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Getting clients to buy from you is no mystery but it is a skill. Try the article 'How to get your clients to buy' here
http://www.startaconsultancy.com/articles.html
Monday, February 23, 2009
How to analyze your web stats
Start up consultants tend to be creatives than technical or statistically oriented but this is no excuse for neglecting your website statistics. Starting a consultancy should involve having your website and managing it well. This involves analysing your website statistics. It is critically important that you analyse your web stats as often as you can. Not only do these provide you with really good information like the number of visitors, and the pages that have been visited; they also inform you which pages they enter, and how long your visitors stay on your site.
The information provided by analysing your stats needs to be interpreted. For example, the total number of page visits doesn’t really mean very much. If you have been encouraging visitors to visit say an just your ‘Opt-in’ page some of your stats will drop (0pt-in pages are the pages visited when a visitor clicks on a Google Ad you have set up). Such a page is designed to get visitors to give you their email address. Frequently no other option, such as the chance to visit other pages, is offered. This means that fewer page hits will occur. So visitors will either sign up or they will leave your site on this page. So, the number of page hits will not be that high. Although you will find that the total number of unique visitors will increase. If you add a link back to the homepage, or to any other page on your site, from your opt-in page it will reduce this tendency.
It is also true that when more people leave your site after visiting your opt-in page your "bounce rate" will also go up. High bounce rates are often considered to be a bad sign. Although, if some of your pages are designed to get a decision from your visitors whether to opt-in then a high bounce rate can be a sign that you are persuading them either to leave or to commit their email address. So your statistics need to be seen the context of the kind of marketing you are engaged in as this will determine what the stats will say. It is therefore important which stats you decide to record and monitor these carefully on a monthly basis.
An easy way of doing this is to use Google ‘Analytics’. This tool allows you to see the results the displayed as statistics. It is good to get into the habit of looking carefully at these and to start making your interpretations of them in the light of the comments I have made. When I built my start a consultancy business it took time and patience to get things right. So bear in mind that it takes time and patience (and testing!) to interpret and ultimately to make decisions on the basis of the results you get.
There are several things that you should consider as a matter of course to collect stats on:
· The number of unique visitors per month
· How these visitors found you (e.g. through search engines, referrals from another site)
· The number of repeat visitors per month
· Most popular pages - as so many are coming via search engines it may not be your homepage. (This will depend on whether you are providing other pages as landing pages)
· What keywords were used to find you via search engines - this is useful since it will help you to know which keywords are the most effective in an Pay-per-click campaign
· Which other websites give you most referrals. This can be an indication of the success of you referral technique
Tip: a great system that helps you keep track of your stats is the Bebiz Business Builder. Go here to find out about it
If you are interested in getting more marketing ideas like this then take a look at the ones here … at http://www.startaconsultancy.com/articles.html
The information provided by analysing your stats needs to be interpreted. For example, the total number of page visits doesn’t really mean very much. If you have been encouraging visitors to visit say an just your ‘Opt-in’ page some of your stats will drop (0pt-in pages are the pages visited when a visitor clicks on a Google Ad you have set up). Such a page is designed to get visitors to give you their email address. Frequently no other option, such as the chance to visit other pages, is offered. This means that fewer page hits will occur. So visitors will either sign up or they will leave your site on this page. So, the number of page hits will not be that high. Although you will find that the total number of unique visitors will increase. If you add a link back to the homepage, or to any other page on your site, from your opt-in page it will reduce this tendency.
It is also true that when more people leave your site after visiting your opt-in page your "bounce rate" will also go up. High bounce rates are often considered to be a bad sign. Although, if some of your pages are designed to get a decision from your visitors whether to opt-in then a high bounce rate can be a sign that you are persuading them either to leave or to commit their email address. So your statistics need to be seen the context of the kind of marketing you are engaged in as this will determine what the stats will say. It is therefore important which stats you decide to record and monitor these carefully on a monthly basis.
An easy way of doing this is to use Google ‘Analytics’. This tool allows you to see the results the displayed as statistics. It is good to get into the habit of looking carefully at these and to start making your interpretations of them in the light of the comments I have made. When I built my start a consultancy business it took time and patience to get things right. So bear in mind that it takes time and patience (and testing!) to interpret and ultimately to make decisions on the basis of the results you get.
There are several things that you should consider as a matter of course to collect stats on:
· The number of unique visitors per month
· How these visitors found you (e.g. through search engines, referrals from another site)
· The number of repeat visitors per month
· Most popular pages - as so many are coming via search engines it may not be your homepage. (This will depend on whether you are providing other pages as landing pages)
· What keywords were used to find you via search engines - this is useful since it will help you to know which keywords are the most effective in an Pay-per-click campaign
· Which other websites give you most referrals. This can be an indication of the success of you referral technique
Tip: a great system that helps you keep track of your stats is the Bebiz Business Builder. Go here to find out about it
If you are interested in getting more marketing ideas like this then take a look at the ones here … at http://www.startaconsultancy.com/articles.html
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Starting a discussion forum
I am in the early stages of developing a discussion forum for all those of you who have been sending me questions about starting a consultancy business.
Since I started www.startaconsultancy.com I have been overwhlemed with all the questions and interest it has provoked so I think I need to create a solution where you can all put questions to others as well as me.
Not because I don't want to respond but because lots of heads are better than one and a range of response to questions and issues can create a really vibrant community of similar-minded people.
If you have any thoughts on this please let me know.
michael@startaconsultancy.com
www.startaconsultancy.com
Since I started www.startaconsultancy.com I have been overwhlemed with all the questions and interest it has provoked so I think I need to create a solution where you can all put questions to others as well as me.
Not because I don't want to respond but because lots of heads are better than one and a range of response to questions and issues can create a really vibrant community of similar-minded people.
If you have any thoughts on this please let me know.
michael@startaconsultancy.com
www.startaconsultancy.com
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