Sundeep Kapur hosted a session that gave us some great insights on how to create content that is worth reading.

*Create content you can use for interaction.
Publishing content with no intent to create conversation will leave your online presence stale.

* Keep it authentic.
Your computer is a machine, you’re not – the interaction should be real.

* Only push your content to channels that are relevant to your target market.
Don’t just throw spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks; place your message where your target market is.

* Give your readers simple nuggets of information that they can share.
A tweet is 140 characters, make sure your information is re-tweetable.

*Do not tell people to “Follow You” or “Like You”
Give them a reason to want to.

*When creating print collateral, think of sending readers on an online scavenger hunt.
Direct them to your “hub” with an offer.

*When posting content on Facebook, consider what you would share with your friends.
If you wouldn’t – don’t post it.

Stay tuned for more updates on SES Chicago 2010!

What effective tactics has your company used when creating and posting content?

There are 5 Components to Search Marketing:

1) Keyword Discovery

2) Keyword Management and Analytics

3) Keyword Bidding and Optimization

4) Website and Landing Pages

5) Business Outcomes

Avinash then went on to discuss tips on how to successfully execute a search marketing campaign:

*Don’t obsess about tools!
*Understand the landscape. What are you trying to deal with?
*Identify your gaps & opportunities.  What aren’t you doing, are you marketing where your target market is looking?
*Execute like crazy!
*Quantify the economic value of your efforts.  What are you worth?

“You cannot “win” unless you understand what type of world you’re dealing with.  Evaluate what you do well, what you need help with, and what you suck at” -Kaushik

Stay tuned for more updates on SES Chicago 2010!

The Net Impact is also hosting a seminar to review current trends in internet marketing on Wednesday October 27th, presented by our Internet Marketing Professionals: “5 Emerging Internet Marketing Trends to Boost Business in 2011.” Click here for more information or to register on Facebook!

Unidev and The Net Impact are joining forces with the the St. Louis Area Foodbank to sponsor a food drive this holiday season. The canned food drive will be held from December 18 through January 5 at our office in Chesterfield, Missouri.

“Unidev and The Net Impact are looking forward to getting involved with such a wonderful organization. The FoodBank is at the center of a network of charitable people who want to make sure that no one in the area goes hungry, and for this reason, we are excited to be in a position to help those at this generous organization feed those in need this holiday season,” said Steve Thomas, President of The Net Impact.

The St. Louis Area Foodbank has grown to become the bi-state region’s largest non-profit. Through their mission “to feed hungry people by distributing food through partner agencies, and to educate the public about the nature of and solutions to the problems of hunger”, the St. Louis Area Foodbank is on track this year to distribute 20 million pounds of food and personal care items through their network of 500 partner agencies.

Looking for a way to give back to the community this holiday season?!

Stop by our office from December 18th through January 5th, weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., to donate  canned goods that will help the foodbank ensure they have the needed supply to get through the holiday season! Our office is located at 16690 Swingley Ridge Road, suite 260 in Chesterfield, Missouri 63017.

Learn more about how your organization can benefit the Greater St. Louis Area Foodbank by visiting: stlfoodbank.org

Read the full press release here! 

In the last decade, tracking website analytics has rapidly evolved from simply data crunching to a very powerful decision making platform. Web analytics is an important tool for Internet marketers and web designers alike to make choices about how to improve traffic flow, design calls to action, update search engine optimization and enhance the overall strategy of a website.

Paying close attention to visitor behavior on a website through analytics, is very similar to paying attention to the consumer behavior for a store, brand or product.  Think of it this way… a store manager arranges their shop with the most marketable items in places that grab the shopper’s attention and are easily accessible and highly visible. Just as the store manager is looking to make the shopper’s experience more satisfying by arranging their store based on the habits of his consumers, so that it is easy and enjoyable to navigate through, a website creator should take into account what information is most sought after on their website and the habits and pathways visitors are taking to get there.

Without web analytics it is next to impossible to measure and analyze website visitor behavior. Analyzing visitor behavior allows you to determine activity as it affects profit, sales and areas (pages) of interest. Page views, navigation, entry and exit pages, time spent, languages, geographic locations, visits, and keywords used in searches are a few of the features that are able to be determined using web analytics. By simply tracking items that are most often viewed you can learn what items or products on your site, receive the most attention. In this way you can adapt your offerings to attract more traffic and while doing so monitor what sparks and keeps visitor’s attention.

The Net Impact team places special emphasis on the importance of clickstream tracking, or the following of a visitor’s clickstream as they move throughout a website, down to every microscopic detail. This analysis offered by Google under the name Event Tracking Tool,  allows you to track every movement your visitor makes as a unique event. Analyzing every small movement, or micro-conversion, your visitor makes provides you with useful feedback used to make changes to your website to improve your visitor’s experience, which will in turn enhance the overall value of your website. Every micro-conversion a visitor makes is important because, no matter how small the movement is, it is still conversion, you are still getting the visitor to do what you want them to dig deeper and deeper into your website.

An excellent example of this is The Net Impact’s findings with the website www.vangoghgallery.com. VanGoghGallery.com is an online collection of Van Gogh’s works. The website received thousands of visitors each day. The Net Impact helped Van Gogh gallery setup Event Tracking Methods to gain greater insight into the navigation patterns of its main landing pages.  Through event tracking, Van Gogh Gallery was able to determine that the large image links on the page received 98.5% of the click-throughs compared 1.5%  for the side navigation links, going to the same page. This was helpful for determining the elements necessary on each page to get visitors to take the next step.

In conclusion, if you ever wondered how to analyze website user behavior, determine which search terms they come from, which pages are most visited, which pages are of least interest  and how to maximize your ROI, look into implementing  a Web Analytics solution. Analytics will help you conduct a behavioral analysis of your website visitors, and with that information you can make the required changes to your website that will improve your overall conversation rate and make your visitor’s website experience one that is enjoyable.

To find out how The Net Impact can help you with your Google Analytics needs, contact us today for a free assessment and consultation!