Chapter 7

Optimizing and Monitoring Your Web Site to Increase Traffic

Building a good web site is imperative for being successful on the Internet, but there are also certain modifications to a web site that can generate more traffic. Part of that involves adding elements to the web site that improve search engine rankings, called search engine optimization (SEO). Increasing traffic to the web site includes not only SEO, but also creating elements of the web site that will (1) bring in more visitors, (2) retain visitors longer, and (3) create more repeat traffic. Web surfers visit particular web sites because they are looking for something of interest. For music fans, information about music and the music itself play an important part, but it is also about the community and fun. Visitors need a reason to stay and a reason to return. This chapter discusses ways in which a web site can be modified to improve traffic to the site.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Search engine optimization is the practice of guiding the development or revamping of a web site so that it will naturally attract visitors by gaining top ranking on the major search engines for selected search terms and phrases. Chapter 12 discusses the process of submitting your web site to search engines to have them include your site in their directory. But you can improve site relevance, which helps determine how prominent your site is in the search engine results, by including a few extras in the site. The goal is to have your web site listed among the top results when visitors use search engines to find your site. Search engine optimization involves three key components and several minor, but effective, techniques—all of which add up to better rankings.

Keywords

Search engines look for keywords when sorting and ranking sites. This includes the keywords found in meta tags (Chapters 6 and 11), but also text that appears in the first couple paragraphs of the page to catalog “content-rich” sites. Because search engine placement is about beating the competition for the top slot in search results, the best place to start is to imagine what keywords your customers are likely to use when looking for sites such as yours, and by looking at the competition and what keywords they are using. Use one of the popular search engines and type in keywords that members of your target market would typically use to look for your artist or music. Don’t be concerned about thinking of all relevant keywords at first—that will come later. As the results of the search are displayed, look at the first few listings to see if those web sites are indeed targeting the same market and are considered competitors. You can actually use these web sites to improve your own. Look at the keywords they use by using your browser’s “view source” function to look at their meta tags. Look at the text appearing on their home page and the titles used. Consider any words or phrases that you find on these sites that you may not currently be using or have thought about. Internet consultant Bruce Clay stated, “Proper Search Engine Optimization requires that you beat your competition, so knowing the keywords and criterion used by your competition is the most important first step” (Clay, 2007).

Several web companies specialize in SEO, and for a small expense, you can have the experts handle this. There are also web sites that will assist you in evaluating which keywords are most successful in generating traffic and top search engine placement. Some of these sites provide a basic service for no charge. There are two types of tools for managing keywords: (1) keyword generators and (2) keyword verifiers. Digital Point Management provides a keyword tracker tool that determines keyword popularity. Google AdWords provides a keyword tool to help AdWord users determine the appropriate and most popular keyword phrases to use for their ads. By typing in a keyword statement or combination of keywords and clicking “get keyword ideas,” the system displays results and indicates popularity for each suggested keyword phrase. Although these suggested phrases are for the benefit of AdWords users, the keywords generated by the program are also useful for inclusion in meta tags and in the text on the page. These and other programs help predict which keywords will be most successful for inclusion in your web site. Other software programs can test the effectiveness of your keywords already in use. By typing in your domain name and the keywords in question, the verification software can determine whether your web page shows up near the top of the search results for various search engines.

Page Titles

The title tag of each page tells both users and search engines what the topic is for that particular page. It is wise to create a unique title for each page on your site, but with information that ties it all together. For example, for an artist site, the home page may be titled the artist’s name and then band, music, etc. Subsequent pages should have a title that includes the specific information found on that page, such as “Artist’s Name—Bio” or “Artist’s Name—Tour Dates.” The reason for this is because search engine results generally list the page title in capital letters as the first link of the result.

