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Do you have a flagship website but you are finding it difficult to understand how much traffic it is generating? Would you like to have better tools to monitor the activity generated by your website, such as the number of visitors accessing your site, which devices they are using, which pages are they visiting, what offers are enticing them and why they are not completing your contact form?
What if you could go a step further by being able to detect who or which companies are accessing your website and get further information about their contact details? This would definitely help you target your marketing and sales pitch to particular clients and focus better on their needs.
Having the proper analytics in place is as important as having a good functional website acting as your store front. You can collect extremely valuable information just by analysing the traffic reaching your website. This information can prove valuable to your business as it allows you to know your potential clients and as a result target your marketing to specific clients or niche of clients.
So, what tools are available? Surely the Google analytics offers lots of insights. It will tell you critical information such as
- The demographics of your traffic and the geographical location: – this information will help you optimize your offering and marketing based on the age, gender and location of people accessing your website. It will also help you understand whether your target audience is actually responding to your marketing campaigns and visiting your website
- The device through which clients are accessing your website: – as Internet access through smartphones is constantly on the rise, it is of utmost importance to have a website which is mobile friendly. This metric will give you an insight as to the devices being used to access your website.
- Keywords and bounce rate: – bounce rate impacts your SEO i.e. the ranking which Google and other search engines give to your website when people enter specific keywords in their search. When customers click on a website but click the back button immediately, this harms your search engine ranking. It is therefore important that you are ranking for the right keywords. Imagine a website selling apartments but ranking terraced houses instead. As soon as customers detect that a web page will not provide them with the required info or content, they go back to the search engine. Google interprets this as a sign that your website is not providing the correct content for its customers. Read more at The three Pillars of successful Seo
- What are people searching on your site, the path followed and length of their visit: – these metrics will allow to track the path people are following through your website. It can give you valuable insight into your top content, which should be generating most leads. It will also allow you to identify your worst performing pages such that you can work on improving them. It will help you gain insight into the buying stage that a potential customer is in, and what offering is he/she interested in.
All the above metrics will help you get insight into the performance of your website and whether your efforts to rank and attract the correct audience is paying off.
However imagine going a step further.
Imagine being able to actually know who is accessing your website. Imagine being able to place an email address, a company name and a contact to the anonymous users accessing your website. This is possible today with website visitor tracking tools which track the IP addresses of visitors browsing your website, and check them against huge databases in order to obtain detailed information about potential clients.
“Why do I need a B2B website visitor tracking software when I can access Google Analytics?”
Website Visitor Tracking – How does it work?
Each and every device connected to the Internet needs a unique identifier to be able to request and send information over the web. This unique identifier is assigned to a device irrespective whether the device is a desktop, a server, a laptop or a smartphone. In order for any device to gain access to the Internet and successfully exchange any type of information, it needs one of these identifiers. Although this identifier is typically assigned upon each connection request and is generally private for home users surfing the web, most companies have their own fixed ranges which never change and therefore act as a valid representation of the company on the Internet.
Hence if you can track the IP address of the people visiting your website, you will be able to augment the rich information provided by tools such as Google Analytics with even more valuable information such as company info and contact details.
Imagine knowing that Company X is repeatedly visiting your site and specifically accessing your product offering Y. This will already give you a jump start ahead of your competitors. According to Insidesales.com, 50% of buyers choose the vendor which is first to reply to a customer query.
Furthermore knowing your potential client and his/her particular interest at this moment in time, will allow you to tailor your marketing message to better suit the client’s needs. It will allow you to send an email with more targeted content to a potential client who is already in your sales funnel, as opposed to the generic email marketing messages which have a wider scope and audience. Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails. (Jupiter Research)
Rather than focusing on cold calls and email marketing to get new customers, analytical tools will help you go a step further up the sales ladder and target people whom you already know might be interested in your services or products. It will indicate which are your potential hot leads and allow your sales teams to target these customers first.
The type of analytics will also help you to improve your website, especially if you have pages which are performing poorly. This could be due to a number of reasons such as poorly structured content, unclear clear, technical problems with page etc. Knowing about these pages will allow you to target them and fix them.
What does it involve?
Activating this level of analysis on your website is quite simple. You just need to add an additional piece of code to activate the website visitor tracking mechanism which will be able to register and save the IP addresses clicking on your website. This IP information is then captured by the analytical software such that it can be augmented with further details such as company info and contacts.
