DAY 9 -- Know Your Visitors

SBI! Modules Used Today -- TrafficCenter (Traffic Stats and
Click Through/Click IN Analysis)

Your DAY 9 goal is to get to "know" your visitors by using SBI!'s traffic-reporting tools in the TrafficCenter of Site Central (Traffic Stats, Click Through/Click IN Analysis).

Monitor traffic patterns, especially outgoing/incoming traffic. Adjust your traffic-building efforts for maximal profit.

Think of traffic as being a two-direction event. Every visitor comes into your site. Traffic is coming into your site from all your traffic-building efforts.

Traffic is also leaving your content pages. Hopefully, they are clicking on a link (or filling in a form or subscribing, etc.) and not just closing your browser window.

Clicks usually mean monetizing since they are either links to more content pages (increasing PREselling) or links to your income-generators, such as...

• Google AdSense ads
• your order page at ClickBank (to sell e-goods)
• affiliate links to merchant-partners' sites
• ads to sponsor sites
• and so forth and so on, all depending on your Monetization Mix.

Traffic analysis shows you how to increase income and decrease expenses. The key to effective traffic analysis is simplicity -- knowing only what you need to know, which is information on your....

1. Traffic
2. Links out
3. Links in

SBI!'s TrafficCenter provides you with exactly that information. Let's start with your traffic stats...

Step 1 - Analyze your "big picture" Traffic Stats.

The Traffic Stats module provides monthly and daily stats. The monthly high-level stats cover three "big picture" categories...

• Visits -- the number of visits to your site
• Visitors -- the number of different people who visit your site (ex., a visitor could account for 10 visits)
• Page Views -- the number of pages viewed by all the visitors during all the visits. A single visitor might view only one page... or twenty.

By comparing your monthly "big picture" data, you should be able to see growth in your site's overall traffic.

Let's investigate Traffic Stats now. Log into Site Central. Go to the TrafficCenter and click on the Traffic Stats link. As always, follow the online help as you check out the Summary by Month Report...

In the screenshot above, you see the "Monthly Totals" for Visits, Visitors, and Page Views on the right. The daily averages are on the left.

By scanning your monthly data, you should be able to see "big picture" growth in your site's overall traffic. Of course, your growth pattern will not be a straight line upwards. There will be a sudden burst of traffic, followed by flat or slow-growth months, followed by another burst, perhaps even followed by a down month or two.

That is simply the nature of traffic growth. But overall, the "big picture" trend line will be up.

Now it's time to delve inside the Traffic Stats module. Click on the monthly links to get the following useful information...

• Daily statistics -- visits, visitors and page views on a day-by-day basis, in both absolute terms and as a percentage of the total (ex., percent of total visitors).

• Most popular pages -- delivers page view stats on a per-page basis, with the page generating the most page views reported first (heading example, "Top 100 of 150 Total Pages"). By understanding which pages are most popular, you understand better the needs of your visitors.

  Correlate this with your link-tracking data (more on this below). Make sure that your most visited pages get the click to your income-generating programs. Also, use this data to get a better feel for what your market wants... and, just as important, what it does not want.

• Most popular entry pages -- tells you which pages are the most popular "entry" pages (heading example, "Top 50 of 125 Total Entry Pages"). A page counts as an entry page when it starts a visit.

  Correlate this with how people find you (referrers and keywords, discussed just below), and you have a wealth of insight into how your site is being discovered... and what people want. Use this info to give you ideas for other related, profitable areas for content development.

• Most frequent exit pages -- shows the pages from which people leave your site (heading example, "Top 50 of 135 Total Exit Pages"). Some people look upon high numbers for a given page as "bad" because "horrors, people are leaving my site there."

  But you have to correlate this with other data before drawing conclusions. As noted above, everyone leaves sooner or later. If visitors are clicking on your monetizing links, this stat actually means your exit pages are your money-makers!

  If a "high entry" page is also a "high exit" page, that's not really a surprise. If a "high exit" page is also generating tons of links out to your income-generating programs for you, that's not so bad, is it?

• Referrer URLs -- this tells you where your traffic is coming from (heading example, "Top 41 of 41 Total Referrers"). Note how much of your traffic comes from Search Engines -- that percentage should grow.

  Note, too, how much traffic the "Image Search" versions of Google, Bing (formerly Live Search), and Yahoo! send you. That can be important information. See Image Search (via Site Central) for more information.

  Correlate other referrers with other activities you may be doing (ex., directory listings, link exchanges, etc.). Look for "surprises" -- you don't know what you don't know and opportunities lie in the surprise referrer. Extremely useful info!

• Keyword Search -- identifies which keywords people are entering into engines to find your site (heading example, "Top 45 of 45 Total Keywords"). Correlate with the keyword reports in Search Engine HQ for greater detail. And correlate with Referrer URLs to learn where and how your visitors find you, which gives you a base to build even more traffic-building ideas!