Figure 7.1 Google keyword tool

(used with permission)

Link Popularity

Another characteristic that search engines use to rank keyword results is link popularity: how many other sites think your site is important enough to link to it. The quantity (popularity) and the quality (relevance) of links to your site are used to determine ranking status. Link quality is defined as those from other sites with high page rankings for relevant search terms. Search engines use this information because they go by the assumption that the most important and relevant sites will have lots of other sites linking to it and also because it is hard for webmasters to fake or fool the search engine into giving a higher ranking than deserved. SearchEngineWatch.com states, “link analysis gives search engines a useful means of determining which pages are good for particular topics.”

As outlined in Chapter 11, you can improve your link popularity by contacting webmasters at other relevant sites and asking them to place a link on their site that will lead visitors to your site. Use the search engines to find appropriate sites to request link placement. Type in the relevant keywords, and visit pages that appear at the top of the results. Ask those webmasters to add your link. Sometimes this is achieved through a link exchange. Chances are that a well-known music star is not going to agree to link to a site of an unknown artist, with the exception of major artists who are fans of the particular emerging artist. The best candidates for link exchange are similar artists and members of your fan base. Ask fans to link to your site, and perhaps offer a contest or incentive (a free download) for all those who comply.

Figure 7.2 Title tag and description meta tags search results

When press releases or other written materials are disseminated, include several hot links to your artist’s web site. As these articles are posted on web sites, e-zine sites, and blogs, the embedded links are spread virally and will appear in the electronically published version, thus increasing incoming link popularity.

Several free tools are available to measure link popularity. These tools search Google, AltaVista, Bing, Ask, AOL, and other search engines to determine how many pages are linking to your web page.

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide outlines several other web site alterations and specifications that will help with search engine ranking, and will help search engines correctly list and categorize your web site.

DESCRIPTION META TAG

Google uses portions of the description meta tag in search engine results to describe the site. Google states that they employ a number of strategies to select the portion of the description meta tag. You want to make sure they are not too short, too long or a duplication of other content (such as the title tag, page content, etc.). Google may instead use a relevant portion of the page’s content if it matches up well with a user’s query, although they prefer to use a portion of the descriptive meta tag. Meta descriptions that are simply a long list of keywords are less likely to be used by Google than text within the page that better describes the page’s content (Krishnan, 2007). The Google Guide states “Adding a description meta tag to each of your pages is always a good practice in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet.” Google also advises: to avoid a description that has no relation to the content on the page, avoid generic descriptions like “home page” and not to paste the entire contents of the page into the tag. The description meta tag provides both search engines and users with a summary of the page contents.

Figure 7.3 llustration of keyword bolding in Google search results

IMPROVE THE STRUCTURE OF YOUR URLS

Google recommends using file names that provide information and use folder names that are relevant to the content of the site. “If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page than an ID number or oddly named parameter would.” Keep in mind that the URL is displayed as part of the search results. Each result is only three or four lines long, so any useless or redundant information reduces the amount of relevant information you can provide.

Organize your content so that it is structured logically, with folder names and file names that provide meaning. Google encourages the use of punctuation for clarity and advises to use hyphens instead of underscoring. When possible, shorten URLs by trimming unnecessary parameters.

MAKE THE SITE EASY TO NAVIGATE

Search engine bots have the same difficulty as humans in deciphering a web site with confusing organization and navigation. It helps the search engine understand which content the webmaster thinks is most important. When planning, think about how the visitor will move from the home page through the site. Use breadcrumbs, when necessary, such as “my site > albums > the latest album > third song.” That will allow the visitor to quickly navigate back to a previous section.

Figure 7.4 Illustration of importance of correct folder and file naming for search results

If the site is large enough, use a sitemap, a dedicated web page that categorizes all the other pages on the site by category. Google suggests creating one sitemap for users and another for search engines: an XML Sitemap file, which can be submitted to Google. Google’s open source Sitemap Generator Script can assist in creating a Sitemap file. This beta software tool is available at http://code.google.com/p/googlesitemapgenerator/. According to the description, “Google Sitemap Generator is a tool installed on your web server to generate the Sitemaps automatically.” These Sitemaps are automatically submitted to Google.

