4 Metrics-Measuring Must-Haves

January 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment
KPI metrics

Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

 

Metrics. I love them! I was a math geek in school, so go figure. You can imagine how excited I was to work with KPI (Key Performance Indicators) at one of my corporate gigs. Once I started working with KPI, I wondered why I hadn’t had exposure to them at other jobs. Maybe it was something only discussed among managers, but I fear a worse reality….lack of KPI.

Of course, I’ll never know, but I don’t believe either is good business practice. If you don’t have metrics, how do you know if you are growing and improving in the right ways? And if you don’t communicate your key metrics to staff, how can they get on board to help you achieve desired results?

Alright, enough with the questions and trip down memory lane. Here’s the good stuff: a list of my 4 favourite online tools to measure website metrics, KPI and a few other things that are just good practice if you have a business website (which you should if you have a business, but that’s a whole other rant!)

BDC Website Assessment

I just discovered the Free Website Assessment by BDC today, but I’ve already bookmarked it and added it to my toolkit. Again, you key in your website address and out spits a lengthy, but easy to understand, report about various aspects of your website. Categories it assesses include accessibility for various users, user experience, marketing, popularity, and how well designed and built the site is. They offer up a bit of info on why they assess each item and what might be causing a lower score.

Google Analytics

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Google products, and Analytics is certainly no exception. You do have to set up an account and connect it to your website, but once that’s done, look out! You’ll have so much information about the people visiting your site and how their usage patterns, you won’t know what to do with it all at first! Information ranges from the simplest statistics, like how many people visited my site, to more complex metrics like conversion rates. There certainly are other analytic sites available, and if Google isn’t your thing, then by all means check them out. But it’s pretty much an Internet sin for a website not to be using some form of analytics.

Marketing Grader

Marketing Grader helps you measure and improve your online marketing strategy. All you have to do is punch your website address and you get this wonderfully detailed report. It analyzes some internal website stuff, like your titles, alt tags and other geeky stuff that matters to search engines. And it looks at a whole lot of factors related to social media. If you don’t have a blog, or social media accounts, you will definitely have some holes in your report, but it also offers up links to articles they have written on how to get your score up in any particular area. Caution: this one can get a bit techy.

Sucuri Website Scan

I cannot say enough about Sucuri, but it speaks for itself. Sucuri offers a security check on your website. Find out if your site has been hacked or black-listed, just by typing in the address. If there is a security breach, they have reasonable plans to help you clean up the mess (note: I am not affiliated with them in any way, and don’t benefit from telling you this).

There you have it. Four tools you should check out immediately, if you haven’t already. Oh, and did I mention they are all free? If I missed a metrics monitoring site that you can’t live without, please feel free to mention in below.

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Making Your Blog Posts Picture Perfect

November 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

Q. I’ve heard I should use pictures in my blog posts, but where can I get picture to use?

Silver picture frame

Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A. It’s true, people are drawn to visuals, and having an image to accompany your post can help increase the number of visitors who decide to read it. There are a few ways you can add images to increase visual appeal. Here are a few popular suggestions to consider:

Use Your Own

Certainly the cheapest, this may or may not be viable for you. You will want to ensure your images are good quality. While you don’t need to be a professional photographer, you’ll want to ensure any personal photos you use are lit well and not blurry or grainy (unless that’s the look you are going for). Pro: you have total control over what is and isn’t included in your image. Con: you may not have easy access to your ideal subject matter.

Purchase Stock Images

There are a variety of websites that offer photos, illustrations and any other type of graphic you can imagine, for a cost. This is a good route to go if you are going to get a lot of use out of a particular image, like in a marketing campaign, for example. Prices vary, depending on the size of file, and how generic – or not – the image is. A photo of Donald Trump will cost you considerably more than “senior businessman smiling“. If you are using these photos for blog posts, even at just $4 per photo, the cost will add up eventually. Make sure you are aware of any licence requirements.

Take Advantage of Creative Commons Licensing

This is my favourite option. It’s the best of both worlds. Free, like using your own, but a wide variety available. You may find yourself returning to a favourite source again and again. Or, you can try doing a creative commons search. There is, however, a catch: you must be aware of the licensing requirements that pertain to the image you decide to use. In most, if not all, cases, you need to include an attribution. Depending on where you get your image from, placement guidelines of the attribution could be vague or general (in your source code or anywhere on your site) or they may be very specific and rigid (on the same page as the image, or even immediately adjacent to the image). Usually the attribution should indicate who created the image and have a link to the site where you found it, like I have done for my image above.

Whichever way you choose to go, make sure your images are appropriate for the content you provide.

This post is part of a regular feature series called Tuesday Tips. Every Tuesday, I will answer some of the questions I receive from clients and readers about WordPress, social media and all other things internet-related. If you have a question you would like me to answer, submit it here.

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Happy New Year!

September 22, 2012 By 4 Comments

September is almost over. Fall has just begun. Department stores may be getting ready for Halloween, but Stationery stores are getting ready for the New Year. There are still several months and holidays before the New Year begins, but now seems to be the time that successful businesses start thinking ahead.

Planners, schedulers, and daytimers abound. And everyone seems to have their own way to plan and stay current. At my “day job”, a list just went out for all staff to indicate whether they would like a desk calendar, daily planner, monthly planner, or any other type of “calendar in a book” they could fathom. One or two days per page, or a week per page, everyone seems to have their own preference for time management.

Some people prefer electronic gadgets or online tools. Certainly these can be helpful in a variety of ways. If your schedule is online, you can access it anywhere. If it’s an app on your phone, it fits easily in your pocket so you can have it with you at all times, unlike a paper daytimer.

Personally, this is the first year I’ve cared. Next month I’ll be planning the next year of marketing activities and other business-type “stuff” for the upcoming year. This will help me set goals and stay on track with growing and establishing my business. Appointments will still be managed with Google Calendar, which syncs with my phone and computer, and is accessible online from any other computer or internet-capable device. But the big picture for my business will be figured out and saved manually on a good old fashioned paper planner. Probably a purple one at that!

What are your favourite tools for planning the new year? Share them below, along with any time management tips you may have.

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