Access to information
Accessing the information is very simple and can be done through a dashboard which gives you access to the company information. More importantly, accessing the information is instant!
Website visitor tracking key benefits include:-
- Access to instant real time information
- Setup of real time notification alerts and reports such that you can be notified via email when visitors are browsing through your site.
- Setup of specific triggers on specific pages, such that you can monitor more closely the effectiveness of a new offer for example
- Classification of visitors as new or returning such that you are able to judge the interest of your potential clients.
- Understanding the source through which a visitor landed on your page e.g. directly to the webpage, as a result of an organic search or else through a referral such as a Facebook advert.
- For each visitor, you are able to know the length of the visit and how many pages people viewed.
We, at thewebally.com, can help you set up the right tools for your website. Contact us now for further information into how you can gain more insights from your website traffic by placing a name and face to otherwise anonymous traffic. We also offer a no obligations, 14-day free trial! There is no need to change your website at all – just the inclusion of a small piece of code will do the trick.
Do you want to know which companies are visiting your website?
We can offer you a 14 Day FREE trial of this fantastic tool!
Get in touch and we will set you up.
Imagine having a great website offering a fantastic product or service which you have worked very hard to build. You put your web site on the web and wait…… for traffic to come your way. But this does not happen. Your website does not attract the attention you were hoping for. Why?
The answer lies with search engines and how they go through the infinite amount of web pages published on the web to build their databases in order to return queries to customers.
So …how does a search engine work? and how can we be successful at seo?
Firstly, it is worth mentioning that the vast majority of internet traffic is the direct result of searches i.e. people placing a query in a search engine such as Google (which is by far the most popular) and expecting results in return. How does Google know what results to return? How does it search the entire web and return relevant results within seconds? Moreover how does Google judge what is most relevant to you?
Although the complex algorithms which search engines employ will vary from one engine to another and are kept secret, it is known that various factors affect the search engines’ decisions. Knowing what these factors are, will help you optimize your website in order to attract the search engines’ attention and ensure you have a chance to be listed when customers search for products and services which you offer.
Search engines crawl the web by going from link to link in order to build complex databases of content and links. Websites are decoded and relevant parts of them stored for quick retrieval later when customers perform a search. This allows search engines to provide customers with websites which are relevant to the query they have made.
However with the amount of information on the web, the search engine will have a huge number of results to display. It must therefore perform some sort of classification based on relevance and popularity in order to display what it believes are the most important results for the customer.
This brings us to another question – how does a search engine decide what is relevant? What are the ranking factors used? The three points below attempt to shed some insight into how you can optimize you website to improve your ranking.
Proper Web Design and Optimization
Your website needs to be built in such a way as to offer the best user experience to humans. However it must also be readable by the search engines’ automated crawlers and spiders. If they cannot read your content, then they can never display your website in return for a query. Consider as an example an image of a house. Whilst a human can easily look at it and understand immediately what type of house it is (e.g. terraced house with garden and pool), a search engine will not be able to determine the same level of info unless the information is clearly included in the website code.
It is therefore very important that your website is built using indexable content such as HTML text, and by employing appropriate code to allow search engines to understand more complex display styles such as images and plugins.
The way you build your URL structure, title tags and meta description tag will also help search engines. Having the keywords you want to rank for in your title tags and text will increase your chances of ranking.
Having unique content on your web site is of utmost importance. If you have multiple URLs which display the exact same content, then essentially these URLs are competing against each other. There are techniques you need to employ to tell the search engine which is the master content.
Keywords
One of the most important decisions you need to make is what keywords you want to rank for. For which queries do you want the search engines to display your website with the highest rank possible?
The more generic your target keywords are, the more competition you will face. Back to our house example. If you’re in the business of selling a particular type of house e.g. converted townhouses in village core, then don’t target the keyword ‘house’. Apart from facing stiff competition for this generic keyword, it might also attract visitors which are looking for apartments or terraced houses by the sea. Even if these customers reach your website, they will not stay long because you are not offering what they are after.
The right keywords to target is a matter of good research and understanding of your customer’s requirements. It is important to target keywords which will result in most conversions. Very often it is best to target the long tail keywords which are more specific such as ‘converted townhouse in Naxxar’. This will also narrow down your potential audience to those people who are further down the buying cycle and hence more likely to buy rather than targeting people who are just browsing.
Often keyword research is also a trial and error method, where you need to constantly fine tune as you go along and as market needs change. These keywords need to appear in your text and all relevant tags such that they can be read by search engines.