Each web page should include a menu at the bottom of the page in text form, in addition to the more graphic menus normally displayed across the top or left side of the page. This is especially important if Flash is used to create the primary menu. Search engine bots probably will not be able to read or understand the navigation information embedded in Flash-based menus.

Other tips include:

OTHER OPTIMIZING TIPS

Share, “Tell a Friend” and “Bookmark This page” Scripts

Word of mouth is unquestionably the best form of marketing communication. It carries a sense of credibility lacking in most other forms of marketing. Generally the person who is giving the recommendation has some knowledge of the recipient’s interests. The recipient is more inclined to pay attention to the recommendation because of the credibility of the source. Money can’t buy this type of marketing, although many record labels spend much time and effort to create street teams to give the appearance of word of mouth or street credibility. Well-designed web sites make it easy for visitors to spread the word and pass along information about the site. The newest generation of social networking music-oriented sites even has software that allows a visitor to pluck email addresses directly from their personal email accounts. One way that web sites make it easier to spread the word is through the “tell a friend” or “share this page” JavaScript—a bit of code embedded in one of the pages. Emarketer.com states, “A recent study showed that more than half (53%) of Internet users had visited web sites referred by friends or family members in the previous 30 days.” Several web sites online will generate scripts for this feature. Some of the free versions add a viral message of their own, attached to the email.

All social networking sites and sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon provide ready-made widgets that you can insert into your site, allowing visitors to easily and freely share content on your site among their friends within these networking services. For Facebook, go to the Facebook developers’ area, core concepts, and social plug-ins. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/. You can create a “like” button to embed in your web page. When users click the “like” button on your site, the story or content appears in that user’s Friends feed, linking back to your web site.

Contests

Contests are a great way to generate traffic to the web site. They provide something of value to visitors and encourage them to return to the site. Contests should be run on a weekly or monthly basis, with one or more prizes awarded at the end of each contest period. The contest should be designed to maximize its benefit to the site owner. Visitors should be required to provide their email address and other valuable marketing information to be entered in the contest. You can then use this information to create a mailing list, but be sure to alert visitors to this possibility and give them the opportunity to “opt out” of receiving future email correspondence. Contests can also be designed to encourage visitors to further explore the web site. Some contests pose trivia questions, with the answers found on other pages on the site—like a scavenger hunt. Repeating the contest weekly or monthly, with a new entry required for each contest period, will encourage visitors to return to the site, perhaps bookmarking the site in their browser. Contests also increase the amount of recommendations that visitors send to their friends. They also create great linking opportunities. There are many sites that link to any site offering contests.

Figure 7.5 Facebook “Like” button for sharing

Figure 7.6 Example of web site contest for an artist

General entry contests just require the visitor to “sign up for a drawing,” but more creative contests can involve fans to a greater extent, thus making the contest more of a fun, interactive experience than just a game of chance. Fans can be asked to “pick the next” single after listening to several songs. Then a drawing can be held from among those who selected the song that winds up being the top pick. Another idea is to have fans send in their favorite digital photos from a recent performance of the artist. Contests have also been run where entrants create a new slogan, submit a song for consideration, create a mashup, come up with a new band name, or create a new band logo. If the purpose of the contest is to promote a new CD, it might not be best to use that CD as the contest prize. Fans may delay purchasing the album until the end of the contest. Offer something else of value: a T-shirt, an earlier release, or other swag.

Blogs

Blogs, or weblogs, have become popular on the Internet lately with the introduction of Web 2.0 and many sites and software programs that offer blogging opportunities. MarketingTerms.com defines a blog as a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

Blogs are a good way to encourage repeat visits to your web site. Visitors know that with each visit to the artist’s web site, they have a chance to read this fresh new material. The diary-like quality of blogs gives music fans the chance to feel closer to the artist, getting to know them better and establishing rapport. They bring a human element to an otherwise impersonal medium (Hurlbert 2004a, 2004b).

