Log File Analysis and SEO

<p>If you own or manage a website, you are probably already aware of the
importance of your log files or site statistics. Such data can give you insights
about your site's usability, errors in your HTML code, the popularity of your
site pages and the type of visitors your site attracts. But did you know it can
also highlight the success or failure of your search engine optimization
campaign? </p>
<p>There is specific data about your web site that you should be looking at in
your log files on a regular basis. Several variables should be examined monthly
or even weekly to ensure your site design and page optimization is on the right
track: </p>
<p><b>1. Entry Paths</b> </p>
<p>Most sites can be developed and analysed around the concept of visitor
pathways. If, for example, your site is a Business to Business (B2B) site and
you service small, medium and large businesses, there should be pathways through
your site designed for each class of visitor. An extremely simplified example
would be: </p>
<p>Clients coming to the site through an optimized home page: </p>
<p>home page ---> small business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation
page <br>
home page ---> medium business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation page
<br>
home page ---> large business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation page
</p>
<p>The site entry pages for these pathways are often optimized home pages or
optimized content pages. The final page of this route is often the action that
you want clients to take on your site (e.g., sign up for your newsletter, buy
your products online or contact you for further information). You can easily
determine how effective your pathways are by tracking the entry paths on a
regular basis via your site stats. </p>
<p>You should have some idea of the main pathways that clients take through your
site, both for monitoring the effectiveness of your page optimization and
conversions, and for the purpose of subsequent site redesign(s). A good starting
point to track the pathways through your site is via the graph or chart called
"Entry Paths" in your log files / site statistics. </p>
<p><b>2. Top Exit Pages</b> </p>
<p>These are pages from which most visitors click away from your site. Why is it
useful to track these? Because exit pages can tell you: </p>
<p>a. If there is a technical problem with the page that is causing visitors to
leave your site. For example, if there are broken links, or the form on the page
is not working properly etc. </p>
<p>b. If your site design is breaking the strategic pathway, for example, you
may have links to external sites that are inducing clients to click away before
buying your product or signing up for your newsletter. </p>
<p>c. If there is something on these pages that is encouraging visitors to leave
your site. For example, an unprofessional design or confusing layout. </p>
<p>In your log files / site statistics, the graph or chart called "Top Exit
Pages" is the place to learn why visitors are leaving your site. </p>
<p><b>3. Single Access Pages</b> </p>
<p>These are entry pages that are viewed once before the visitor clicks away
from your site. Similar to Top Exit Pages, Single Access Pages can tell you a
lot about why people are not staying on your site for long. </p>
<p>Have a close look at the search terms used to find your site. Single Access
Pages can often indicate that your target search terms are too broad. For
example, you may be getting a lot of traffic by targeting "printer cartridges"
but if you only stock a particular brand of cartridge, then people seeking other
brands are not going to find what they truly seek when they arrive at your site
so they will leave immediately. This can be resolved by narrowing down your
search terms to be more targeted and focused on your niche products and
services, for example, by changing "printer cartridges" to "HP printer
cartridges" and so on. </p>
<p>To see what pages of your site are viewed once, look for the graph or chart
called "Single Access Pages" in your log files / site statistics. </p>
<p><b>4. Most Requested Page(s) and Top Entry Pages.</b> </p>
<p>Tracking these pages is key to measuring the success of your SEO campaign. If
your optimization is effective, the Top Entry Pages and Most Requested Pages
should be those that you have optimized for target keywords. The Top Entry Pages
are particularly relevant as you consider the pathways through your site. Do the
most popular entry pages have any relationship to the start pages for your
plotted visitor pathways? Or are visitors entering and navigating your site via
ways you didn't intend? You can use this information to continually tweak your
page optimization to guide visitors to the right pathways. </p>
<p>To see your most requested pages, look for the graph or chart titled "Most
Requested Pages" in your log files / site statistics. Also look for "Top Entry
Pages". </p>
<p><b>5. Page refreshes</b> </p>
<p>Why are visitors refreshing pages on your site? Are the pages not loading
properly? The "Page Refreshes" variable is another one to monitor on a monthly
basis via your site stats to ensure that there are not site usability issues for
visitors. </p>
<p><b>6. Referring Domains and Referring URLs</b> </p>
<p>Where are your visitors coming from? Are they coming from sites that are
linked to yours? Are blog authors or forum members talking about your site?
Referring Domains will tell you what sites are linking to yours, while Referring
URLs will list the actual pages where the links are located. These can be little
gold mines because you can often find valuable sources of traffic via links to
your site that you didn't even know existed. </p>
<p>In terms of an SEO campaign, these links can all add to your site's overall
link popularity, an important factor in the ranking algorithms of many search
engines, particularly Google. Monitoring these metrics can tell you if your site
requires a link-building campaign or help you measure the effectiveness of
various online and offline advertising campaigns. </p>
<p>In your log files / site statistics, Look for the graph or chart titled
"Referring Domains" and "Referring URLs". </p>
<p><b>7. Search Engine Referrals</b> </p>
<p>How many of your visitors are coming directly from search engines? What
percentage of overall traffic does this represent? This is a good variable to
track to help you keep up with how many search engines are listing your site
(both free submission and paid submissions), how much traffic they bring and
whether to renew your paid submissions. It can also tell you whether you need to
increase the number of search engines your site is submitted to in order to
build on your link popularity. As a a very rough guide, you should be receiving
at least 30 percent of your site traffic via search engine referrals. </p>
<p>To see search engine referrals, look for a chart or graph called "Search
Engines" within your site statistics. </p>
<p><b>8. Search Phrases</b> </p>
<p>This topic is related to search engine referrals generally, but gives added
insight into what terms you were actually found for in the search engines. Do
these terms match what your site was optimized for? Are there any surprising
terms that you might want to develop site content for? Some log file analysis
programs will even break down what specific phrases your site was found for in
which particular search engines. The more detailed the data you have, the more
closely you can tweak your optimization campaign to your precise market. </p>
<p>To see the search phrases your site was found for, look for "Search Phrases"
or "Search Phrases by "Search Engine". </p>
<p><b>9. Landing pages for Pat-Per-Click Campaigns, etc.</b> </p>
<p>If you run a pay-per-click campaign or dedicate specific pages to advertising
product specials, you may use special landing pages or tracking ids to monitor
your traffic and conversions. Your site logs can help you track these by showing
you how many visitors they each had and what they did after they visited those
pages. </p>
<p><b>10. Metric values that show a radical change from developing trends</b>
</p>
<p>Any site metrics that show a dramatic change from one month to the next could
pin-point a problem with your site or with your optimization campaign. For
example, if your search engine referrals have dropped dramatically, it could
indicate that you have been penalized in a search engine (or more than one).
Noticing changing trends early gives you the chance to investigate problem areas
and make adjustments if necessary. </p>
<p>Please note that all log file analysis and site statistics programs are
different and use slightly different terms to describe the metrics listed above.
If you're confused, ask your site admin or hosting provider to highlight these
for you. </p>
<p>Remember, your log files are gold mines filled with nuggets of information
about your optimized web site. If you keep digging on a regular basis, you'll
eventually strike it rich with success. </p>
<br><a href="http://www.submitsuite.com/products/article-submitter.htm">This article was published using Article Submitter</a>

