#colibri knowledgebase

[growthhackeram]

See how to set up and why Goal Conversions are the holy grail of measuring online sales

If you want to know the true results of your online marketing efforts, from social media to keyword targeting, you will want to set up goals in Google Analytics. Goals allow you to see which traffic sources and content lead to the most conversions on your website.

For a company that sell products or services on the web, “conversions” occur when a customer transitions from simply visiting a website or viewing an ad to actually responding to the content by signing up, purchasing something, or some other engagement activity.

It’s up to you to define these objectives, but Goals in Google Analytics can help you track them. 

Using an ecommerce site as an example, you might have several other success events, including:

Email marketing subscriptions

Contact form completions

Clicks to social accounts (like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest)

Engagement goals like time on site or pages per visit

Events like watching product videos

Downloads like product specs or product guides

Clicks to trigger live chat with your customer service reps

  How to set up goals in Google Analytics?

Goals are set at the view level. To find a view, click Admin, then select an account, property, and a view. Click Goals, then Create a Goal.

Follow the step-by-step flow in your account to set up a Goal. As you complete each step, click Next step to save and move on. Click Save Goal to finish.

  Now enter information about your goal. Provide a descriptive name.

As a next step, provide additional information about your goal. In most cases you’ll have a specific URL to track, so you’ll choose Equals to option.

When you’ve created your first goal, run some test transactions to check the goal was set up properly.

  You can read more about setting up goals on Google Analytics Help: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012040?hl=en&ref_topic=1007030

[growthhackeram]

Is Pinterest useful for your business?

Pinterest is a social bookmarking site where users collect and share photos of their favorite events, interests and hobbies. It’s a perfect place for many online businesses. If your brand is offering visually stimulating products, you are already active on other social networks, you have time to post fresh content and your customers might be already there – you should start leveraging Pinterest.

How?

Start with the obvious - fill out the description on Pinterest. Upload your brand logo in a high quality. Add links to your website, Twitter and Facebook. Focus on the “About” section. It’s pretty much the same as meta description – it can contribute to the keyword-relevancy of your profile. Include info about your brand and what you are offering.

When your account is ready you can move to the most crucial step – pinning items or products to your categorized boards. Make sure that description of items/products includes keywords. Thanks to that  your pinned products and boards can be found through internal and external searches.

Remember that Pinterest is a visual platform – using high quality photos is always a good choice.

Pinterest has the power to drive high-value traffic and engage customers. These are the most important things you should keep in mind while using it.

Consistent updating is highly recommended when you want to show your followers you are truly dedicated to your business. It will generate buzz and interest in your business, which can lead to sales and an increase in revenue. Studies show that Pinterest users are less likely to convert, BUT they tend to spend more.

Pinterest represents a marketing channel for online retailers and brands. It's capable of driving incremental revenue, improving SEO performance, and increasing brand awareness. Be sure to interact with other Pinners by leaving comments on other user’s pins, “liking” other user’s pins, mention pinners in your comments, following similar users or brands.

  How others have done it: mini-case study

I would like to present you the case of Dobango which by using Pinterest contest increased traffic by 167%.

Dobango is a social gaming platform. The objective behind Dobango’s contest was to increase brand awareness around new gaming platform. So they asked participants to submit their favorite 4th of July images. Each participant had to create a Dobango account, submit entry, and follow Dobango on Pinterest. The participants had to encourage their friends and family to vote for their image via Pinterest’s “likes” on their pins. The winner got 250 likes.

Dobango: “The contest was very successful. Even without investing any advertising dollars, we were able to generate over 5,000 user engagement activities over our entire social media presence. By user engagement activities, we mean the entire spectrum of activities related to the contest that require anything beyond reading about the contest. This includes entering, liking/voting, following Dobango on Pinterest and/or Facebook or Twitter, etc. There were 77 entries total. Though this may seem like a small number, the power of these entries spread by gaining votes and other points of influence.” Dobango admitted that Pinterest had jumped up to be their main traffic referrer.

Source: http://pinnablebusiness.com/case-study-how-dobangos-pinterest-contest-increased-its-traffic-by-167/

This article is a part of #colibri knowledgebase. On Colibri you will see results from using Pinterest. It will provide you with data to analyze and make your strategy even better.

[growthhackeram]

Title Tags in SEO strategy - how to write them properly?

Page titles are one of the most powerful on-site search engine ranking factors that you have control over but website owners often neglect them. Most web browsers will display the web page title at the top of the browser window and/or in the browser tab. The page title is an important component of a search engine friendly Web page because it can tell search engines what the page is about.

