To track the success of a print campaign you need just three easy to use tools that are free:

• Google Analytics
• Google URL Builder
• Bit.ly URL shortener

Let me briefly explain what each of these tools are.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a tool that can be installed on any website by inserting a snippet of HTML. This can be done yourself or by your web designer. Once installed, Google Analytics records information about the traffic on your website. It will list the keywords people are using to find your site, which pages they visit and whether they use your enquiry or order forms. It is an essential tool for any business with a website since it helps you understand which advertising efforts are working best.

Google URL Builder

Google URL Builder adds a few pieces of information to a URL so that Google Analytics can better understand it. For example, you can add information like the source of the link, the medium the link is placed and the name of the advertising campaign. Here is an example for a t-shirt business:

Source: Brochure
Medium: Print
Campaign: Summer T-shirts 2010

When you add this information and generate a link you get this as a result:

http://www.mybusiness.com.au/?utm_source=brochure&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=summer-tshirts-2010

Now any time someone clicks this link, Google Analytics can provide you with a report that tells you exactly how many people visited your site using this link. “But the link is so long, no one will type that!” Indeed, which is where the URL shortener comes in.

Bit.ly

Bit.ly is a URL shortening service. As you will have noticed a link with source, medium and campaign information attached is long and not user friendly. However with Bit.ly, you can enter your long URL and generate a shortened version of it. It will generate a link like www.bit.ly/h5k3.

Tracking Print Advertising

So the penny is probably starting to drop now. For every print campaign you run, rather than using your regular website URL (www.mybusiness.com.au), create a URL with campaign information, shorten it with Bit.ly and use the short link instead. This is much more user friendly and will allow you to track the exact number of visits generated by any given print advertising campaign. Here is an example report from Google Analytics using a tagged URL for one of the websites I manage internet marketing for.

Summary

With this report, I know exactly how many visits the site has received for a particular source. I highly recommend anytime you run a print campaign, you use this method so you can calculate the return on your investment. There is one criticism of this method which relates to credibility. Bit.ly and URL shortening services are relatively new and may not be recognised by your audience. This could potential influence the likelihood of them visiting the URL. In this even, you would want to host your own URL shortener on your own website. This way you could have something like http://www.mybusiness.com.au/gh76ws.

If you have any questions of ideas, please post them below. If you try this out, let me know how it worked for you.

Let’s take a look at this lead generation form as an example:

You will notice that the button is small and grey. Firstly the appearance of the button is not very attention grabbing. The grey colour makes the button fade into the white background. Secondly the text on the button is ‘Submit’ which is bland and not aligned with a specific goal or call to action. A form button should align with the message of the page. For example “Request a quote” or “Book a demo”. In fact, statistically buttons that include “Click here…” have been shown to also increase conversion rates.

Let’s take a look at an example of a high converting button:

In this example you will notice that the colour of the button is orange. This has been tested by folks like Amazon and PayPal as the most attention grabbing colour next to red without triggering a danger emotion. The navy blue text contrasts well with the orange. This makes for a very obvious button. In addition to the colours the size is huge. Furthermore the text “Click here…” has been included to direct the user. While this example says “Add to cart”, it could easily say “Book a demo” or “Request a quote”.

High converting button factors

• Bright colour
• Contrasting text colour
• Call to action text such as “Click here…”
• Button text that matches the pages to copy such as “Request a quote

Let’s use a specific example for a specific industry. Imagine a small business owner is investigating setting up a website. The most used search term is “web design” which gets 12,100 exact searches each month in Australia and 301,000 world wide.

That makes ranking “Web Design” on the first page a pretty lucrative keyword to rank for since it will attract a great deal of searchers. However with the introduction of Google Instant, more searchers will modify their search term on the fly. Look at what happens when I enter the term “Web Design”.

There are a few things that happen here. 1) Google Suggest suggests a different keyword “Web Designer”. 2) The search results appear instantly and bold related search terms such as “Website” and 3) More search terms are made available to the searcher such as “Company”. Now since the results are instant and do not require the user to take any action, the user is free (if not even encouraged) to make continual modifications to the search term used. So in this example the user might decide to change the term to “web designer” or “website design company”. Let’s assume the searcher decided to change to “website design company”. Here’s what happens:

As the user nearly completes the term the plural term “companies” is suggested. Now the user knows that there is nothing to be lost by changing the search term mid type since the results are instant.

