By keeping an eye on a handful of statistics, you can gather valuable information to help you develop more successful marketing strategies.

Web site stats can tell you much more than just how many people visit your web site.    They can also tell you: 

•  Which pages of your site are being viewed
•  How people are getting to your site, for example, what search engines people are linking to you from     
•  What keywords visitors are using to find your site
• What browsers visitors are using – so you can make sure your site is cross-browser compatible
• When people visit – so you can plan coupons and announcements accordingly

Some other questions to keep in mind:

•        What pages are never accessed? Why?
•        Are visitors taking action? 
•        Are they purchasing? 
•        Are they leaving contact information?

 Analyzing your traffic data is the best way to help you write more targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create a more effective Web site.

 If PCA Web Design & Hosting hosts your Web site and you don’t remember how to access your stats, please e-mail pam@pcawebdesign.com and she will be happy to get you on the right path.

PCA is starting a new column called “Marketing Made Easy”.  Each month we will be highlighting a way to help market your company for either free or a very minimal fee.  We hope you will enjoy our first “Marketing Made Easy” post on Constant Contact’s great newsletter service.

Keep in front of your clients and prospects with a permission based email marketing campaign to send out newsletters and special offers via e-mail.  Companies like Constant Contact make it easy. 

 The concept is simple, the initial email asks the contact to “opt-in” for future emails.  This is an effective way to build a targeted list of contacts interested in your product or service. 

 Email templates make creating emails easy while offering a professional look.  By changing the template colors and adding your company logo, the emails will reflect your company’s brand image.

 Constant Contact also offers valuable tracking reports which allow you to see who opened your emails and what they clicked on….hopefully a link to your Web Site. 

 Pricing with Constant Contact starts at $15.00 per month and is based on the number of email addresses you have in your contact list.  They are currently offering a 60 day free trial.

 Staying in front of clients and prospects is important.  With a permission based email marketing, it’s crucial to send consistent and useful emails.  Many companies include newsletter type articles while others report great responses from providing special offers.  A mix between the two might be a happy medium.

 Adding a “Join My Mailing List” box on your Web Site is also an easy way to build your contact database.  Instructions are provided by Constant Contact, but should you need help please give us a call or email.  www.pcawebdesign.com

We recently included an article on Google analytics in our latest newsletter.  Thought some of you might find it interesting:
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that shows you how people find your site, how they navigate through it, and how they become customers.  The data you receive is thorough, yet is provi…ded in easy-to-understand visual reports.  Here are just some of the useful features and benefits offered to help your organization practice performance focused marketing.Data Collected:
Provides number of unique visitors
Page Views – how many total pages have been viewed by each visitor
Bounce Rate – the number of times someone comes to your site without looking at anything
Average time spent on site
Percent of new visits
Traffic Details:
Find out how many visitors come to your site directly – by typing in your url.
Find out which sites are bringing visitors to your site via a link.
Find out how many visitors come to your site through search engines (not just Google).
Geographical tracking and segmentation
Keyword Details:
Find out what keywords visitors used to find your site
Find the top keywords driving traffic Keep in mind, the fully customizable reports range from basic to detailed – you decide. The reports are easy to interpret, flexible, and can easily be shared through email in pdf format. For more detailed information, see http://www.google.com/analytics/Google Analytics is easy to set up. However, installation of the tracking code does have to be placed in the code of each of your Web site pages. For more information on having PCA optimize your Web site with this amazing tool, please contact Julie at julie@pcawebdesign.com. Most sites can be completed for between $75.00 and $150.00.

Here are some of the new Web Sites we’ve completed.  Take a look and let us know what you think.

We would like to send wishes for a prosperous 2010 to all of our friends, partners, and clients!  Have a good one.

Twitter is a tool for “micro-blogging” or posting very short (max. of 140 characters) updates, comments or thoughts.  It’s kind of a cross between instant messaging (IM) and a chat room, because it is an open forum, but you restrict it to the people with which you connect.

Ideas for Using Twitter for Marketing & PR

1. Engage in social media.   Most people have little time to write a blog or answer lots of messages and friend requests on Facebook.   But, Twitter is limited to 140 characters per update, so it is all about short thoughts and comments.  If you can send a text message, you can use Twitter from anywhere in the world as a marketing and PR tool. 
2. Keep in touch with bloggers / media.  It is really easy to follow someone on Twitter. You’ll also be surprised how often they decide to follow you as well.   “Tweeting” is an easier way to connect with influential people than calling or emailing.
3. Monitor your company / brand on Twitter.  Even if you don’t join Twitter yourself you can monitor what people are saying about any person, company or brand.  This is quite useful from a marketing and PR standpoint.  Twitter has a search engine that lets you do this.   
4. Announce specials, deals or sales.  If you are a retailer or in a service based industry, you can use Twitter to announce deals instantly to a large audience. 
5. Live updates on events.  If you participate in trade shows or run corporate events, you can use Twitter to announce changes.  It is a great last minute marketing tool.
6. Promote blog articles, webinars, interesting news and more.  It’s really easy to post a link to something in Twitter.  A good idea is to post articles on other websites that are relevant to your business, like a customer success story or other PR coverage.  When you only have 140 characters, posting links enable you to share additional information. 

From everyone here at PCA Web Design - we wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Statistics are now showing that almost all Internet users have now switched to higher monitor resolutions with 1024 resolution monitors now being the smallest. For this reason, PCA will now build most sites for 1024 resolutions monitors and higher.

This new width increases the space you have for selling your products and services greatly! If you would be interested in receiving a quote for widening your site from 800 to 1024, please feel free e-mail christie@pcawebdesign.com and we will be happy to quote doing this for you.

Below are statistics that show the shift in popularity in higher monitor resolutions over the past decade.

 1/2009  Higher Res. = 57%    1024 x 768 = 36%       800 x 600 = 4%
1/2005   Higher Res. = 12%     1024 x 768 = 53%       800 x 600 = 30%
1/2000   Higher Res. = 4%        1024 x 768 = 25%       800 x 600 = 56%

Here is an example of a site that we have recently widened, so you can see the difference:

BEFORE

AFTER

Elite Home Remodeling
http://www.elitehomeremodeling.com

There are two new spam e-mails going around the Internet right now that I want to warn you about. I am going to cut and paste snippets of each e-mail below (in red), but I will first briefly describe them.

1) The first one says that your hosting server needs to reboot and that the server needs you to log on and update some information.
2) The second one says that “A new settings file for the user mailbox has just been released”.

Both of these e-mails are phishing expeditions. They are trying to get your personal information. Please just delete them if you receive either of them.

PCA will NEVER ask you to log on to a site and update information!

Again, see sample text from these two e-mails below.

Snippet from e-mail #1:
On October 30, 2009 server upgrade will take place. Due to this the system may be offline for approximately half an hour.
The changes will concern security, reliability and performance of mail service and the system as a whole.
For compatibility of your browsers and mail clients with upgraded server software you should run SSl certificates update procedure.
This procedure is quite simple. All you have to do is just to click the link provided, to save the patch file and then to run it from your computer location. That’s all.
Then there is a link – DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snippet from e-mail #2:
Dear user of the yourwebsiteaddress.com mailing service! We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (email user) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:
Then there is a link – DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!!!!!!!!!!!!