Web Impakt

Google Analytics, sometimes abbreviated as GA, is a free service offered by Google. This tool generates detailed statistics about visitors to your website. All it takes is signing up for a Google Analytics account here. If you already have a Google account you can use that as your login.

Once logged in, a simple copy and paste of some Javascript code provided by Google to your webpage and you are ready to see how visitors found your site and once they got there what they did on your site. You can visit Google Analytics Help for details about what each metrics in your GA means.

The relevant data that Google Analytics produces about your website visitors is essential for every website owner because it will allows you to track and address a wide range of marketing issues. GA will allow you to track marketing campaigns and isolate areas of your website that need improvement. Since it’s free and easy to use, why not start tracking your visitors today!

google analytics

When you decide its time to redo your website or create a website for the first time, there are many things to consider. For first timers, it’s great to do start with a little research. Find some examples of websites you think are great, and even some you think aren’t successful at all.

For second (or third, or fourth…) timers, a good thing to think about is what you like about your current website, what you think is successful, but more importantly what you could improve upon.

And whether you’re creating a site for the first time, or whether you’re revamping your current site, everyone needs to decide what the point of having a website is. Why spend your time, energy, and money on a website? Deciding what you want to get out of your website will help you know how to create it. By setting goals for yourself and success metrics for your site, you give yourself, or your web designers and developers a great place to start.

Some examples of success metrics might be:

• If you’re thinking “I want to see more people in our stores”, make sure your site has a clear way to show users your locations. One trend is to incorporate an interactive map that can generate driving directions.
  You could also consider offering deals to entice customers to go to the stores “If you stop by our store during the month of March, you can take advantage of our buy one get one free sale!”
  • A good way to measure this goal would be to keep an eye on how many people looked up locations on your website, and compare it and the traffic in your stores to how many people, on average, were visiting your stores before.
• If you’re thinking “I want to improve online sales”, then you need to make sure the shopping experience is as easy as possible for the customer. E-commerce can be tricky and very complicated, but one thing is for sure, if your users don’t understand the buying process on your site, they won’t be buying.
  • You can measure this goal by keeping an eye on user behavior. Are they buying more? If they aren’t, where are they exiting the site? If they exit the site on the checkout page, you know it’s your sales. If they exit on the products page, you know they’re not interested. These behaviors will help you determine what else your site, or products, might need. Another way to measure this goal is by sales numbers. Compare sales from your old E-Commerce system to your new. If there was room for improvement, you will definitely see the difference between the two.
• Or maybe you’re thinking “I’m a new company. I want to make sure people know who we are and what we are about”, then you have a lot of options. It’s best to start with a strong website that reflects your company exactly the way you want to be portrayed. Make sure your design is strong and consistent and that the company values and vision are cohesive and expressed effectively.
  You could also consider having more than a website. Other options for spreading awareness include Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Advertising, Banner Advertisements, and Page Sponsorships. All of these options will get your name, and in some cases your brand identity out there, boosting awareness and will also generate traffic to your site.
  • Measuring this goal is as easy as keeping an eye on the traffic to your site and if you decide to do separate campaigns as well, keeping an eye on Ad Impressions and Click Through Rates.

As simple as it sounds, it’s true. Setting success metrics for your online projects will help you succeed!

Once your website is built and looks and functions the way you want it to, there is one final hurdle to overcome: Search Engine Optimization. What good is your beautiful, fully functional website if you have no visitors? It takes a focused effort to get your web site displayed high in the search engine results.

An effective website is one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising. It is critical for most businesses to have a functioning and optimized website. 80% of the people on the Internet use a search engine, like Google, to find what they are looking for. Most people won’t even look past the first page of results. This results in some tough competition between you and your competitors to get into the top results.

There are numerous ways to get your website displayed high on the search engines. A dedicated professional SEO team can help you accomplish your online goals.

In order to have an effective website, you need a website plan. There are three important parts of creating an effective website:

1. Define Audience
2. Define Purpose
3. Define Marketing Plan

The most important part of the website plan is to define your target market. It is essential to define who your chosen demographic will be. Once your target market is defined, the design and copywriting will be consistent to appeal to your chosen audience.

There are many purposes to having a website, these may include one or more of the following:

1. On brochure showcasing your company’s products and services
2. An E Commerce site selling products
3. A company information site that facilitates communication between customers, suppliers and employees.
4. An entertainment based site

Narrowing the purpose of your website and what you want it to accomplish will improve your chances for success. Defining your website purpose before its creation will ensure your website is optimized to achieve your goals.

