Online marketing has, to a certain extent, blinded many business people to some of the simpler rules of business. Analytics is one area where the online world often seems to have different rules than an offline business. What’s the most important metric for a small business. Traffic? Conversions? Search rankings? These are all areas that online businesses concentrate on, and whilst they are important areas to measure, they are not the most important.

For small businesses, the bottom line always has been and always will be profitability. Engaging in a pay-per-click campaign is fine, and measuring traffic and conversions is always going to help with future planning, and perhaps even modifying your current campaigns. At the end of the day, if your pay-per-click is not making a profit, then your business could be on the slide. The same can be said for SEO and social media marketing. If your profitability is being compromised, then you need to either modify your marketing campaign or to look for alternative marketing methods.

Pay-per-click, search engine optimization and social media marketing are not always the best channels for some businesses. Alternatives such as email marketing and banner advertising can achieve better results in terms of profitability – the former, often achieved through data collected offline. You would be surprised at how many brick and mortar businesses now collect email addresses at the checkout and then use those email addresses as very successful email marketing campaigns.

The most important metric for any small business is the return on investment (ROI) that is measured against any campaign. There are times when a marketing campaign – for example, a brand awareness campaign – doesn’t result in short term profits that are easily identified. As a small business owner, you need to make judgements as to whether or not a marketing campaign should be measured or designed more for PR or branding. Analytics are important, however, you need the right data and that data should be measured against a desired goal.

There is an interesting infographic that Dan Zarrella has published that reveals the days that his content receives the most social interaction. What is interesting is that different social media react on different days – for example, Saturday and Sunday are more fruitful for Facebook whilst Friday is the best day for re-tweets. He concludes that, on some days, there is less clutter so his content has less to compete with. From a business perspective, he may be right. From a social perspective, Friday through Sunday are often the busiest days for socializing, and that includes online.

It does raise an important question. Do you know when you receive the most attention through social media, either on an hourly or daily basis? Some marketers insist on publishing at certain times of the day because they receive more attention then than at other times. It is well known that some days are quieter than others as well.

The next question relates to the value of this knowledge. Is it worth measuring?  Two years ago I may have said maybe not; today, interaction with social media is becoming such an important SEO metric that website owners do need to grab every ‘plus 1′, ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ they can get their hands on. If publishing at certain times on certain days delivers more of these ‘votes’, then that knowledge could give you the edge you need over your competitors. It becomes even more useful if you can see that some days are less important than others. You can either not publish on those days, or publish content that, while useful for your customers, is designed more for SEO purposes.

Small business owners have a lot to do in today’s online world. Analytics can often be useful for measuring what is and isn’t working, even in social media marketing. This helps a business owner concentrate on what is working whilst dropping or rethinking what isn’t working. When it comes to social interaction, knowing when you receive the most attention can help you fine tune your own activities.

It seems that most marketers are still counting clickthroughs as if that is all that matters. While clickthroughs can tell a lot about your content and your visitors, I like the idea of counting “heads that performed a specific action.”

It’s called Qualified Reach.

The idea is that you don’t just count people who show up on your site, in your Twitter feed, or who subscribed to your newsletter. You count the people who respond to your calls to action. Those are the ones who are your true actionable metrics.

Think of it like this. You walk into your local supermarket, walk down several aisles, have a look around, and leave. You don’t buy anything. You just spend fifteen minutes browsing the shelves and leave. Do you think that supermarket counts you as a customer? Of course not. They likely won’t even know that you were there. After all, there’s no record to prove that you were.

Having a visitor show up on your website and look around without buying anything is like visiting the supermarket without making a purchase. It doesn’t benefit the supermarket; and that site visitor doesn’t benefit you. Therefore, it’s not a metric.

Many social media snake oil salesmen will try to get you to purchase a sponsored tweet, or pay them to send a message to their followers on Facebook or some social media site. Ask them this question: What is your typical response rate? If they don’t have an answer, don’t stop. Keep walking. Serious marketers measure their responses. And you shouldn’t pay for numbers of followers. Pay only for a response metric.

If you are new to Internet marketing or website development, or you just simply have stuck to the basics, then you might wonder what a heat map is and how it can help you improve your website and lead to greater revenues. Even increase your ROI.

A heat map, in simple terms, is a graphic picture of your website traffic and what that traffic does on each page of your website.

