
If we take the first part of this equation, we need to be able to determine what is driving traffic to our website, and leading to a conversion. While Google Analytics will provide some of this information out of the box, we can enhance in many cases through the use of campaign tagging.
Campaign tagging is essentially adding extra little bits of information to your external links so that you know which links visitors used to get to your site. So, for instance, say that you are spending lots of time and resources on a couple of email campaigns. Within your email, instead your link bringing a visitor to www.mywebsite.com, you could instead create a hyperlink that goes to:
www.mywebsite.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jan2012
Now, when you look at your data in Analytics, you can break out your referrals from this exact newsletter to see how effective it has been. You can then evaluate if the benfit you are spending on newsletters is worth the effort, or exactly which types of articles are producing the best benefit.
But, for most sites, there is a second complication. Rarely is a conversion the result of a simple visit. Perhaps someone stumbled upon your website while searching for a similar item. They then noticed a paid ad in another search, and clicked through to your site a second time. While there, they decided to sign up for your newsletter, and visited a third time from the first newsletter they received. By now, they may know your company a bit better, so they then type in the URL directly for a fourth visit. Then a friend of theirs on facebook likes a page on your site, and they visit a fifth time, finally making a purchase.
After five visits, this customer has finally decided to convert. But, a quick analysis of the conversion would tell you that a facebook link has produced a sale. In reality, you have to consider that your SEO efforts, your paid AdWords, and your newsletter all made a contribution to the sale. All these efforts set up a relationship between you and your customer, which eventually led to sales. So, how much is each advertising effort worth? This is the multi-attribution problem.
Google Analytics has a recently enhanced tool called the Multi-Channel Funnel. Essentially, it is used to help you analyze this exact question – what advertising channels led to the conversion. It helps you look at the history of your converting visitors, where they came from in each step of your relationship, and how all your efforts have worked together to lead to sales and conversions. The Google Analytics blog recently published a post on how this works.
As a result, you can avoid making mistakes like, with the previous example, overstating the impact of facebook, and minimizing your other efforts.
And if you’re smart, you can teach Mr Wanamaker a thing or two.
Local Search Engine Optimization: Measure Your Success
To wrap up this series on local search, we’re going to broaden our perspective a bit. So far in this series, we’ve looked at the importance of Google Places, including your address, creating a mobile-friendly site, and building links. Now, we’ll look at how effective you have been in your efforts, and how to measure your success. We’ll bring web analytics into the discussion.
Why do I say that this is broader than search? Because, when you are talking about website effectiveness, a good placement in search engine rankings is not (or shouldn’t be) your overall goal. It is simply a tool to help you achieve your goals. Achieving a high search ranking is like an elite sprinter running the 100 metre dash in less than 10 seconds. It’s a great achievement. But is that the goal? No. The goal is to win the gold medal. Running that fast is no good if there are five others who run faster than you – nobody remembers who finished sixth in the Olympics. In the same way, finishing high in the search ranking, especially if it is a competitive field, is a great achievement. But nobody pays you for placing high in the search rankings. It’s what people actually do on your website that produces the revenue.
High search ranking placement is just a step on the way to your ultimate goals. It’s a very important step, but keep the goal medal in mind, not the clock.
So, what are the goals? Well, that depends on your particular website, on your particular business, and the role that your website plays in your business. That is why you have developed Key Effectiveness Indicators for your website. (You do have KEIs, right?)
Since we’re talking about local search, then the local search is important to your business. So, let’s consider the impact of local search on your business through your KEIs. Here is where we’ll want to look at segments of your visitors. A segment is a subset of all your website visitors that share a charactristic. Since you’ve targeted local visitors to your website, let’s look at the segments that identify exactly those visitors.
Keep in mind that there are two types of local searches in which you will probably be interested. First, there are the visitors who are geographically located in your area. Using your web analytics, you should be able to create a segment of visitors whose computers are actually sitting in your area through the geographic distribution features. Second, there are those visitors who are not geographically located in your area, but have, for whatever reason, included your area in their search specifications. This covers, for example, the visitor from Toronto that searches for “Restaurants in Charlottetown”. You can segment these out by looking at the search keyword and geographic distribution of your visitors.
These two groups are the primary segments you should be interested in for local search. Just how important each of these segments is to your business varies depending on your business. Accommodations have a strong interest in geographically remote visitors who may be planning a trip, while the local plumber probably doesn’t generate much business from outside their general area.