Blogs are also popular with search engines. The fresh, keyword-rich content of blogs is easy to find and catalog. Search engine spiders will crawl a site more frequently if it is updated regularly. Blogs frequently contain links to other information on the same site, luring the visitor deeper into the site. Blogs also commonly link to each other and these inbound links raise the popularity rating of the site. Blogging software and sites usually contain comments or feedback features, setting up a dialogue between readers and the blog author.

All artists and musicians should maintain their own blog, creating entries when the muse strikes, but on a regular or frequent basis. Artists generally blog about experiences on the road or in the studio, and the fans enjoy the behind-the-scenes aspect of the artist’s blog. Artists have been known to pull out the laptop on the bus right after the event and write their latest blog entry, thanking the fans for their attendance and support. The instant publication of blogs makes it attractive to readers. Bloggers also use cell phone cameras to enrich the blog entries with photos. Software companies and web sites make it easy for bloggers who may not otherwise know how to post material on the Internet, and social networking sites generally provide easy-to-use blogging opportunities. Other sites, such as Blogger.com, offer services either for free or for a small fee. These blogs can then be embedded into the artist’s site and fed to other web sites and social networking sites through RSS (see Chapter 6).

Figure 7.7 Artist blog entry

VISITOR REGISTRATION

The most valuable piece of information that can be obtained from consumers who visit a web site is their email address and permission to add them to the “mailing list.” A list of email addresses, and permission to contact the addressees, is necessary in this new age of spamming. Spamming is the activity of sending out unsolicited commercial emails. It is the online equivalent of telemarketing (more on spamming later). An effective, up-to-date email list is a valuable marketing tool and allows for e-newsletters to be sent to fans who have shown enough interest to sign up. Web sites should post their privacy policies to avoid any confusion or legal complications if visitors end up on a mailing list.

Figure 7.8 Example signup form

When recruiting visitors to sign up, it is more attractive to present this as either a guest book or free membership to the artist’s fan club, rather than just signing up to receive emails. Visitors can be enticed into signing up to gain “membership” to restricted areas of the web site that may contain free music downloads and allow fans to post messages on the site’s message board. It is also a way for webmasters to monitor the site for inappropriate message posting and restrict access of repeat offenders. Members can also receive benefits such as priority in purchasing concert tickets and prerelease music purchases.

Web sites can include a visitor sign-in, registration, or “join now” button leading to a short online form. When visitors are asked to sign a guest book or register to enter the site, there are two strategies for adding these visitors to the email list: “opt-in” and “opt-out.” With opt-in, the visitor selects a blank check box to be added to the email list. With opt-out, the button default is in the checked position and the visitor must uncheck the box to avoid being included in the email list. “Opt-in” means that visitors choose to join a site’s mailing list—one that is generally aimed at notifying the visitor of new developments. Some marketers set the default setting to the “opt-out” approach by automatically checking the “Yes, sign me up” box. By default, visitors overlook the box, thus “giving permission” to contact them. Marketers advise to use the opt-in method only. This avoids annoying visitors who did not intend to sign up for emails and simply overlooked the “uncheck” function. It also reduces the amount of follow-up work that the webmaster must do to honor unsubscribe requests.

The Client Help Desk (www.clienthelpdesk.com) reports that almost 70% of Internet users say they unknowingly signed up for email distribution lists. Almost 75% of those who received unsolicited email took action to be removed from the sender’s list. With opt-outs, the web site can claim a larger number of subscribers (the willing and the unknowing), whereas with opt-ins, the site can get a better understanding of how many people want to receive the emails or e-newsletters sent out from the list.

FAN-GENERATED CONTENT

In this era of Web 2.0, the power of creating content for the Internet has been turned over to the users, with sites like Wikipedia and Yelp relying on the visitors to add meaningful content that attracts other visitors to the site. The Internet is full of such sites, and site visitors do not hesitate to pitch in their contributions. These creative participants are likely to encourage their friends to visit any sites where they have posted content—giving a viral aspect to the endeavor. So how can artist web sites take advantage of Web 2.0 user-generated features? Using Web 2.0, artist web sites can now allow fans to post messages or photo galleries to share with other fans. Some also make it easy for fans to post videos of them dancing or singing karaoke versions of the artist’s music.”