The keywords must feature in your content which must be unique, informative and offers value to your customers. It is important to keep your content fresh and updated and also to post new content regularly.
Link Building
The third and equally important pillar of SEO is link building. We mentioned earlier that search engines will classify your site based on their perception of how relevant it is. But how do they know?
Apart from having a proper design which is readable to search engines and lets them know what type of information or products you are offering through the use of proper keywords, search engines also rank your site based on how relevant your site is to others. One way to determine this is to monitor how others are talking about you and quoting your site.
Therefore developing a strong brand and great content is key – content needs to be informational and high quality such that people are eager to talk about it and share it within their circles. The more links back to your website, the higher the perception of trustworthiness and relevance. Links from trustworthy sites have bigger value in the eyes of the search engines.
Sharing of your content on social networks is also important for increasing your website ranking.
Do you need more information?
Would you like to know how we can improve your Website’s Rankings?
Our team of SEO Experts are eager to help you achieve better online rankings.
I am sure that you have already heard about the WannaCry Ransomware outbreak better known as WannaCry! And you are probably wondering what’s going on, who is behind this, and more importantly if your computer is secure from this threat which has hacked over 200,000 Windows PCs worldwide, most notably Britain’s National Health Service.
So what is “WANNACRY”?
“WannaCry” is a malicious software or rather ‘ransomware’. Once it infects your computer, it will encrypt your data and demand that you pay a ransom to decrypt (unlock) your data. The ransom amount will double if you do not pay in time.
How to Protect Yourself from WannaCry Ransomware?
Follow these simple tips to protect your computer against WannaCry and other ransomware, because after all most computer viruses make their way into your computer due to lack of simple security practices.
1. Make sure to always Install Security Updates
If you are using any version of Windows, except Windows 10, with SMB protocol enabled, make sure that your computer receives updates automatically from Microsoft
Microsoft has issued a patch for affected versions of Windows, to ensure the malware will not spread between fully updated versions of its operating systems.
2. Patch the SMB Vulnerability
WannaCry has been exploiting a critical SMB remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0148) for which Microsoft has already released a patch (MS17-010)
You should make sure your system has those security patches installed.
Moreover, Microsoft released the SMB patches (download from here) for its unsupported versions of Windows as well, including Windows XP, Vista, 8, Server 2003 and 2008.
Note: If you are using Windows 10 Creators Update (1703), your system is safe.
3. Disable SMB
Although the patches should fix the SMB vulnerability, it is still advised that you disable Server Message Block version 1 (SMBv1) protocol, which is enabled by default on Windows.
Here’s how to disable SMBv1:
- Go to Windows’ Control Panel and open ‘Programs.’
- Open ‘Features’ under Programs and click ‘Turn Windows Features on and off.’
- Scroll down to find ‘SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support’ and uncheck it.
- Then click OK, close the control Panel and restart the computer.
4. Enable Firewall & Block SMB Ports
You should always keep your firewall enabled. If you need to keep SMBv1 enabled, then you need to modify your firewall settings to block access to SMB ports over the Internet. The protocol operates on TCP ports 137, 139, and 445, and over UDP ports 137 and 138.
5. Use an Antivirus Program
It is always advisable to have an updated Anti Virus program running to prevent against most threats.
Almost all antivirus vendors have already come up with an update to prevent WannaCry.
Kaspersky have a free tool to protect you against ransomware,
6. Be Suspicious of Emails, Websites, and Apps
Unlike WannaCry, most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs.
Most wannaCry ransomware infects computers by tricking users into opening malicious attachments to phishing emails. As a result, even if the email comes from someone you know, don’t open the attachment, as cybercriminals can “spoof” email addresses or hijack other people’s email accounts.
On the other hand, if you feel that the attachment is something you need to see, then save the attachment to your desktop without opening it, right-click the attachment file and have your antivirus software scan it.
7. Regular Backup your Files:
You should always keep a backup of your files and copy them to an external storage device which is not always connected to your computer.
That way, if any ransomware infects you, it can not encrypt your backups.
What to do if WannaCry Ransomware infects you?
Well, there isn’t much you can do ! but definitely you should not pay the ransom as there’s no guarantee that even after paying the ransom, you would regain control of your files.
Kaspersky Labs are saying that they are working on the possibility of creating a decryption tool to help victims.