But, let’s not stop there. These two segments can be broken down a bit more. Did you make sure your website was mobile-friendly? Then why not break down each of these segments further into mobile devices and non-mobile devices. Are people using tablets contributing to your business in the same way as those on desktops? If not, analyze the numbers and see if there is something you can do to produce a better return. Are smartphone users abandoning your site shortly after entering? Maybe your site does not work well for smartphones, and you are turning away potential customers.
Remember, you have a website for a reason, and to contribute to your business goals. The way in which it contributes to your business goals is measured through your KEIs. If you aren’t measuring your website’s performance properly, then you have no basis for improvement. whether your goals are local or global, the principles remain the same. Your website is an investment. Treat it with the respect it deserves, and you’ll see your returns increase.
Google Search Updates for March
Another month, another 50 updates to Google search.
Yes, that’s right, 50 updates in one month.
These changes cover multiple topics, from mobile search, to freshness, to anchor links, to image search, and so on. However, I’ll just highlight one that relates to our current series on local search:
Better handling of queries with both navigational and local intent. [launch codename "ShieldsUp"] Some queries have both local intent and are very navigational (directed towards a particular website). This change improves the balance of results we show, and helps ensure you’ll find highly relevant navigational results or local results towards the top of the page as appropriate for your query.
While the description that Google provides for their changes are intentionally vague, it appears that this change is having the effect of bumping some local items higher up the search engine results where there is ambiguity between some local and some global searches. So, if the name of your local plumber happens to be “Pablo Picasso”, their plumbing business will appear higher on the list than sites about abstract art for local searches.
What does this mean for those local businesses that are concerned about confusion with more general terms is that they have an even better chance of high rankings for local searches. Generally, this is good news for local businesses.
Local Search Engine Optimization: Build Your Links
In the first three parts of this series on local search, we looked at the importance of Google Places, of the need to provide your address, and some aspects of a mobile-friendly site. Today, we’ll take a closer look at one of the most important aspects of any SEO campaign – links.
In general, your ranking in the search engine results depends on two things. The first is your relevancy to the search query. In other words, the search engine determines whether or not your web site is relevant to what the user is looking for. If so, then your site is thrown into the list of websites that will be returned to the user.
The second factor is the authority of your site. This is the search engine determining how important your site is among all of the possible responses. In other words, how high up your site appears in the search rankings. Every site with an SEO campaign has the goal of reaching the #1 spot for their targetted searches, but unfortunately that ranking is often elusive and sometimes almost impossible to reach for smaller businesses in a global search.
However, when you are looking at a local search, the task becomes more achievable, simply because you have limited your competition. Depending on the size of your locale and the amount of competition you have, you may naturally find yourself at the top of the rankings with very little effort. Or, more likely, you still find you have work to do, to rise above your local competition.
Assuming you have established your relevancy for your desired search terms (you did your keyword reasearch, didn’t you?), you now need to improve your authority. And one of the best ways to do that is through links.
Whenever somebody else’s website links back to your website, your authority increases a little bit. Why is this? It all comes back to the way that search engines interpret a link. In essence, when a link to your site is found, the search engines consider it a vote for your website. The underlying thought is that a website is important if a lot of other people (or websites) are pointing to it. Hence, the importance of links.
Now, the internet is not a democracy, so not every link is equally important. There are a lot of factors that go into determining the importance of each link. The search engines use both the relevancy and the authority of the site pointing to yours in determining the importance of the link. But, when we are dealing with a local search, you already have the advantage of limited competition. Now you can try getting links from other locally oriented sites.
If you have a local restaurant, it would be great if you could get links to your site from other local restaurants, but don’t count on having that kind of cooperation from your competition. So, look at some other options. Have you joined local chambers of commerce or community organizations? Most of these groups provide links to your site. What about local newspapers? Having some press coverage of a news-worthy event at your establishement sometimes leads to your web site being included in their on-line coverage. How about other businesses in related fields, but not in direct comptetition? Maybe they will point to you from their site. Find all the business directories you can, and make sure you are included.
Now, you can try being a bit more creative. Are there any local residents that are blogging? Interact with them and maybe you can convince them to write about your establishment. Can you sponsor a local event? Their web site usually has links to their sponsors.
Also, take a look at your competition. Who is linking to them? Can you duplicate those links, and do even better?
Links are one of the core elements of the ranking system for the search engines, and have been ever since the founders of Google implemented their PageRank system over a decade ago. In that time, their basic idea has morphed into the search engine giants of today. Although the raking system has been much refined (and continues to be refined) from those early days, links are still one of the most important aspects. Relevant links from authoritative sources are the gold nuggets of the search world.
Bing on SEO
The search engine Bing recently published a blog on Search Engine Optimization titled Does Bing like SEO? Although they claim in the article that they support SEO efforts, they ask the question whether or not SEO efforts count.