ANALYTICS: MONITORING WEB TRAFFIC

An important aspect of optimizing a web site involves monitoring traffic to the site. Web traffic refers to the number of visitors to your web site and the number of pages visited. Oftentimes, it is measured to determine the popularity of a web site and its individual pages and elements. By including a bit of programming code on each page of the web site, the webmaster can learn a lot about the visitors to the site. This helps the webmaster and other marketing professionals understand which elements of a web site are considered valuable to its visitors and which are not.

What to Measure

Some of the most important factors that are measured include the following:

HOW TO USE THAT INFORMATION

Building an effective web site involves more than just aesthetics and design. The site has to offer some value to the visitor. Decisions on other aspects of marketing rely on input from customer feedback forms, surveys and other devices. Often this requires effort on the part of the consumer to provide this valuable information to market research experts. One of the great advantages of the Internet is that it offers marketing analysts a rich body of marketing information based on where web visitors go, what they click on, and how long they engage with the marketing message. In an article “Five Reasons to Track Web Site Traffic,” author Monte Enbysk pointed out that too many “small businesses build web sites, invest time in online marketing campaigns and then devote little or no effort to analyzing the return on their investment.” He stated that web analytics tools can help the marketer in the following ways:

WHERE TO FIND ANALYTICS TOOLS AND HOW TO APPLY THEM

The most basic tool and first to appear on the scene is the simple hit counter, consisting of a bit of programming language that would place a component on the bottom of each page that counted the number of visitors. Marketing experts advise against the use of the simple hit counter, stating that this information should be kept private for use by the site webmaster and marketing team. No one is impressed with coming across a web site and finding out you are the “seventeenth visitor to this site"—period. The information is also limited compared to what is available on the market now.

Web analytics is defined as the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the web site work toward the business objectives. Many services on the Internet offer web analytics features. After asking a series of questions about how you want to track and compile information, the service will create the code to be inserted into every page of the web site. The code helps the service track activity on the site. The webmaster logs in to the service to view and download the statistics that the system has gathered.

Figure 7.9 Visible web counter

Figure 7.10 Visitor statistics

Google Analytics

In early 2005, Google bought the web analytics company Urchin. Later that year, Google revealed its repacked version of Urchin for free: Google Analytics. Google Analytics offers tracking of web visitors and provides the usual tracking statistics plus keyword reports and the ability to measure the effectiveness of AdWords programs. The process requires web owners to insert a small piece of Java code into the head tags of their pages. The statistical output can be viewed on the Google site with the assistance of a dashboard: customizable collection of report summaries.

Other Analytics Services

Alexa bills itself as a useful resource for people to discover information about web sites. Analytical information is more public in nature and can allow marketers to size up the competition. Alexa can reveal which search terms a site is using to successfully attract visitors, what kind of visitors they have, and where they are coming from. To access their pages, simply type the URL of any site into the Alexa Search box.

Quantcast is a team of web analytics experts building powerful statistical technology to understand internet audiences. Quantcast helps web publishers of all sizes understand the composition of their audiences and attract higher advertising rates, and helps advertisers and agencies find elusive online audiences wherever they might be. This web site allows anyone to view audience reports on hundreds of thousands of web sites. For quantified sites (those who are registered with Quantcast), demographic and psychographic information on web visitors is available. www.quantcast.com/

Trendrr is a service that tracks popular trends on the web by using input from sources like social networks, blogs, and video downloads, reported in real time as they are happening.

CONCLUSION

Building an attractive, enticing web site is very important. Adding these other elements will draw traffic to the site and encourage visitors to engage in word-of-mouth marketing. Search engine placement is an important aspect of helping people find your site. And once there, the elements of giveaways, contests, blogs, visitor registration, and fan-generated content encourage the visitor to return and tell others about your web site. Monitoring traffic to the site can be important for evaluating the effectiveness of the site and for guiding the webmaster when making changes and upgrades.

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