Webmaster Tools | Glenn Ward

Setting up a blog with Social, Viral and Digital Marketing in mind – Part 1

Introduction

I’m assuming you have installed your wordpress blog on your server. This post will guide you through some general settings and installations that will get your blog up and running and ready to be spread across the web. Obviously you are here so you can see how some things work but also take a look at my most successful installation, GfK TechTalk

First, choose, install and customize theme.

Add blog Information

Under settings > General fill in your title and tagline, the title will be the name of your website and the tagline what its about, be sure to use some keywords that you want to reach the search engines. Go through all the settings beyond general and make sure the posts, comments etc will behave in a way that suits your blogs intentions.

Widgets

Widgets can be found under the appearance heading on the left hand side of the control panel. They control the content that appears mainly the right hand column of the site but also header footer.

Favicon

If you don’t have any image editing software you can easily create a favicon by uploading it to a number of site such as Favicon.co.uk you can then simply download it and upload it to you sites top level folder (htdocs) for it to appear in a browsers address bar.

CSS

The Cascading Style Sheet is fully customisable and is accessible by clicking appearance > Editor > StyleSheet under Styling

Install Plugins

I’m going to give you a short overview of useful plugins I have tried and tested. It’s not everything I use and everyone’s blog will have different needs but this should give you a good start and save some time.

- Social Media and Viral Marketing

Digg Digg

Digg Digg provides convenient buttons by your post for your readers to market your articles on your behalf, essential for the viral marketing aspect of your blog, you may have seen these buttons on site like Mashable.

Twitter Tools AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button

Once you have established your social media platforms that work for your particular target audience then use Digg Digg for these platforms. It is important to remember that everyone has there own browsing habits and favourite bookmarking tools so make sure your blog facilitates them. AddToAny pretty much adds every other bookmarking link to your post.

SexyBookmarks

A very stylish plugin adding additional bookmarking to your post, I have started using this as an alternative to AddToAny.

Social Media Widget

While many seem to think that linking to your social media accounts means you are intergrating Social Media, as you may have picked up from the above plugins it is only a small part. However, this plugin simplifies the adding of icons to the navigational column and gets you to think about a few extra platforms at the same time.

FeedBurner FeedSmith (manual install)

The Feedburner plugin cannot be found on an add new plugin search, you need to download the plugin file from Google and upload the zip file to your server extract the file and refresh the plugin page in WordPress and activate the plugin. Next, got to your google feedburner account and in My Feeds fill in the address of the blog feed in the Burn a feed right this instant box. Navigate to settings and then feedburner and add your new Feedburner feed address.

- Analytics and Tracking

Google XML Sitemaps

Sign into webmaster tools, add new site, upload the html file although there other options for verification, verify the site,

Edit the settings and build the sitemap

Your sitemap was last built on August 17, 2010 8:51 am.
Your sitemap (zipped) was last built on August 17, 2010 8:51 am.
Google was successfully notified about changes.
Bing was successfully notified about changes.
Ask.com was successfully notified about changes.
The building process took about 0.53 seconds to complete and used 27.25 MB of memory.
If you changed something on your server or blog, you should rebuild the sitemap manually.
If you encounter any problems with the build process you can use the debug function to get more information.

WordPress.com Stats

In order to use the WordPress.com stats plugin you will need a wordpress API key, after you have installed the plugin you will be shown a red error message until you have resolved this, click on the error message and you arrive at a page showing the following “The WordPress.com Stats Plugin is not working because it needs to be linked to a WordPress.com account” click on the link to get an API key and sign up at the wordpress.com site, you only need to sign up for a username, a full blog is not necessary. Once you have gone through the motions got to my account and you will find the API. Copy the API and return your self hosted blog site, enter the key and you will be shown the wordpress account that the api is associated with, now just click and add your blog to the wordpress.com and you’re ready to go.

WP-UserOnline

WP-UserOnline is a handy little plugin that quickly allows you to assess our current users online and monitor marketing efforts in real time.

Ultimate Google Analytics

Go to your Google Analytics and add new website, enter the site address and you will be given some code to paste into your pages, fortunatley the settings for Ultimate GA allow you to just paste the UI code and you are up and running. Give it some time before you start to see your results in Google.

Instruction of accounts to set up

You’re going to need some accounts if you want some traffic and want to take advantage of free tools!

WordPress Account

For some of the stats programs and spam plugins you will need a API Key from your WordPress Account. You can set this up at the WordPress site, see above.

Facebook page

Rather than bug your mates posting links to your personal profile and to make sure you have the facebook followers that are actually interested in what you have to say, set up a Facebook page for your blog and put your links in there.

Twitter and Twitter developer account

Your Twitter account is going to be important in pushing out your posts once you have established your following. Use plugins such as Twitter Tools to automate the process.

Google, Analytics, Feedburner, Webmaster Tools

You’re going to need a Google account and a few of their products.

