SmallBusinessNewz

Social Media Trends 2012 – Analytics and Measurement

Today I am going back to the four social media trends Beverly Macy predicted would be hot in 2012 in the Huffington Post

Twitter Announces New Analytics Tool

Do you actively use Twitter to promote your business?  Do you use it as an advertising medium, or do you use it to connect with customers?  How about a way to promote your business' website?If you are someone who believes that social media like Twitter is important to your site, this might be your lucky day.   

Getting the Most out of Your Analytics

Analytics can be very confusing and overwhelming. Most business owners recognize the importance of them but easily get bogged down with all the data. Fortunately, it is possible to make them more understandable. To do this, small businesses should start by establishing goals for their analytics.

An Equation for Improving Your Forms and Conversions

The other day, we discussed the importance of not wasting you customers' time when trying to get them to buy from your site. In essence, people do not want to spend more time than they have to during the buying process, so the more you can do to make that process quicker, the more likely you are to actually get a conversion. I'm guessing most of you agree with this, and we got some good reader comments on the subject:

The Security Of Your Campaign Data

My recent post “The Truth Behind Amish Shah’s Magic Bullet System” has had some affiliates riled up about the security of your campaign data being stored on someone else’s system. I think it’s a lot more than that though, it boils down to this: Do you trust the people you’re working with. 

Many Marketers Have Issues with Web Analytics

eMarketer compiled some data, citing results from a survey conducted by Unica about Web Analytics, and the problems marketers face when using analytics tools. Web analytics are a critical part of succeeding on the web, but marketers are continuing to struggle with actually using the tools they have. Here are some problems cited by respondents of the survey:

Google Offers More Free Webinars, Training

Small business owners who use Google AdWords and/or Google Analytics - along with small business owners who don't, but are interested - should make some time in their schedules.  Google's decided to promote a number of free online training sessions.

Google Provides Valuable Data to Local Businesses

Google has launched a new dashboard feature for Local Business Center that lets businesses get greater insight into how customers are finding their local business listings. Best of all, it's free to use. Your local business listing on Google looks something like this:

Google Exposes Top 10 Analytics Myths

We talk about web analytics (and Google Analytics in particular) a lot here at SmallBusinessNewz. That's mostly because Google is so vocal about how to use its service. Thats's a testament to Google's blogging practices for one thing, but there are a lot of useful tips to come out of these blog posts that small business owners can apply to their own analytics efforts. Google's latest post on analytics deals with common myths associated with the service. They include:

4 Steps for Setting Up Google Analytics Goals

Goals in Google Analytics are designed to let you measure business objectives for your site. They must correspond to a measurable action performed by visitors to that site. Google has a useful post on setting up Goals. In that post, they detail the four steps of setting up a Goal and Funnel. They are: 1. Define your Goal Funnel 2. Configure Goal Settings for Each Profile 3. Define your Goal Funnel