So here are my conclusions:

Get listed in a premium web site directory for free This site is listed under Search Engine Optimization Directory

So is it worth it? In my opinion, a one-way link from a niche category from a high PR website is worth the price. However I would first get a link from the Yahoo directory before dishing out for this one.

Daniel Duckworth is an SEO Expert in Melbourne.

Approach

“Using specific search engine research methods, Daniel was able to show us the estimated number of visitors – broken down for each keyword.”

Results

Within just 3 weeks the Turbo Productions website went from page 3 on Google to rank #1. By making a few tweaks to the homepage, such as including the desired keyword in the title and changing the order of the content, improvements were seen very quickly. This combined with some high quality one-way links from niche business directories, the website hit the #1 in no time at all.

“With Daniel’s advise and assistance, we have increased our Google rankings from a page 3 result to NUMBER 1 on google.com.au for a search of ‘wedding videography melbourne’.”

Because the keyword we are using is location specific, Google displays two sets of search results. Regular search results and Google Business Listings. Initially Turbo Productions was ranked on the fourth page of business results. With a few simple tweaks Turbo Productions jumped into the #2 spot.

“The increase in traffic is simply unexpected! When on page 3 – we were not being noticed at all. Now on the first page of Google – we are not only just getting hits to our website, but these are leading to bookings. – and LOTS of them to the point we are about to hire extra staff to take on the workload.”

Proof

As they say proof is in the pudding. I’m so confident with my work that not only do I provide a guarantee to achieve page #1 rankings, but I show you proof of my work. Here is the keyword “wedding videography melbourne” in that prime #1 spot (fluctuations are common). In fact you will notice that this keyword has two placements. #1 for the regular search results and #2 for the Google Business Listing.

Search Term: wedding videography melbourne

1. Title Tag

This is part of the html of every website page and is fundamental. It is the blue link to a website in a list of search results.

Look at the example above. The keyword phrase “search results” brings up Wikipedia. Notice that the title tag uses the words “search” and “results”. If you want a particular page of your website to rank for a keyword phrase, the keyword must be a part of the title tag as shown above.

2. Domain Name

This is only somewhat important. Having a domain name that contains keywords you want to rank for helps achieve first page results quickly. However the same results can be achieved with a few months of SEO work. One such example is a website I worked with called Design Quotes. Searching for the phrase “web design quotes” and “graphic design quotes” result in www.designquotes.com.au because the domain name contains two of the three words in the keyword phrase.

3. Content

In terms of onsite factors, this is the most important. Having fresh, regular niche content is a massive boost. This is why blogs are so beneficial for achieving high ranks on Google. Content needs to contain keywords you want, it needs to be updated at least once per week and it needs to be restricted to a niche topic. Publishing articles about lawn mowers when your business is in IT is not a good idea. Google won’t like it and neither will your visitors. In addition to getting a boost from Google, if your content is genuine useful, people will link to it.

4. Links

This is the number one offsite factor. A link is like a vote. Every time a website links to your website, it is telling Google that it is a good site. So the more links you have higher you will rank. However there are a few caveats. Links should only come from related websites. If you are selling pet food, you don’t want links from a website about running shoes. Google won’t favour these types of links. It is also really important that the links to your website use keywords in the “anchor text”. The anchor text is the words used in the link. So if you want to rank for pet food the link should look like this: pet food.

5. Sitemap

A sitemap is a basic page that links to every page on your website. This helps Google understand how your website is structured and when tells Google when new pages are added. Add a sitemap and more of your website will be visible to Google and more pages will show up in search results.

I hope you find these tips useful. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions. You can contact me directly or leave a comment below.

Daniel Duckworth is an SEO consultant in Melbourne

Approach

“Based on our initial requirements Daniel came up with a number keywords that can improve our ranking.”

Results

“All suggested keywords dramatically increased rankings.”

Proof

Keyword: job services software

Keyword: business software development

Free SEO Consultation