Gravatar

Gravatar is a sister site to wordpress and is a handy way to add an avatar to your email address . Sign up for a Gravatar account, upload your photo, then on any participating site you use that use that email address your avatar will be displayed.

bit.ly

Contact me if you would like more detailed advice, more plugins and information on how this fits into a marketing strategy.

An introduction to Google Webmaster Tools

Also see,
Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation
Beyond SEO – The right traffic to your site
An Introduction to Google Webmaster Tools
Introduction to Google Analytics and other website analytical tools
Introduction to Pay Per Click Campaigns
PPC Pay Per Click Marketing and purchase process
Integrating online video into your digital marketing strategy

Webmaster tools provides a window into how google sees your site. Webmaster tools shows you how many pages in your sitemap are indexed in the Google directory, if your site and it’s pages contain errors, internal and external links, site crawls, page rank etc. Use this set of information for constant monitoring of your site especially if your websites information changes on a regular basis. Also use it to continually improve your sites Search Engine Optimization and improve the page rank.

Site Configuration
Sitemaps are your list of sitemaps that you have under that webmaster tools account, URL’s Submitted are all the URL’s in you sitemap that have been submitted to Google and URL’s indexed are the pages that have been submitted by Google to their directory.

Your site on the web
A very powerful tool is the search terms and positions you achieved that didn’t necessarily lead to a hit Top search queries. This adds a new dimension allowing you to see the search terms that are performing well and the pages that might need attention in order to entice visitors. There are other powerful tools on the Internet that provide similar information but webmaster tools are easy and accessible. Links to your site provide a quick snapshot of the links in the Google directory that link to your pages, note: this will not include every site on the Internet as you will see by having a look at you traffic sources in Google Analytics. Keywords is a quick look at what the Google Bot has picked up as your most frequently used words and terms on your site and should reflect the content you wish to promote. Internal links should include the majority of the hyperlinks that link to pages within your site.

For SEO improvements the Diagnostics Crawl errors are useful to identify dead links, page errors, not founds, unreachables etc. Always try and keep these down to zero if it’s possible on your website.

As I mentioned, there are many detailed softwares and sites that perform these functions, see my links page under SEO for more details.

Sitelinks are established by google, you may have seen them under the brief description in search listings. Once established you have the option to remove the irrelevant links, for example, your contact us may be identified as one of your sites most frequently visited page but is not necessarily the landing page you want listed in your sitelinks.

Introduction to Google Analytics and other website analytical tools

Google Analytics is an absolute gem of a tool and can be used to make accurate business decisions regarding your advertising activities and marketing objectives. It will provide an opportunity to see what is working and what is not working in order to better utilise budgets and redistribute your spend and efforts.

It should pointed out that while Google Analytics is a great free tool, it should be cross referenced against other analytical software such as AWStats (free and installed on most hosting packages) or more professional software such as Omniture or Webtrends as data sometimes can be slightly conflicting.

It is also important to understand your objectives before you start your analysis. If you are approaching from an SEO point of view then the data you receive from the visitors of your site is as important as the data from the visitors you don’t achieve. Use services such as Googles Webmaster Tools or SEMRush to take a look at the information about where your site achieved a search engine placement but did not achieve a visit. More on this in another post.

If you are not familiar with the terms associated with web traffic then please see the summary below before reading on.

Once you have established your objectives there are two ways I approach the use of the data. Dip in and retrieve the data necessary to conclude the objective or take a look at the site visitors journey.

A site I worked on recently targeted the promotion of a trade in a specific vicinity from the trading address. Using analytics we were able to take a quick look at the geographical data by choosing visitors > Map overlay to see where the hits were coming from. In consequence the area the PPC campaign targeted was refined, reducing spend on clicks and improving conversion rates. Outside of the world of the web this data also facilitates decisions made about other geographical based advertising. A reasonably high spend on directory advertising was proving to have comparatively low conversion rates so the budget would be better distributed in areas producing sales. This is applicable for small and large business, with higher traffic websites you will have more data to play with and in turn a bit more digging to do but the cost savings are greater and overall turnover should far exceed the investment in getting it right.

So, let’s take a look at the journey I mentioned earlier. Although it can be very difficult to track one visitors journey through the website (unless you have software such as LivePerson) it is possible to retrieve enough data to make informed decision. This is technique I developed while working at a very high traffic retailer in order to make recommendations about advertising spends both on the Internet and in the real world. The basics of the journey is as follows

Referral > Landing page > Most popular pages > Exit Page > External links

This collection of data alone can answer a multitude of questions. Referrals, can quickly answer the question of whether some of your paid marketing is worth the spend, you will often see hits directly from mail sites so to some extent you can monitor your mailshots. Where you might struggle to monitor the effect of your advertising from print media or anything without a direct link. There are a few ways around this and I’ll give you a hint, creating unique landing pages to your advertising allows you to track how many hits you obtain from, say a flyer. Possibilities also arise in usability, pushing your visitors to specific parts of the site based on what you know they have come to find.