Updated: 19-05-2017
Updated : Decryption tool released ! Unlock your files without paying the ransom
If you have been hit by the ‘WannaCry’ ransom-ware, there is now a solution to unlock your files without paying the ransom.
http://thehackernews.com/2017/05/wannacry-ransomware-decryption-tool.html
Do you need more information?
Have you been infected? Do you want to make sure your system is safe?
Contact us, we are here to help.
Local SEO – More and more people are turning to their computers or smartphones to search for products or information prior to making a purchase. Whilst many businesses might consider this as a threat since it opens the market to new competitors and reduces foot traffic, it can also be considered as an opportunity to augment the customer experience and perform more targeted marketing. The idea that online search will only send customers to online stores in only a myth.
Research conducted has revealed that customers searching online tend to search for local businesses. Local searches are twice as likely to lead to a transaction, because customers are more advanced in the purchase process. Customers have come to expect that their search results are augmented with location information, making the search more relevant to them.
Have you ever been abroad looking for a good restaurant on TripAdvisor? Isn’t it useful to know how close the restaurant is, whether it is open at this time of day, what it has to offer, what other people are saying about it? I don’t imagine going abroad without TripAdvisor these days!
Similarly your business can benefit greatly from investing in local SEO. These simple tips below will ensure that your business can take advantage of the facts:
- Ensure that your business name, address, and phone or contact details (known as NAP) are clearly shown on your website. These details need to be written in a format which is understood by search engines i.e. indexable text, and not embedded in an image. Your details need to be consistent across the web e.g. if your street address is 41, Canon Street, make sure that you don’t use other variations such as 41, Canon Str. Or 41 Canon Road. Doing so will cause search engines to think that these are two different businesses. Make sure to keep consistency with your real world business name which shows up in printed material.
- Use tools such as Google My business to list all your details, including your website and your business hours, and to place you on the map. And it’s free.
- Having your business on the map will influence what search engines display for customers searching in your vicinity
- Get your business listed in local online directories as citations – consistently. This will help increase your credibility on the web. For example, getting your business listed in local business directories, with consistent up to date information, will help search engines to rank you better.
- Choose the most relevant categories when listing your business online. This will help you to describe the genre of your business and ensure you get the correct type of traffic. Category data is used by search engines to decide what search results to show for particular keywords.
And once customers get to your website……
- Putting attractive and informative photos and videos on your website will help customers get a better understanding of your products and services. Your website is your showcase just as much as your store is. Whilst this might not necessarily help your ranking, it will help customers to decide to make business with you.
- Having customer reviews on your website will help potential customers make up their mind about making a transaction with you. Customer reviews are a great way of interacting with your customers. Obviously positive reviews will help your business immensely, but having visibility and knowing about negative reviews is also of utmost importance, as it gives you a chance of handling the situation. 74% of customers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more according to BrightLocal
Research performed by Google has revealed that 34% of customers who performed a local seo search on their tablets / computers went to the store to perform an offline transaction. The rate is even higher for smartphone users (50%). This also shows the growing importance of optimizing your website for mobile devices – read our article here. As aptly put by Google,
“The consumer path to purchase is becoming increasingly mobile. Retailers that provide relevant, local information via search and online presence (mobile app and site) will increase both reach and engagement. While helping to drive shoppers in-store, such information will also improve customers’ experience once there. And customized offers and recommendations will help retailers further distinguish themselves. Digital has fundamentally reshaped the shopping journey—in a good way—and savvy retailers who make use of it to attract and engage consumers will find themselves ahead of the competition.”
Hence a strong local SEO strategy is important to drive your business forward. Any type of business can benefit from such a strategy, not only retail. Ensure that your NAP data is listed consistently in citations around the web. Get started now – contact us to find out more for local seo.
Do you need more information?
Would you like to know how we can improve your Business’s Local Search?
Our team of SEO Experts are eager to help you achieve better online rankings.
In this article we will have a look at the newest marketing trends of 2017, and touch on how companies can take advantage of these trends and techniques.
Nowadays a variety of digital channels are being used for marketing efforts, and the majority of them put the consumer as the protagonists allowing two way communication.
With a consumer-centric model, companies that know who their consumers are, can leverage on this knowledge and gain competitive advantage by increasing the quality of digital content and target their customers at the right time.