Represented by colors, a heat map can show you the “hot spots” on each page of your website. It can show you where the most mouse movements occur, which indicates where users’ eyeballs travel, and even which links are clicked on the most. You can then use that information to improve your websites SEO and overall content mix.

Let’s say you discover that on almost all of your pages, the most viewed area of the page is the top right corner. Let’s say that, furthermore, the most clicked link on each page is the banner ad in the top right corner that offers site visitors a free download of your e-book. What does that tell you?

It should tell you that whatever information you provide in that e-book is deemed valuable to your site visitors. It could be a good opportunity to provide more in-depth information about that content. Perhaps it’s time to publish and market a more in-depth e-book on the topic that you can sell to your site visitors and e-mail list.

What if, on the other hand, the most viewed part of your website was the top left corner and the most clicked link on your home page was a link at the bottom of the page that led visitors to your About Us page. What’s that tell you?

If you have links in the top left corner of your home page that are not getting clicked on as much as the links at the bottom of the page, then you probably have something wrong with those links or the content that surrounds them. Maybe you should reword your anchor text. Or maybe the content surrounding the link should do a better job of leading your visitors to take the desired action. Maybe the call to action itself isn’t working.

Heat maps are valuable tools that measure many factors at once. If you are serious about making your website stand out, then you should be using heat maps.

For a couple of years now, Internet marketers have been debating the importance of page load speed. It is almost near consensus that Google finds page load speed important. A recent announcement that Google Analytics can now track and report page load speed should put any doubt to rest.

This is important news for a number of reasons:

1. First and foremost, a slow loading website or landing page can affect your conversion rate. If this concerns you, then you should measure your page load speed and determine whether or not it is affecting your conversion rate. If so, figure out a way to speed up your website’s load time.
2. You can check your site’s load time across multiple browsers. If your website loads slower in Internet Explorer, for instance, than it does in Chrome of Firefox, then you should take a look at your code to see why that is.
3. Does geography play a role in load time? It could. By measuring your load time against geographical patterns, you can determine whether your website is too slow for a particular region. If so, can you fix it? If not, perhaps you should consider a new website that targets that specific region.
4. You can now ask yourself if certain parts of your website load faster than other parts. Does your video section have a problem loading fast? How about your web-based apps? Check it out and fix the problems.

I believe Google uses page load speed to determine search engine rankings. This announcement all but confirms that. If not, then they will likely be doing so at some point in the future. But even if they don’t, you should have your own reasons for checking page load speed. Your site visitors expect it.

There have been several significant improvements made to Google’s Webmaster Tools over this past week. One feature that has been added is the ability to link your Google Analytics data to your Webmaster Tools account. This enables a webmaster to view analytics for their sites without having to switch between Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

It may only be a convenience issue, but for those business owners who manage their own sites, time is always an issue – hopefully this will make life a little easier. What may be of more interest to users of Webmaster Tools is the increased data available on search queries used to find their pages.

In the past, Webmaster Tools only displayed results for the top 100 queries. The data was also fairly restricted showing only average search positions, the number of impressions, and the number of click-throughs. You can now see all search queries related to your pages, although you are still restricted to viewing 100 queries at any one time.

What webmasters may find interesting is the statistical appearance of their search queries in mobile searches. You may be surprised to find how often your pages do appear in search results, and how those listings are clicked on. Is your web site optimized for mobile? If not, you may find click-throughs increasing and that traffic from mobile searches interact a little more often.

Analytics are an important tool for all webmasters. By regularly checking your search positions, the number of times your pages appear in search results, and the click-through rate, you can gain a fair indication as to whether or not your online marketing is having any effect on organic search results.

There are plenty of people who say that you can’t measure social media. But can you? I, of course, am of the opinion that you can measure social media, but instead of focusing on metrics that don’t matter, I advocate measuring data that does matter. What is that data exactly?

Number 1, stop measuring how many followers you have. It’s great that you have several thousand followers. But have any of them bought anything from you? No? And you’ve been tweeting for two years? Not good.

The key to successful social media marketing is to measure the right data. So what is that exactly?

The right metrics involve measuring data that

1. Leads to obtaining new customers
2. Helps you retain existing customers
3. Increases brand awareness
4. Enhances your ROI

Of course, you could say this of any type of marketing. Pay per click? Yes, you are concerned with the bottom line – new customers, brand reputation, conversions. The same, or similar, concerns are necessary for social media marketing as well.