Landing pages are good for monitoring where traffic has come from but also provide a window into what is appearing high in search engines or popular pay per click search terms. Organic traffic to certain landing pages shows these are probably the most optimised pages satisfying more unique search terms. Check your search engine placement using webmaster tools, use this information to improve other pages and products.

The pages that receive the most hits Most popular pages might be highly optimised but also may reveal good usability and navigation of the site for example, home pageadvertising, good linking structure. Again this might reveal answers regarding offline advertising.

Exit pages are vital in knowing where your visitor got off. Ideally a thank you page post checkout or the contact us page for a trader. Match this by recording other data, whilst a checkouts provide the facility to monitor conversions, 10 hits or exits from your contact us page followed by 10 phone calls or emails suggests a conversion rate.

External links are as important as internal links and depending on the function of the site, remember that analytics does not drop a cookie so I the visitor leaves the site for more information and comes back google cannot tell you this. External links are especially good for sites providing information, sites with adverting, sites with sister sites and products.

Bare in mind that journeys can only be measured between two places, if a visitor hyperlinks to another page on your site then google can track the time spent on the first.

Organic Search – This is the natural search traffic obtained through the websites indexed pages on a search directory. For example, the left hand side of google.

Paid Search – This is search traffic from the adverts that appear on a search engines page. For example, Pay per click campaigns.

External / Internal links – External links are the links on the the website that link to another site. Internal links link to pages within the site.

Traffic Sources – Is a bracket heading for all the traffic sources that can be measured by Analytics.

Conversions – Are the traffic that can be measured and acheive a sale or appropriate call to action.

Conversion Rate – Are measurements on how many conversions achieved compared with number of visits. For example, a search term acheives 10 visits and 1 sale, this will produce a conversion rate

Landing Page – Is the first page at which the visitor arrived at the site (not always the home page)

Exit Page – Is the page at which the visitor leaves your site.

Understanding the science of PPC digital marketing – Make Pay Per Click work for your business

Also see,
Pay per click marketing and purchase process

I’m often approached for some pointers in the area of Pay Per Click advertising and I start by explaining how varied the subject can be. I often read Googles guides, and other readings but don’t reach the end a whole lot wiser as every industry, every product even time of day, week or the weather effects a large campaign. I have decided my new advise approach should therefore be, how to not get PPC Marketing or advertising wrong rather than how to get it right.

So, where to begin? Let’s start with the setting up of the campaign as this is where you will begin. A common mistake from the outset is to follow all of Googles recommendations and have your advert appear for every associated word that refers to your product. It is good to think of every combination of words your customer might search but be careful not to include to broader terms especially if you do not stock the full range yourself. A brand that has a huge product portfolio will generate traffic but if you pull traffic through for broad terms there is no guarantee you will have to specific product at the specific price your potential customer is looking for. Broad terms often result in a low conversion rate. Having said this in an uncompetitive market this will be another story.

Ok, we’ve targeted our specific customer looking for a specific brand and a specific product in that brand range, the next thing they see is our advert on the right hand side / top of the search engine. All too often retailers go for a catch all advert for their entire campaign. This poses two problems, firstly, most customers want to know at the search engine stage if the retailer has the product and so this approach might lead to no click at all if a competitors advert supplies the required data. Secondly the customer clicks on your advert unsure as to what they might find, browses your site for a short while and then leaves, resulting in low conversion rates and a high spend. The odd wasted click here and there may seem insignificant on a small account but I have handled accounts from between a £500 to £2000 weekly spend, if these clicks aren’t turning into sales then you will soon be running at a loss.

Usability doesn’t just become important when the potential customer reaches your site, you are dealing with a savvy shopper that doesn’t wish to continue searching once on your website. You have used the right keywords, captured them with a good advert now clinch the sale by presenting them on a landing page with the product they’re after and at a competitive price.

Rather than just looking to the Google keyword tool as this will bombard you with every possible combination of key words know to man (well computer) you should use webmaster tools, google analytics and other 3rd party sites or tools to influence your choice of keywords. More detail on these in a later post.

All of the above should be done with measured targets in mind. Without bench marks there is no guarantee you are achieving a good ROI. I always stand by that PPC marketing is a short term fix and that the foe the bulk of the advertising or sales should not rely on PPC Campaigns. Your Pay Per Click should run alongside your SEO campaigns and other digital marketing, targets and goals should be set that work in synergy with a view to improve organic search conversions and digital marketing with a higher ROI. Remember some of the most innovative digital marketing costs virtually nothing.

If you have a large AdWords spend be sure to make use of your Google account manager, they are only at the other end of the phone and will work with you to improve your campaign. Be sure to provide a clear brief and if you doubt that they completely understand you brand do not ask them to make ad hoc adjustments to the wording of ads. They are extremely useful for performing repetitive time consuming jobs. Alternatively you can speed up your editing by using tools such as Google AdWords Editor, you can have more control over your adverts and if you are a whizz with exel can export and import files allowing you to work in a more familiar format.

Just a taster for now! But do ask more specific questions and I shall rage on additional posts.