Summary?

Traffic analysis is the base. It tells you what you need to know about quantities of visits, visitors, and page views. It shows you where they come from and what words they used to find you at the Search Engines. Traffic Stats lay a strong base of information. But you need to know more...

Now that you understand your traffic big picture, you need to be able to see what's working in the two bottom-line areas that matter most...

• how you make your money. Gear your content more and more towards what "gets the click." Because that's what builds your income.
• how you spend your traffic-building time and money -- what's working, and what's not. Spend only on the techniques that bear fruit.

So how do you get this information? Through two forms of analysis that have been especially developed and optimized for Theme-Based Content Sites...

• Click Through Analysis, and...
• Click IN Analysis.

Before going further, let's talk about two different kinds of links...

1. ON-SITE links These links appear on your site, and send visitors OUT of that page. These links go to income-generating sites (merchant-partners via affiliate programs, your own online store, or your own e-goods sales site for products that you have developed, and so on).

   In short... ON-site links generate income.

2. OFF-SITE links -- these links do not appear on your Web site. In other words, people do not click on these links while they are on your site.

   Rather, potential visitors click on these links OFF of your site... in Pay-Per-Click buying campaigns, e-zine ads, or offline print ads, in flyers that you distribute at trade or hobby conventions, or even in your sig file at the end of your e-mail. They click on these links to come inTO your site.

In short... OFF-site links build traffic, but cost you time and/or money.

Since you spend time and/or money on these traffic-building activities, you need a way to measure which off-site promotions are working (getting the "Click IN"), and (just as importantly) which ones are not. Once you know this, you know where to spend more... and where to stop! Build upon your successes and fix (or drop) your weaknesses.

SBI! makes it easy to track these two kinds of links...

• ON-SITE: Track what's generating income by Click Through Analysis.
• OFF-SITE: Track which traffic-building efforts work via Click IN Analysis.

Let's talk about Click Through Analysis first...

Step 2 - Explore Click Through Analysis.

You need to know how and when visitors monetize on your site.

• Are your visitors clicking? How much?
• Which pages "get the click?"
• Which links "get the click?" And even...
• Which links on which pages "get the click?"

SBI! automatically encodes every outgoing link so that you don't have to. That means you are immediately ready to measure and track Click-Throughs!

Let's get started...

Click Throughs occur when people click on a link on your site ("ON-SITE link") and leave it.

Click Throughs earn you income. Your visitors could be clicking to...

• your affiliate programs -- a percentage of those clicks turn into sales or leads, earning you income
• your order page for your own e-good (be your own best affiliate!)
• your own store (or third party store)
• ... site sponsor ads, or any other monetization option.

Click Through Analysis yields the following...

• total Click Throughs for all your ON-SITE links, as well as the breakdown for each ON-SITE link (i.e., on a link-by-link basis)
• "first-time vs. repeat" Click Throughs, for the total of all Click Throughs on all your ON-SITE links, and also on a link-by-link basis. In other words, has the person clicked on the link before?
• Click Throughs divided by Page Views, which yields the overall Click Through Rate ("CTR") for all your links (as a group), and also the CTR breakdown on a link-by-link basis.
• link-by-link data, broken down for every page that each link appears on (in other words, if LINK A appears on Pages 1, 2, and 3, it shows you how LINK A performed on each of those pages)
• page-by-page data, broken down with the performance of every link on each page (in other words, if Page 1 contains LINKS A, B, and C, it shows you how each of those links performed on that page).
• data for any time span that you request!

Fix what is not getting the click. And let the winners ride! Maximize income by building upon successes and fixing weaknesses.

Here's how to get your Click Through Analysis...

In the Click Data part of the TrafficCenter, select the Click Through Data radio button. Then select the date range for which you want Click Data (from the Day - Month - Year drop-down menus).

All set? Click the Show Me Data button, like this...

Step 3 -Explore Click IN Analysis.

Click INs occur when people click on an OFF-SITE link and come into your site. How can you track Click INs?

Create a special Tracking Link for each OFF-SITE link that you want to track. When the about-to-be-visitor clicks on your special Tracking Link, special encoding records the click and where it came from. Then the link sends the visitor to the page on your site that you are promoting.

Using the Tracker Library

Give the link a "meaningful-to-you" name for easy identification and then follow the instructions and online help. Use the new Tracking Link (instead of the ultimate destination URL on your site) for each new promotion.

Here are just a few types of promotions that are easily tracked...

