Site Traffic Analysis

* updating your existing content every quarter.
* adding new useful information to your site every month or two.
* updating your competition research at least every quarter.
* analyzing the traffic on your site at least once a month.
* a linking strategy — getting relevant sites to link to yours.

Site Traffic Analysis

Monthly analysis of the visitors to your site is essential if you want a competitive site — because if you’re not tracking and analyzing the traffic on your small-business website, you have no way of knowing if you’ve made good content and marketing decisions.

Think of competing on the Internet as a game where you're going up against a strong opponent. Site traffic analysis — sometimes called Web analytics — gives you the facts you need to develop competitive strategies.

Watch the traffic on your site so that you know if you’re steadily getting more traffic as time goes by, if you’re stalled on a plateau, or if you’re slipping behind. If you don't know the score, how can you compete?
Choose a Site Traffic Analysis Service

If you are the Internet marketing coordinator for your own small-business website, you should personally watch and analyze your site's traffic statistics.

You might consider paying for a third-party service as an alternative to what is offered at no charge by the search engines or your Web hosting company. Some of these services can be confusing because are designed for experienced professionals who do this full time.

But there are also site traffic analysis services suitable for small businesses that need to monitor their own site traffic. Allied Internet discusses some of the options with its clients.

The Search Marketing Process

When Allied Internet collaborates with you as you market your website online, you get the benefit of our years of experience with Web design, content development, programming, Internet marketing, and search engine optimization — as well as our experience working with tech support and account management personnel on behalf of our clients, including those at IT companies, Web hosting companies, and at advertising and marketing agencies.

1. Keyword Research

If your website offers more than a few products and services, it’s ordinarily best to begin your search marketing with just the most important keywords (search terms). Think about which of your products and services you want to emphasize; this will often be because of their profit potential.
2. Competition Research and Analysis

Careful competition research will allow you to market your site intelligently. Your goal is to identify your online competitors who are doing well on search engine results pages.

You especially want to know why they are doing well. Because we’ve been dealing with websites professionally since 1994, we can help you evaluate your findings and make expert recommendations to you. Your analysis of your competition can guide your search marketing efforts for months to come.

Allied Interent can also help you analyze the content, the graphic design, and the text design of your own website, and evaluate it based on what you’ve learned about your competition. Unless your site has too many images — which can compete for a visitor's attention and even cause confusion — we don't ordinarily suggest changes in the graphic design of your site unless you are unhappy with it.

We can help you check the structure of your website to make sure that the files and subdirectories on your Web server are named and organized in a way that helps you with the search engines.

The notes you take during your competition research should include:

* a list of your top five online competitors on Google under each of your targeted keywords, along with any competitors who are doing well on Yahoo but not on Google
* detailed information about the content of your competitors' sites
* updated keyword research
* notes about possible improvements to your own website

The sites that are near the top in search engine research pages are almost always doing well because of their content, but there are sometimes additional significant factors, and we will discuss all this during a phone conversation with you.

Our recommendations may include suggestions about the text on your site and suggestions about metatags (title, description, and keywords) that we think will help your site do better on the search engines. If we see structural problems with your site, we will explain your options.

Researching Your Online Competition

Preparing to compete on the Internet involves serious competition research and analysis, which can be interesting, especially if you’re feeling the heat from competitors. This is business research, but it’s also a fascinating game, and the stakes are real.

Well-thought-out strategies, carefully selected “weapons,” and detailed, up-to-date information about your online competitors can work together to support your planning and make your small-business website a winner.

We recommend making a Word document — call it competition.doc or whatever. Take notes on each competitor’s specific strengths and weaknesses, as well as notes on whatever you want to remember when you work on your own site.

Keep the Word document with your competition research notes handy, because you will want to update your research every couple of months.