Everything is measurable in Internet marketing. That’s the mantra my company NetStrategies stands by! Analytics is the tool by which we measure. In following the data, a smart content writer can determine what a target audience does and does not respond to. The data helps you understand who your visitors are, where they come from, and where they exit during the buy-in process.

A good content writer understands how analytics works even if they are not certified experts on the topic. I’ve studied the educational modules on Google Analytics’ Web site called Conversion University. I recommend anyone working with Web sites at least reads through the material to gain a baseline understanding of what data is available through analytics and how you can use that information. (Actually my boss “encouraged” me to enroll for that very reason, and I’m grateful I did!)

Google Analytics is one example of data tracking and measurement. If used and interpreted properly, it is a fantastic way to track your online progress and make changes based on real data.

Here are two other very simple ways to measure your social media efforts if they are included in your content delivery plan, Facebook Insights and YouTube Insight.

If video is part of your content plan, you can upload to YouTube as a free delivery method. It helps that YouTube is also a household name! Did you know you can access Insight through your account see the analytical data on how your video performs?

Insight, YouTube’s analytics and reporting product, allows you to view detailed statistics about the videos you upload to the site. It charts video views on an interactive time line and map, letting you drill down into different geographic regions and see the viewing activity in those regions over selected time periods. You can also compare the relative popularity of your videos in a given region to all other videos in that region.

To see Insights on your own videos, log on to YouTube and click on the “Insight” button under “Account” > “My Videos” > “Insight.”
YouTube plans to launch new features and additional analytics including viewer demographics, how viewers are engaging with videos (playback length, ratings, comments), and a breakdown of how viewers are discovering videos (e.g. search, email, embeds etc.).
Insight includes a report download section so you can easily share the numbers with your boss or your customer!

For more in depth reporting, Google Analytics integrates with YouTube brand channels, giving partners and advertisers more analytical data by fully enabling Google Analytics reporting. Brand channel owners can track metrics such as how long visitors stay, repeat visits, bounce rates, and page views per visitor.

If a Facebook Fan page or movement is a way you deliver content to your stake holders, use Facebook Insights to dive into the context of those interactions with analytics. Insights illustrates how users are interacting with your page, broken down by Wall posts, likes, and comments. Your Post Quality shows you how engaging your posts are to your fans, and your star rating compares your Post Quality to other pages of similar size. Your Fans Over Time graph allows you to track when users decide to unsubscribe from your posts in their News Feed. It also includes statistics on where your fan base is located and which languages they speak. To export your reports, click “Switch to the Old Insights” in the menu and follow the Export link. Facebook plans to add new metrics in the coming weeks and months.

Your stake holders determine the quality of your content when they engage and follow through. Follow the numbers to better tailor your content to what your stakeholders want.

When you are writing for your Web site, use keywords that your customers use to reach the most searchers.

Use your customers’ search terms. You may sell ”vegetable-tanned cowhide foot coverings,” “green groundcover seed,” or ”one-of-a-kind extra-special violet outer garments”, but what if your customers are searching for organic leather shoes, grass seed, and purple coats? Until you’ve built up brand recognition, you may need to change the way you talk about your product or service.

Speak the same language as your customers. Search engines don’t think the way people do. A search in Google for “house” brings up different results than a search for “home.” If you only mention “homes” on your site, you aren’t reaching everyone you should.  Users query Google for “purple coats” approximately 3,600 times per month. There are zero searches each month for “one-of-a-kind extra-special violet outer garments.”  More searchers will find you if you speak their language.

Analyze your site. How do you find out what words people are using to find you? Web site analytics. There are free and fee-based analytics tools that can tell you how many visitors came to your site on each keyword, which can help you decide which words to use to describe your product.

In addition to keyword analysis, Google Analytics, a free tool, will give you a wealth of information on your site visitors. This information can help you measure the effect of your SEO efforts, evaluate A/B testing data, monitor which pages receive the most visits, and assess which pages lose the most visitors. An analytics expert can help you interpret your reports and plan your course of action.

Once you know which words searchers use, use the same keywords. Add in the words that set your business apart from the others, but speak the same language as your customers to get the best results.

– Stacey Morgan Smith

Unlike most Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) analysts, I have a background as an editor and proofreader — I don’t have a marketing or technical background.

I think of a Web site as a book. Each book is made up of pages of words – words that the search engines need to see and words that will get you what you want, whether it’s buyers, members, or subscriptions. Sure, there are pictures in the book, but what makes or breaks your site is the words, and I LOVE words.

Editors look at the world differently. I find some perverse pleasure in finding typos in articles in The Washington Post. It secretly delights me to give a red-marked page to a coworker. When I drive past the tire place that offers “wheel alinement,” I imagine dropping a friendly note in the mail.

I spent the first 10 years of my professional career editing and proofreading. The work varied, from the National Captioning Institute, where I transcribed and edited prerecorded video to a particular “words-per-minute” rate, to Elias, Matz, Tiernan, & Herrick, a corporate law firm that demanded accuracy in every number within hundred-page financial documents.

After a stint in central Virginia, where, as an artist, I ran my own business web site, my park ranger husband moved us back to Northern Virginia, and, after settling in at Mason Neck State Park in Lorton, I decided to try something different. I joined NetStrategies.

With the experience I had running my own web site and seeing how small changes make big differences, something just clicked in my head with SEO and usability. After discussing my interest with Company President Rodney Loges, I began working with the marketing department putting together suggestions for customer sites.

Early in my SEO work, I had a conversation with NetStrategies’ Director of Technology, Robert Moses. As we analyzed a customer’s site and shared insight on the best strategies to optimize that site, I commented that, “It all seems like common sense!” Robert agreed but pointed out you “have to be able to think that way to get it right.”

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a Web site to increase the number of qualified visitors from search engine organic results. That’s how I see it – get those qualified visitors to your site, so they buy, join, or subscribe.

I absolutely love the process of search engine optimization – to see what happens when we help a customer with their site. Yes, their site usually comes up higher in the rankings, but more importantly, they see an increase in their customers, members, or subscriptions. They get measurable results from their investment in Internet marketing.

With our phenomenal tech, marketing, and customer service departments, we optimize each site as a team. Working with NetStrategies doesn’t just get you an outsourced SEOer. It also gets you an analytics specialist, a technical specialist, and a PPC specialist. Our team members don’t plug away to kill eight hours. We love what we do, and that makes a difference in our performance.

I still take regular training, am a certified eMarketer, and read countless books and blogs on SEO. I’ve learned a lot in my tenure as an SEOer. Join me as I share tips, tools, and books to help you in your own SEO efforts. I look at SEO from a different angle than a tech or marketing person, but that angle is a good angle. I’m Stacey Morgan Smith, the Director of Search Engine Optimization for NetStrategies, and I may be an editor by training, but I’m an SEOer at heart.

NetStrategies is an Internet marketing optimization company. Their performance command center is the first of its kind in the industry. This fully integrated approach uses a unified marketing dashboard that incorporates best-of-class Internet marketing tools, certified expert marketers, and real-time monitoring of opportunities and threats to each customer’s Internet marketing efforts.