• Track each Pay-Per-Click ("PPC") advertising campaign (ex., when you buy Google ads to sell your services). This is especially useful if you set up a special version of an existing page as a landing page exclusively for a specific ad (or group of similar ads) -- you not only know how many visitors clicked in from your PPC ad(s), but can check monetizing Click Throughs or form submissions from this special page.
• Track the Click-IN results of buying ads in e-zines.
• Track the clicks on a Tracking URL in a free e-book.
• Track your offline efforts (newspaper ads, flyers, even bulletin board ads at your local post office!).
• See how many people click on your sig file (i.e., the short message added to the end of your e-mail).

Use Click IN Analysis to your best advantage

Here are some particularly useful scenarios...

1. The Untraceable Link

   Some links have no referring URL, so you can't tell where they came from through Traffic Stats analysis. But you may really need to know this data. For example, the following have no "referrer"...

   1. links from a free e-book that you are using as a promotional tool.

   2. links from e-mail of any kind... sig files, links in mailing lists, autoresponder campaigns, links in the e-zine that you publish, ads that you buy in e-zines.

   3. links that are simply typed into the browser -- offline promotions (ex., targeted print media or your local community bulletin board) always result in "typed-in" URLs! Tracking links are perfect for offline promotions.

      A Special Name Park It! Trick

      The key to offline promotions are short, memorable URLs. You may want to shorten your Tracking Link. How? Take a memorable Name Park It! domain and redirect it to your Tracking Link!

      By creating a special tracking link for each of these "untraceable links," you can now know what has been previously impossible to fathom.

2. Testing e-zine ads

   Set a different tracking URL for each ad that you write. That way you can measure which ad generates a better response. Here's how...

   Run Ad #1 in E-zine #1 and Ad #2 in E-zine #2, then switch a month later. Which ad generated more responses overall? Stick with what's profitable. Drop the "losers."

3. Test Web-Based advertising

   Use your special Tracking Links to track the performance of ads on outside Web sites, not just on Pay-Per-Click campaigns. You could even track the effectiveness of posts to forums and discussion groups (where allowed). Note, though, that Tracker Links will not boost your link popularity, or count as incoming links.

Possible Ultimate Destinations

Let's examine possible ultimate destinations, and when you might use each...

1. Your Theme-Based Content Site

   Let's say that you have a terrific page about a special kind of flower. That page has several in-context text links... links to books, growers, ClubMom, as well as to your Clickbank Order Page for your e-book. You take an e-zine ad. What should the ultimate destination of the Tracking Link be?

   Easy... to your Keyword-Focused Content Page on the flower -- that page monetizes! Since you have worked so many in-context text links into your OVERdelivering copy, you have several chances to monetize.

2. Your (affiliate) Merchant-Partner

   On the other hand, suppose you write a comprehensive article about this special flower as content for a prominent e-zine published by a third party. It's based on a Web page on your site. Your "payment" is that you can include your URLs. Where should these links point?

   Easy (especially if you do not sell anything directly related to that flower). No point in directing them to the same info on your site, right?

   Work your special Tracker Links into the content of the article, and point the destination URLs straight to your merchant-partners. One link for each merchant. You'll see exactly how many people clicked on each link (and you can track the sales effectiveness through each merchant's affiliate reporting)!

   Of course, include your own URL in your sig file at the end of the article.

3. A Free Trial Download

   Yes, even a download URL can be the destination. Offering a free e-book with more info on that special kind of flower? The destination of the Tracking Link in the article (or ad) should be the direct download URL (straight to the .zip, .exe or .pdf file).

   Naturally, the e-book will have links to your Theme-Based Content Site and your various monetization options. Every one of those in-book links should be special Tracking Links, too!

   See how this can be a powerful income-generating tool? Tracking what works... works.

4. Your Online Store

   Same idea. Suppose you have an online store that needs more traffic (ex., a Yahoo! store or eBay store). If the situation dictates that you are better off sending visitors "directly" to your store as the destination URL, do it!

   Same goes if you have a Clickbank site that sells e-goods...

   • If an ad costs you $100, and
   • if your Click IN Analysis shows that it generated 500 visitors, and
   • if you know that 2% of your visitors buy...

   It's easy to figure out that you doubled your money if your e-good sells for $20 (leaving Clickbank commissions out of the example for now).

Here's how to get your Click IN Analysis...

In the Click Data part of the TrafficCenter, select the Click IN Data radio button. Then select the date range (from the Day - Month - Year drop-down menus) for which you want click data, like this...

Then click on the Show Me Data button.

The Click IN Analysis will, indeed, show you the data! Just click on the question marks for clear Help & Strategies on how to interpret and use...

• First-time vs. Repeat Click IN Totals.
• Breakdown by link.

Bottom line for DAY 9?...

"Know" your visitors by following Traffic Stats regularly. Watch for trends, but don't obsess on fluctuations. Use Click Through Analysis and Click IN Analysis to maximize profits (i.e., increase income and drop efforts that don't work).

It's the moment that we have delayed gratification for, ever since DAY 4. Let's harvest the fruits of your labor.....

It's time to Monetize!