5 Unbelievable Secret Facts Of A Sure-Successful Joint Venture.

As you read this article, you'll find that the subject of successful joint venture is certainly no exception.

Joint venturing is the fastest and most preferred way to increase sales and cash flow. It is no longer a secret, business partners are what make a strong company. It is impossible for a person to sit alone and wait for businesses to come, you need to get your influence out there and that is where joint venture partners jump in.

If you have been staying for some time on the Internet, you should know that JV partners are the master key to online success. Here are some reasons of why people are failing to get quality joint ventures:

1. Other marketers will not be waiting for you to reply why they should joint venture with you. Make sure you include the reasons why the other marketer needs to joint venture with you, throw all the benefits in and give a compelling reason why they should.

If you think that giving your product for free to a joint venture partner and expect them to endorse it to their list of subscribers, it won’t work. Even if you offer your joint ventures a greater profit than you do, it still works if both of you get to know each other better and have more joint venture plans in the future.

2. Many JV offers are thrown into the trash bin at first sight. Why? The more famous marketers can receive up to 200 JV offers every week, they can’t afford to just joint venture with any little beings on earth. Which is why, you need to follow-up. It is important that you don’t stop requesting until you are noticed.

Even if they trashed your email for the first time, on the second, third and fourth time, they should be noticing your existence and be urged to open the mail. Be consistent, follow up, and you’re half way there.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole successful joint venture story from informed sources.

3. If you think sending an autoresponder series of template emails to your potential JV partners is a good idea, you’re killing your own business. People are very busy and to see that you are not even using your own time to write a proper JV offer, they don’t have time for you as well.

Your JV proposals should be more personalized - if possible you will even want to do a research on them so that you can know more about them and include the points in your JV offers. This makes sure that the both of you have a potential of being serious JV partners in the future.