Their answer: Well, yes and no.
Although they say they support SEO efforts, the content of the article goes on to infer, in essence, that Bing has moved beyond SEO having a major impact. They suggest that any technical or search-engine oriented efforts have at best minimal impact, and that your efforts are much better spent on user content.
My answer: Well, yes and no.
Search engine optimization has always been a compromise between the user experience and the search engine evaluation. Most of the time, these two efforts are complimentary. Determining key words and phrases usually make the purpose of the site more clear not only to search engines but also to your user. However, many times these efforts butt against each other, and force a compromise.
Early search engines simply used your published content to determine your ranking, with simple measurements. Search engine optimization in its infancy was focused on your own website. Over a decade ago, Google pioneered using not only your content, but your local neighbourhood on the web to determine your ranking. Now, search engine optimization looks at not only your own site, but also how to shape the environment.
Over the years, search engines have also gotten much better at interpreting your website content. However, they are still a long way away from being able to read like a human being. They still understand writing at an elementary level. Writing metaphorically or creatively may be just what you want to present to your audience. But it will probably leave the search engines well behind. Our human experience, intuition, and emotional responses cannot yet be replicated by Bing, Google, or any other search engine out there.
So how do they compensate? By using hints from the environment. Since they cannot truly understand website content, they use the indicators of other sites as a proxy. This is the equivalent of going to a movie, wearing earplugs, and sitting with your back to the screen and watching the audience. Sure, you may be able to make some inferences about the movie itself from the audience reaction, but just how good of a movie review will you be able to provide for your friends?
The search engines are still at the level of watching the audience, but they remain the only way we have of making sense out of the chaos that is the world wide web.
So, is SEO only about content and user experience, as Bing is suggesting? Unfortunately, not yet. As time goes on and the search engines mature, we are getting closer to that goal. But, alas, it still remains only a vision of the future. In the meantime, we continue to make the compromises demanded of the search engines.
But at least we get to enjoy the movie.
Local Search Engine Optimization: Create A Mobile Site
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series on local search engine optimization, we talked about the importance of claiming your business on Google Places, and making sure your address is prominently displayed on your web site. In Part 3, we’ll take an even closer look at your web site.
If you have an interest in local search engine optimization, then you have a connection to a locality. Either you have a brick-and-mortar store located at a particular address, or else you supply products or services in a limited area. Maybe you have multiple locations or service areas, and want to concentrate on multiple locations, but your targets and/or goals are tied to a definable area.
Let’s go back to our fictional restaurant owner, who is in many ways the stereotypical local service provider. Imagine our restaurant’s friendly greeter is the ideal person for the role – welcoming, friendly, accommodating and sales-oriented. However, our greeter has one major fault – every hour, they leave their post for ten minutes, lock the doors, and go out back to take a break. As a result, one out of every six customers who come to your door discover that it is locked. They can look through the windows, and see plenty of people sitting down enjoying a meal, but can’t join in themselves unless they decide to wait around for ten minutes until the doors open again.
If you were the manager, I don’t think you would be very impressed.
So, if that is unacceptable at your front door, why is it acceptable on your website?
Google has said that around 15% of all searches are from mobile devices, and that number is growing. That is almost one out of every six searches. If your website does not make it easy for mobile searchers, then you are locking your doors ten minutes out of every hour. After all, in today’s world, the web is the principal means of outreach for most businesses. Also, if you are focused on a local clientele, you may have an even more than 15% that are away from their desktop and using their mobile device.
Today’s mobile devices have an incredible web capability, but just because your site can be displayed on a mobile device does not mean that it is mobile-friendly. There are a few other things to consider for a mobile device:
- How easy it is to read your information on the smaller screen, without zooming and panning?
- Is it easy to click on links, or are they too small to accurately activate on a touch screen?
- Are your location and phone number easily visible on the limited screen?
- Is your site so image-heavy that it takes a long time to load?
- Can users access your pull-down menus by touch?
These are just some aspects of a website that may look and work fine on a full-screen computer with a mouse, but are limiting to your site’s functionality (and the contribution it can make to your business) through a mobile device.
After all, these items are basic aspects of a website that you would never violate on a desktop. But it is easy to neglect the mobile user when designing your site. If your web designer told you that 15% of your target market couldn’t easily read your new website, you would probably start looking for a new web designer. Why is it acceptable just because the 15% can hold their browser in the palm of their hand?
Local Search Engine Optimization: Give Your Address
In Part 1 of this series on Local Search Engine Optimization, we talked about the first priority for claiming your local internet footprint, namely your listing in Google Places. Now, in Part 2, we’ll turn our attention back to the web site itself.