Do you really need it?

Properly written title tags are critical to your SEO strategy. Title tags are also part of what makes people decide whether to visit your site when it shows up in the search results. The title tag should contain important keywords to help the search engine determine what the page is about.

It's worth to remember that Google primarily uses the tag, if one exists, to display the hyperlinked headlines users’ see in the search engine results pages.

How to write optimized title tags? Here's 6 points to keep in mind:

1. Title tags should be a maximum of 65 characters long, including spaces.

2. The most  important keywords need to be first in your title tag.

3. Don't use commas, underscores, dashes or any other punctuation  for keyword separation - use pipes | instead.

4. Keep your important phrases short and simple. It doesn't have to be a sentence.

5. Title tags must be different for every page. Don't duplicate it.

6. Make it relevant, it should describe content on the page.

  This article is a part of #colibri knowledgebase. ColibriTool will improve your on-page SEO automatically. Thanks to the tailored tips you will find out how to make your site more popular around the Web.

[growthhackeram]

Best practices for H1 tag in SEO and Usability

Heading tags are used to differentiate the heading of a page from the rest of the content. The most important heading tag is the h1 tag and least important is the h6 tag. The heading structure is useful for SEO purpose.

How important is heading structure?

Heading structure has an impact on both the SEO and usability of your site.

SEO:

Search engine checks the relevancy of the header tag with the content.

Keywords: header tags should be consistent with other parts of the website.

The h1 is the most important tag and it should never be skipped on a page.

  Usability:

Some users use a screen reader so it’s easier to navigate sections of content by page structure.

The h1 tag gives users a quick overview of the content.

If you're going to optimize your site for a specific keywords - this is where that phrase should appear. This tells the search engine that these words are important.

  H1 best practices:

H1 should define the most important keyword (but avoid keyword stuffing).

H1 tag should be employed only once per page.

H2 and H3 tags are also important – they hold important information about the content.

Using H-tags is not a waste of time. Apart from being an excellent instrument to supply relevant headers and sub-headers, Google does take note.

This article belongs to #colibri knowledgebase. Colibri will tell you how to optimize your on-page SEO, including heading tags. It will also suggest the best keywords for your site.

[growthhackeram]

Writing content that sells

Marketers spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing (source: B2B Marketing Insider). According to Custom Content Council 61% of consumers feel better about company that delivers custom content, they are more likely to buy from that company. A lot of SEO experts say that content is the king.

Provide original content or information, original reporting, research or analysis.

Content needs quality control.

Content should provide complete and comprehensive coverage of the topic.

The content should be something you'd want to share, recommend or bookmark.

That’s why you should be original, write what you think needs to be said about the matter. Then you should support your work – link it to the others. Before you post something – proofread it.

Content converts visitors: 53% of consumers say blogs have impacted purchase decisions and 57% of marketers have acquired new customers via their blogs (source: http://www.brafton.com/infographics/why-content-for-seo).

While there are no hard rules, it’s generally assumed that more content is better. The serpIQ analyzed the top 10 search results for over 20,000 keywords and noticed a pattern. It turns out that 2000 words is the magic number. The higher up you go on the search listings page, the more content each web page contains.

Matt Cutts said: “Try to make a site that is so fantastic you become an authority in your niche”. Running your own blog with your original thoughts will: bring you traffic, get faithful followers, connect with your business niche, engage your existing clients, get fame around the Web.

If you are good at talking about what you are good at and what you enjoy – you should consider guest posting. Guest blogging is a great way to increase brand awareness. This will grow your brand influence and position you as a niche expert.

  Benefits of guest blogging:

1. Valid links to your own blog/website.

2. Making friends in your niche.

3. New right visitors.

4. More traffic to your own blog/website.

  How others have done it: mini-case study

I would like to present you a personal case study of Bamidele Onibalusi, a professional freelance writer, copywriter, and guest blogger. He decided to write 31 guest blog posts focused on improving search traffic. Of the 31 guest posts that were submitted, 28 were published, which is a great result.

  Bamidele Onibalusi: “The result of the challenge was an increase of 100+ daily visitors from search just 10 days after the challenge, and a total increase of around 60,000 visitors from search just 6 months after the challenge. That works out to be around 2,000 visitors per guest post in 6 months from publication, when the highest I’ve ever gotten from any guest post on a big blog is 1,500 visitors; and these days, I get less than 10% of that from most big blogs.” (source: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32543/How-Savvy-Inbound-Marketers-Get-Results-From-Guest-Blogging.aspx)

This article is a part of #colibri knowledgebase.