4. JV partners are not affiliates. They are more than just affiliates, they’re potential super affiliates. You need to give them more commissions on any sales they’ve gotten for you. If you offer a 50% of commissions to your affiliates, your JV partners deserve 70% or more.

JV partners turns you targeted customers, they are hungry for similar products. Their subscriber trusts what they endorse, so it is the best way to promote your product. With a list of 10,000, if only 1% which is 100 who purchase your $97 product, you’ll earn $9700 over night with a single endorsement. 1% is a really low conversion, if the conversion rate increases by another 1% - you’ve already received $19,400.

5. Targeting the “big fishes” is not a good idea. You should begin from smaller JV partners, slowly build each other’s publicity, and only approach greater marketers when your subscriber lists are huge. This way, the greater marketers will get a more compelling reason in having a JV with you.

Joint venturing is no doubt the greatest way of getting successful in the Internet online venture, be sure to use it to the extreme and you’ll be delighted with the outcome.

To Your Success!

Advertising - Are You Wasting Your Money?

Anybody who has a product to sell, an idea to promote or a service to offer relies on advertising to get the attention they require.

There are so many forms of advertising that finding the correct medium can sometimes be a daunting task.

Depending on the type of business, or the reason for your need for promotion you may find it easier to seek some professional advice.

Firstly you need to decide who your target market is, whether it is men or woman, older generation, younger generation, companies etc.

Secondly you need to ascertain whether your market is local, national or global. This is important, as leaflet dropping in your local supermarket car park is fine if your product or service is a local one, but if your services can be offered world wide or nationally, then you are seriously losing out on the largest percentage of your market.

Once you know who you are planning to target, and where they are, you can begin to research the how, which are the options you have available.

There is an absolute ton of free information on the internet, and if you are reading this, you must have access to it!

If you have a low budget, try doing the advertising yourself, you can knock up some great leaflets from your own pc, (providing your market is local).

Making a website has become a lot easier over the years, and if you shop around you can get some great prices on hosting packages and domain names. Try downloading a free html editor, preferably with a wysiwyg platform, (what you see is what you get), there is a wealth of information on the internet to guide you through making a simple website.

If you have a bigger budget, then consulting with one of the many advertising companies is an option. These people can advise you, and come up with some fantastic ideas, but be sure to shop around and not just go with the first company you come across. Prices will vary, and their expertise will vary also, so it’s an idea to ask to see some references, or some of their projects with other clients that they have worked on.

Done correctly, and with proper research, advertising will reap rewards. It is after all one of the most important factors in any business. So I personally, would always recommend that you give this area the attention it deserves!

7 critical aspects of a fantastic logo design

When it comes to logo design, you ultimately want it to convey your brand in the best possible manner. At the same time you don’t want it to take up too much space. That is the greatest challenge – to be able to create a winning impact within the space constraints. Here are the 7 factors you need to consider to have a logo that spells success!

1.  Research always helps in effective logo design
Never make the mistake of rushing into creating a logo design. It will only make matters bad. You need to do a fair bit of research to understand the company, its objectives and mission as well as its business goals – both short and long term. You also need to know the demographics of the target audience.

2.  Attractive and unique: two elements of great logo design
You would obviously want your logo design to catch the attention of the customer. At the same time it should not be screaming for attention. It should test the intellect of the customer; make him or her think a few minutes after seeing the logo. If you notice some of the top logo designs each of them have a unique aspect to it that depicts something about the company.

3.  Simple and memorable logo design
One of things you need to really focus on is to make sure your logo design is not too cluttered or too fancy. This will just confuse the customer. Ultimately you want the customer to remember your brand. That will only happen if the logo is easy to remember. Also be sure that the logo sends out positive signals to the customer.

4.  Flexibility is a major issue in logo design
There are so many companies who invest a fortune on their logo design only to realize later that their logo doesn’t work on a product wrapper! What a waste of time and money! Your logo needs to be flexible enough to work and create a lasting impact on any medium whether it is a product wrapper, your company website or even any promotional materials you send out!  That means you need to consider the size of the logo and the usage of appropriate colors. The colors used need to match well with any background while also helping the brand to stand out.

5.  Never clutter your logo in logo design
One critical mistake people make is to cram in too much information in their logo design. This makes your logo look cluttered not to mention the fact that customers will fail to remember your brand!

6. Use fonts that promote readability in your logo design
You might select a font that looks great on paper but when you use it in the logo it hampers readability. There is absolutely no point using classy fonts in logo design if they are going to prevent customers from remembering you. Make sure fonts are easy on the eye.

7. Usage of color in logo design
Great logo design will always focus on using complementary colors that looks good against a black or white background.