Improve Your Site’s Effectiveness With Google Analytics Event Tracking

This post is a taste of  what’s to come in my forthcoming Google Analytics Ebook. Sign up to be notified of its launch and for a special promotional price.

Internal Link Tracking Using Google Analytics

On your blog or website you may have multiple links –such as icons or calls to action in different locations – leading to the same page, product or piece of content – but do you know which link placement and type is most effective?

Heatmap software and services such as CrazyEgg will give you this type of information in great detail and in a visual format. But there’s usually a cost involved and for a lot of cases it might be overkill if you just need simple comparisons. So while not as elegant, you can use Google Analytics to do some simple testing and comparison.

Warning – Don’t Use Link Tagging!

Google Analytics offers a link tagging feature  which allows you to label links with a referral source, and other tracking info. On first glance you might think you could simply use this to tag your internal links in a similar way. However link tagging is designed to track promotional campaigns with traffic coming from external sources. If you use it for internal links, you will screw up your data. If someone arrives at your site via a link from another site, this would be tracked in GA as a referring site. However if that visitor then clicks an internal link that you’ve tagged, it erases that referral source and replaces it with whatever you’ve used in your link tagging.

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Notes and Resources from OC Wordcamp Marketing Presentation

This past weekend I gave a presentation at OC Wordcamp, discussing using a WordPress site for marketing your business, service or product.  As promised, here are the some of the key points, along with links and tools that were mentioned. If anything is missing, leave a comment!

When developing a strategy for your site, the first and most important question to ask is:

Who do you want to come to your site? Who is your target audience?

Thou shall not answer “everybody”!

Get specific since the answer will provide the basis for all aspects of your online marketing strategy.

For more on this topic, also read:
Recharge and Refine Your Marketing Strategy
What Is An Online Marketing Strategy?

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Recharge and Refine Your Marketing Strategy

I frequently come across frustrated business owners who are still of the  “build it and they will come” mentality. They don’t understand why they are not getting more web traffic, or why their marketing efforts are not having the desired results.

Any marketing strategy requires constant refinement to make sure it continues to serve your purpose. That also goes for the components of the strategy – making sure that your website, social media campaigns, ads, promotions etc are all optimized to serve your purpose is an ongoing consideration.

Here are some useful questions to apply to any marketing effort that can prod you into more effective action. If you feel that something isn’t working the way you had hoped, try going through these and seeing what you can do better. Make a conscious effort to step back and view your marketing from the objective eyes of an outsider – someone who knows little to nothing about your business.

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