Some of the data that you might be interested in when using social media include:

• How many retweets, likes, and shares does your content get?
• How much new traffic comes to your site from links on social media sites (check your server logs and analytics tools)?
• Inbound links – Yes, you can still count inbound links and count how many of those are from social media websites.
• How many people search Google for your brand?
• What is your reputation or engagement rating?

There are many metrics you can measure in social media, but not all of them are directly related to your ROI. Keep in mind that you can limit your metrics scope to only those details that really matter.

Are you wrapped up in tracking a visitors every move on your site and analyzing every scrap of data you can find?  Do you remember a time before the Internet, when businesses where either run from a shop-front, or through mail order catalogs?  If you can, then you may also remember that the only real form of analytics ever undertaken by small businesses were those that measured how many customers came into the business, and how much they spent.

Now that business is moving online, discussions are about the quality and quantity of traffic coming into a web site; quality and quantity of inbound links; social media marketing; and search engine marketing. You will even come across discussions comparing which is best – quantity or quality, and that is in both links, traffic and social media ‘followers’. I’ll throw another key question into the mix – is your business profitable?

The most important aim for any new business is to reach that profitable stage. Don’t get me wrong here, it is important to measure traffic and it is important to optimize your online activities in order to reach that goal. However, analytics are only part of that process. If you do find a process that delivers traffic in reasonable numbers, take the time to work in your business as well as on your business – and there is an important difference.

A good example is a business that is using search marketing and receiving good traffic flow and good profits. You can spend your time analyzing your statistics and looking for areas that can be tweaked for a few extra percentage points, or you can spend that time sourcing new products, or improving the current range of products and services.

Tracking and analytics are important in any busy, but they are only tools and they should be used to help you improve your business. Instead of being a slave to these statistics, make them your slave.

How businesslike is your approach to the internet and your online activities? For many businesses, the approach has been adhoc. Ask a small business owner where they have been online and most will have little idea of their past activities. As the internet has grown, many people, not just business owners, have hopped from one fad to the next – often only visiting a site once and never returning – but they have still left a footprint there.

Did you ever create a presence on Myspace then decide that Facebook was better? Did you ever go back and delete your Myspace account? Can you even remember your login and password? I could spend the rest of this post quizzing you about your online activities and I dare say that slowly, like pulling teeth, I could get you to unearth quite a few ‘sites’ that you have visited, registered your details, then never returned.

To have an effective online presence you need to keep a track of where you have been, where you have left your business details, and what your login details are. This is important for a number of reasons. First, if your details change then it is wise to return and update those details. This is particularly true if you have listed your business in an online business directories.

Of equal importance is the possible need to erase any of your tracks. If, for instance, your business fails and you are forced back into the workforce, you may not want the history of your failed business online. This also holds true if you ever sell your business – the business is no longer yours so you shouldn’t still have listings in your name.

A simple spreadsheet or database is all that is needed to keep a track of your online activities. You may find it particularly useful if you ever need to go into damage control following an attack on your businesses reputation. If you are unsure about any possible listings, do a few Google searches using your name and various versions of your business name and/or brand. When performing the search, start by putting the search term inside inverted commas – the results may well surprise you.

Since social media has become popular there has been a huge problem for marketers – measuring results. How do you measure your results and analyze the effectiveness of your social media campaigns? It’s been a big challenge.

Finally, ShareThis adds analytics for social media marketing.

The analytics are centered around two very important marketing concepts:

• Audience Index
• Reach

The Audience Index is the measure of your audience’s influence compared to that of other websites generally and those within your niche. This metric also allows you to see how influential your audience is or, rather, how you engage with key influencers on your site. It is important to know how well you connect with key influencers because those are the people who will pass on the benefits of your product or service to their audiences and influencers generally have large audiences. That’s why they are called “influencers”. It’s an important part of your audience segment.

Social reach is a metric that deals with how widely your content is distributed and shared. It measures how far your content travels and the resulting return in traffic based on those shares.

Both of these metrics have the potential to help you gauge how effective you are in reaching your target audience and whether or not you are reaching the right influencers based on your niche. As far as social media analytics go, this is a step in the right direction.