Imagine this scenario. You own a local restaurant in a tourist-heavy area. So, you have a large proportion of your customers who are not overly familiar with the region and what businesses are available in the area. Our modern tourist (and target customer) is approaching your area, and they whip out their smart phone. Up comes a list of restaurants, and they start clicking down the list. They bring up your restaurant, and it looks tempting. But in a quick scan of the page, they don’t see an address. Now, maybe they will click on the “Contact” or “Location” tabs and find out exactly where you are. Or maybe they’ll just say “Hey, the last place you clicked on had the address, and looked all right. Let’s just stop there.”
You have a potential customer on your site, they are specifically looking for you, so why wouldn’t you just tell them where you are? It’s as simple as putting your address on each page of your web site.
We’ve given the scenario of the live human being on your site, but it also extends to search engines. These days, the search engines are pretty smart and capable of figuring out just what your business is, and where it is located. But why make it a challenge? If your business is local, and your business depends on people coming to your location, make sure you reinforce the location as much as possible. Search engines try and interpret web sites the way that visitors would interpret web sites. Why not make it crystal-clear exactly where you are located?
A second point about addresses on your site is consistency. Many places can have different ways of describing the location. For example, although I provide my services across the country, I am physically located in a community named St Peters Bay. Alternatively, the “Bay” is often dropped, and it is referred to as “St Peters”, so that’s two ways it is referred to. However, sometimes it is there is a apostrophe, and sometimes not. So now we have four ways to refer to the community. But wait, it gets better. Sometimes there is a period after “St”, sometimes there is no period, and sometimes it is spelled out as “Saint”. All together, for those who are counting, there are twelve ways to refer to my community. Now, to top it off, I’m actually on St Peters Road, so the number of possibilites have just multiplied again.
Keep it consistent everyplace, just to avoid confusion. And which should you use? Well, if there are no overriding reasons to choose one over the other, the best way is to check out Google maps and see what they use. Search for one of your addresses, and Google will probably recognize the variation and return map results with their preferred combination. In my case, Google says I am in “St Peters Bay”, so that’s the variant I use.
Does it actually make a difference? In most cases, the search engines will figure it out. But, if you have no other reason to choose between the various options, why not go with the one that the search engines are sure to recognize, and avoid any possibility of confusion.
Local Search Engine Optimization: Google Places
I tend to do a lot of search engine optimization for small, locally-oriented businesses. Given my location in tourism-rich Prince Edward Island, these businesses are often tourism-oriented. Many of these businesses share some common attributes.
First, they are targeting mostly the visitor to Prince Edward Island, and their desire is to optimize their sites for a tourist audience. This is a very rural province, with a small population. For the most part, locals are aware of the businesses in their area, and are not repeat visitors to these websites. Having said that, there are some exceptions, and some businesses who have built a strong local following, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
Second, they tend to be very small businesses that have developed websites on a shoestring budget, following the “build it and they will come” philosophy. As a result, little or no serious thought went into search engine optimization when these websites were being built. Now, after a couple of years, the business owner is starting to realize that the website is not attracting new business as they had originally hoped, and they are starting to look for solutions.
When it comes to local search engine optimization, start with Google Places. We know that Google commands about two of every three searches. If you are a business owner, particularly a tourism operator, this is your first target. In the past few years, Google has given more and more emphasis to the local aspect of their search, and it is becoming even more important as smart phones and tablets give people the option to research “on the fly” during their trips. Particularly if you are targeting an audience that does not have an extensive knowledge of the local area (such as tourists), Google will tell them what restaurants, attractions and accommodations are in their general area. So, you want to make sure Google knows without a doubt where you are located. Happily, they have provided a perfect mechanism to do just that.
Start off at www.google.com/places. You will probably have to either log into your Google account if you have one, or create one for yourself. Exactly what you see on the screen may depend on what services you have signed up for with Google in the past, but you want to claim a business. Eventually, if you follow their prompts, you will be given a simple screen with two options – Country and Phone Number. Enter your country and your phone number and see if you are already listed with Google Places.
Here, I will add a large caution for Canadian businesses. Search for Canada. Then, if your business is not found, search with the phone number for the United States. I have had some instances where a Canadian phone number is not found if I search for Canada, but it comes up if I search for United States. Don’t worry if you’re misclassified. You can fix this on the next screen.
Now you just need to enter your information – make it as complete as possible. Then you can claim your listing. Google makes sure that you actually are the owner, and will either send you a postcard or give you a call to confirm. Follow their instructions, and you’re done. You now own your listing on Google Places, and have boosted your local search ranking.
