JAH Web Development Blog

Wednesday, 31 March 2010

Get Google Analytics Intelligent Reports Direct To Your Inbox

As the majority of our clients are already aware, keeping an eye on your Google Analytics is crucial when measuring the Return On Investment (ROI) for your marketing efforts. However, when we're very busy, remembering to login and check our data can be difficult.

Luckily, Google have introduced an alert mechanism so you can be notified by e-mail whenever anything of interest happens on your website. To setup these alerts, login to your Google Analytics account and follow the instructions below:
  • Click 'View report' to view your statistics
  • Click 'Intelligence' on the left hand menu
  • Click 'Create a Custom Alert' on the right hand side
  • Name your alert and tick the box 'Email me when this alert is triggered'
  • Specify the type of alert you would like to be notified about...
For example, we have an alert setup over a weekly period that tells us when the number of visits increases by more than 50% compared to the previous week.

If you're struggling for ideas, click on 'Intelligence' in the grey box under 'My Customizations'. Now click on 'Alert Templates' - there you will find a list of useful alerts for which you can copy to your custom alerts, tweak and then setup e-mail notifications.

Did you know you can also receive scheduled updates to any of your Google Analytics reports via e-mail? For example, if you want to receive an up-to-date copy of your dashboard each week, just click on the 'Email' button in the grey bar at the very top of your dashboard, and then click on the 'Schedule' tab to configure your e-mail reporting.

We hope you find this information useful. If you have any trouble setting this up you could follow JAH Web Development on twitter and ask us a question there. Happy analysing!

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a good way to keep in touch with your existing customers, help build a community around your business and encourage repeat sales.

If you have some exciting news or a new product/service that you want to share with your customers, you can't just rely on them to stop by your website every week and check for updates - you need to feed them the information directly, i.e. make them sit up and take notice! Email marketing is by far the easiest and most cost-effective way to do this.

JAH Web Development can design a branded e-mail template for your business and then allow you to login to our Email Marketing system and create your own newsletter/campaign, define your subscribers, and monitor who opens your e-mails and which links they click on.

Our Email Marketing service is a recent addition to the range of many services JAH Web Development can offer. If you would like to discuss the benefits of e-mail marketing further and the (very affordable) costs involved, please get in touch.

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

10 Methods to Boost Traffic to Your Website

  1. Revise Your Content. Think about the keywords your customer may type in when looking for a website like yours and ensure these keywords feature regularly within your content (particularly in titles and sub-headings).
  2. Add New Content. Search engines love websites with frequently updated content. Adding a blog to your website that you can post to yourself is by far the easiest way to achieve this. You can either setup your blog on a separate page, or integrate your blog's content into your existing site.
  3. Google Maps. Did you know you can advertise your business for free on Google Maps? Visit Google's Local Business Centre to either add your business to their listings or update the existing listing they have for your business.
  4. E-mail Marketing. Keep in touch with your existing customers by sending out a newsletter to let them know about new products or changes to your business. This will remind them that you still exist and may result in repeat business. It's important not to SPAM though - you should only send these to existing customers who have not opted out to receive this kind of marketing. It's also best not to send them too often (i.e. more than once a week) and make sure you have something worthwhile to say!
  5. PPC Advertising. Setup sponsored links on search engines such as Google to drive targeted traffic to your website, and only pay when someone clicks on your advert!
  6. Facebook Fan Pages. Did you know you can setup a page for your business on Facebook for free? People can then become a 'fan' of your business and will receive notifications when you post news/messages/photos on your wall.
  7. Twitter. You may want to consider setting up a twitter account for your business too and inviting your customers to follow you. Be sure to post interesting tweets relevant to your business/industry and not simply pimp your services every 5 minutes!
  8. Offline Advertising. It's important to remember there's more to marketing than the Internet! Make sure you plaster your website address wherever you can - on your business cards, leaflets, on the side of your vehicles, your business premises and any print advertising you do.
  9. Word of Mouth. Ask your existing customers to recommend you to others and offer an incentive to reward those referrals that lead to new business.
  10. Write a Testimonial for JAH Web Development. If you've used our services and are happy with the results, you can write a short testimonial for our website and we will link back to yours in return!
If you have any questions regarding anything above, or would like more detailed advice in a particular area, please get in touch.