Hundreds of websites, similar to yours, are vying for the same website visitors as yours. It is important to understand that along with a website, a defined online marketing plan will allow your online presence to be as successful as possible.

It is important to thoughtfully plan your website before implementation, this will allow for you and your development team to understand your website objectives and successfully achieve them.

There are many important components of website design. The average visitor to a website may only see images and content but are other important elements involved in creating a successful website. Those components will be covered in the next three blog posts:

1. Sound Programming and a well planned framework
2. Goal-Driven Design, Accessibility and testing
3. Search Engine Optimization and a strong web marketing strategy

It is a well known analogy that a successful website is like an ice burg. The website visitor only sees the images and content but there is a large hidden foundation that ensures the website visitor leaves the site trusting the source and finding what they were searching for.

There are many hosting providers located in the Idaho Falls area. Web Impakt offers web site hosting services that will meet the needs of most small to medium sized businesses. Our professional and helpful attitude will help you get your website on the world wide web in a timely fashion. With each hosting account you will a control panel with access to website statistics and email accounts. Each hosting account is backed up daily, weekly and monthly.

Web Impakt owns our own premium servers which are located at a reliable data center. We also offer 100% network uptime guarantee so your site will ALWAYS be available.

If you are in need of a co-located server, we will use our partnership with MicroServ to make sure your needs are taken care of.

Call Web Impakt now with any questions about getting started with or swapping over to Web Impakt hosting. We offer the best hosting value in Idaho Falls.

Idaho Falls has a lot of holes to fill when it comes to websites. I am always surprised when I am looking for a new product or service and can’t even find ONE website in Idaho Falls representing these types of companies.

Let me give you an example. I was searching for a plumber to come and fix a clogged toilet. I pull up Google and type in “Idaho falls plumber.” The standard list of phone book entries appears and clicking on each link takes me to their address and phone number but not a single one has a www address listed.

Imagine the swaying power a plumbing company could have over a potential consumer. If I would have found one plumber, with a website that had information that I needed, I would have called them.

I assume some plumber in Idaho Falls has a website, they just aren’t listed in the first ten search results. If that is the case, the website isn’t being as effective as it could be.

Web Impakt can help you optimize your current website to achieve better search engine results. Web Impakt can also help these types of businesses in Idaho Falls that are just waiting for a website to top the search list.

Other types of businesses in the Idaho Falls & Ammon area that does not appear to have a website yet:

Idaho Falls Vet – only has one
Idaho Falls Handy Man
Idaho Falls Heating
Idaho Falls Rain Gutters
Idaho Falls Mechanic
Idaho Falls Tanning

Get the competitive edge over your competition today and lets get a website up and running that dominates the local search engine area.

Wordpress is an amazing piece of software that allows everyday users create and update their own blogs. There are hundreds of plugin’s and options available that it is easy to get lost in all of the options. In my opinion, the necessary steps should be taken to achieve the best results when installing Wordpress.

1. Install Wordpress by going to http://wordpress.org/download/

Installing WordPress will walk you step by step through this simple installation.

2. Change the custom structure of your permalinks.

3. Install Akismet

Akismet checks out all of the comments posted on your blog and determines if they look like spam or not. You have to sign up for Wordpress and receive a WordPress.com API key for it to work.

4. Install Enforce www. Preference

This article by dailyblogtips.com explains why this is important.

After performing these four steps you should be on your way to SEO friendly blogging.

There are many benefits to creating a custom web application for your small business. The number one reason is that it will save your small business time and money. Creating custom web applications for your business will enable you move your small business ahead.

Does your small business manually perform any of the following tasks by hand on paper:

Tracking inventory
Tracking customer information
Data entry and re-entry
Employee schedule

There are many small business processes that a custom application would streamline. Web Impakt is will create custom software that is specifically priced to small business. We provide software solutions that are customized for your small business needs and processes.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is used to publish frequently updated content like your favorite blog or news site. Signing up for an RSS feed of a website blog, forum or article feed allows you to scan the headlines for items of interest. This means you get up to the minute feedback from your favorite Idaho Falls based websites and national websites.

Microsoft’s latest version of Internet Explorer (IE 7), has built-in support for RSS feeds. Press CTRL+Shift-J to open IE’s Feeds Center. This article from Microsoft.com walks you through all the information about IE7’s RSS Feeds feature.

A wide array of feed readers are available. Check out this article from crn.com, it shares the pro’s and con’s of the web’s most popular feed readers.

Then number of websites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly. Stop wasting time checking all your favorite sites and blogs for updates just sign up for their RSS feeds!