Mobile Friendly Website – Newest Marketing Trends
With the rise of the smartphone and cheaper, more affordable data plans, we are getting used to being connected at all times. Data is literally at our fingertips! Moreover smartphones are not only being used by younger generations but also by older people who are becoming more tech-savvy and starting to appreciate the advantages of being always online.
As a result, ease of browsing, retrieving information and making online purchases through our mobile devices is becoming a key factor of our online experience. Therefore optimizing the website for mobile devices is a necessity for a business, looking to enhance its mobile presence is newest marketing trends. This can be achieved by using responsive design (fitting the website to different screen sizes), making content simple to navigate and faster to load. If your audience is primarily on mobile, make sure to provide an AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) version of your content.
Customers are seeking an enhanced browsing experience and this is an opportunity of converting their traffic into sales. Customers will not think twice of moving to the next website if your website is not fast to load or if it is unfriendly to use.
Moreover being always online enables impulsive purchases. How many times have you bought something spontaneously online whilst idling the time waiting to be served?
Video and live streaming – Newest Marketing Trends
We’ve already mentioned that the rise in smartphones and cheap data plans has increased our time online. But it is also revolutionizing how we interact online, with video becoming more and more popular and people preferring short clips rather than textual content.
The availability of video and live streaming on social media platforms such as Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live and YouTube live has contributed to an increase in this trend
The level of engagement is different to traditional broadcasting, allowing the audience to interact and influence the live stream itself. Social media platforms are making it much easier to generate such content, which can be used by businesses to market their products, whilst giving a personal touch and making the experience more human.
Big Data – Increasing depth of analytics
Many businesses have a lot of data about their customers but analysing it and using it to generate more conversions is a different matter altogether. Leveraging such data will make your campaigns more targeted, because it removes some unknowns, and allows you to mould your offerings around your customers’ requirements.
Data analytics will help you create a personalized experience for your customers. Personalization together with the ability to push such content to your customers, wherever their location and whatever their device, will ensure a more homogenous experience and increased loyalty.
Data will give you real time insights allowing you to understand the customer needs better, and target specific campaigns for specific segments of your customer base.
In order to offer customer value, it is therefore important to use non-conventional data sources, such as social media information, search information and consumer transactions.
Social media marketing
Social media posts can be used as a way of subtly advertising your brand or business without being blatant about it. Social media marketing can be done by sharing your content on your own social media channels. This is free and easy to do. Additionally, most social media networks allow paid advertising, allowing you to display adverts to particular user groups e.g. based on demographics. But probably the most valuable social media marketing happens when your audience shares your content with their networks.
Posting smart and interesting content which attracts attention is a great way of getting people to know about you and become accustomed with your brand. Moreover posting consistent high quality content will earn you an online audience, which would be willing to share your content on other social media platforms. Apart from exposing your content to a wider audience, this will also help your SEO strategy, because traffic from social networks will cause your website to climb much faster in the search engine results pages.
Social media marketing requires a lot of listening to help you understand what your customers or potential customers are talking about and what they are interested in. Engaging in discussions will help you learn what is important for them. Therefore data gathered from social media channels will give you valuable insights into your customer’s’ behavior as it allows real time interaction.
Adding value by creating good quality content and building relationships are key social media marketing strategies.
The example below demonstrates Nike’s excellent customer relationship through social customer care.
Content Marketing – Newest Marketing Trends
As defined by The Content Marketing Institute,
“ Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. ˝
Content needs to be valuable, high quality and consistent in order to get customers’ attention, and more importantly to keep customers interested in your brand. We live in a world which is constantly bombarding us with information, such that we have learnt to filter out whatever doesn’t interest us, sometimes even automatically. Thus, content needs to capture your audience’ interest by promising something in return for their attention.
There are many forms of content – as discussed above, video and live streaming are becoming a very engaging and important form of content. Think about GoPro and their content strategy – they started generating content in the form of short high quality videos, by partnering with top athletes and travel brands. It didn’t take long for their customers to get inspired and start generating content of their own, tagging GoPro and creating a vast amount of user generated content.
SEO (Organic search)
Newest marketing trends of search engine optimization involves many techniques which will help search engines find your website and direct traffic to your website, increasing your chances of conversions. These techniques include, amongst others:-
- building your website in such a way as to be understandable by search engines;
- the choice of words on your website;
- links from other sites to your website
- adding content to your website
Search engines are crawling and indexing loads and loads of information on the Internet everyday! SEO techniques are crucial in helping you rank better, giving you a much higher probability of converting traffic to sales. According to MOZ :-
