You could call this an advertorial. Maybe it is but it’s also fact:

When we build a new website, even if you don’t commission us to help with your ongoing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), we will optimise your site for search.

This isn’t us giving you something for free. This is just us being professional and doing a fantastic job with the code, content and pictures that make up your sexy new website.

We lovingly handcraft gorgeous code – Google will fancy you rotten.

If other web designers don’t give you this service or want you to pay through the nose for it give us a call. Seriously… don’t muck about – 01793 554900.

After another cliffhanger last week here’s the final part in our list of 30 reasons why your website is failing your business.

We meet a lot of people who are wondering whether or not they should invest their hard earned cash in a website redesign. They’ve already spent (sometimes a significant amount of) money and yet, for some reason, their web site doesn’t seem to be delivering results for their business. When we look at their site the reasons are usually pretty obvious but sometimes they’re more obscure.

Occasionally we have to tell people that their site is in fact doing more harm than good and that’s never a happy moment.

Here’s the final part of a list that, although by no means exhaustive, covers lots of the more common problems. Some of these things are more significant than others but they all have an impact. Let me know what you think….

Part three…

21. Not accessible

I’ve alluded to this elsewhere in this series. In this day and age you have a duty to try and make your site as accessible to as many people as possible regardless of their ability. I know a blind lady who knows more about the internet that you and I put together. She has a large disposable income, shops online regularly and does lots of research online for business. If she comes across a site that isn’t accessible she won’t phone you up instead she’ll just go elsewhere. There is also legislation on the horizon in the UK which will mean that your site (B2C sites first), will have to be accessible.

22. Poor usability

If a user has to engage their brain in order to use your website then it’s too complex. Do the granny test again or ask a five year old to accomplish some tasks on your website. Usability is a science in its own right but think about gadgets and websites that are pleasure to use – that’s good usability.

23. No call to action

You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to attract users to your website but are you asking visitors to your website to do something? Here’s a clue – the answer should be yes? It could be as simple as calling you (’call us now!’), or buying something (’buy now’). The web is direct, immediate and fast. Don’t muck about just ask the question. Be clear and maybe even be cheeky.

24. Long sign up process

Don’t do it. On the web you need to remove as much guff as possible from your sign up processes. Think about Amazon and their one click buying process or The Book Depository with their checkout and sign-up on one page process. The more steps in any process and the more likely it is that people will drop out. The more personal information that you ask for and the more likely it is that people will drop out. Don’t lose business simply because you have some need to know your customer’s inside leg measurement. Unless you sell trousers online of course.

25. Frames

You might not even know if you site has been built using frames but any web designer can tell you – maybe for free.  Your customers won’t be able to bookmark pages when they’re in your site so even if they find something they’re interested in they won’t be able to come back. But they’ll be so irritated by this time they probably won’t want to. I wouldn’t. Search engines don’t like them and find it hard to see the content – if they can’t see the content they can’t index you properly so they won’t. If a customer enters on a subpage they might find that some or all of the navigation is missing. Again, do you really want to irritate your potential customers?

26. Excessive use of Flash or Flash intros

Flash is a proprietary software that is useful for creating cool web effects and animations. Some websites are built entirely in Flash. They often look really cool. Oh, unless you’re using an iPhone. Or an iPad. Or you live in the country and have a slow web connection. There’s a lot of debate amongst developers about the use of Flash but essentially content displayed in Flash is largely inaccessible, it can slow down a website, if you’re one of the 2 million iPhone users in the UK it’s invisible and there are alternatives available. As for flash intros, read #3 again and add that argument to this one.

27. Ads that users can skip

There are some very big sites that have video ads that appear when you go to their website. You can skip the ad if you can find the little cross in the corner but essentially you are forced to watch an advert before you can see the content you’re looking for. The only organisations that can get away with this have unique and compelling content that cannot be found elsewhere. If you think you’d like to earn some extra pennies with this kind of advertising you’d better be certain that people will tolerate the ads.

28. You hired a black hat

Did someone promise you the top spot on Google? Did you hire them? The only people that can promise the top spot on Google is Google. And they won’t. Apologies to all the self proclaimed ‘web gurus’ out there but that’s a cold hard fact. The chances are that if you hire someone and within a couple of weeks you ended up in that coveted number one spot (for a competitive search term), they did something to deliberately fool the search engines. It’s impressive and exciting. Briefly. As soon as Google et al recognise that you’ve manipulated them (your site remember), they will penalise you and send you tumbling back down the rankings. There are legitimate ways to work your way up the rankings so hire a professional and be patient.

29. Meaningless domain name

Before you leap in and buy a domain name have a good hard think about it. If you sell toffees and your name’s John Smith you should probably steer clear of  johnsmith.com. That said jsmithtoffeemaker.com is probably a good bet – not to mention probably available. If possible try to make the name describe an action rather than an identity (although it might be possible to do both). Always go for a top level if you can .com .org or .co.uk. If you end up with jsmithtoffeemaker.tv everyone will think you’re an online tv channel.

30. It’s not your website, it’s you

If you have a website and people get in touch with you then please, please respond to them. Quickly. The web is instant. It’s all about instant gratification, instant information, instant availability, instant everything. If you think it can wait until later, you’re sadly mistaken. I recently made an enquiry for the same product on four different websites. One didn’t respond at all. One responded within 24 hours – not bad. One responded within 11 minutes – much better. The company that got my order responded to me in three minutes flat. They were quick, keen and professional. This stuff isn’t easy but you can develop processes that allow you to respond very quickly even if you’re a tiny company.

Essentially all of these things require attention because they adversely affect the users experience on your website and with your business. If there’s one lesson to take away from this series of posts it’s that visitors to your site will not tolerate a poor experience.

If your web site is out of date we can advise you on a sensible and cost effective way to put it right. If you ultimately need a new site and we design and build it for you, you now know of at least 30 things that won’t let it down.

The next blog post will be along shortly. I promise no more cliffhangers for a while but you don’t want to miss out you can subscribe to the blog. If it’s easier just let us know and we’ll send it to you in an email.

Ursus Media are based in Swindon, Wiltshire and specialise in web design, development, eCommerce and online marketing for small and medium businesses throughout the South West.

After last week’s merciless cliffhanger here’s part two in our list of 30 reasons why your website is failing your business.

We meet a lot of people who are wondering whether or not they should invest their hard earned cash in a website redesign. They’ve already spent (sometimes a significant amount of) money and yet, for some reason, their web site doesn’t seem to be delivering results for their business. When we look at their site the reasons are usually pretty obvious but sometimes they’re more obscure.

Occasionally we have to tell people that their site is in fact doing more harm than good and that’s never a happy moment.

Here’s a list that, although by no means exhaustive, covers lots of the more common problems. Some of these things are more significant than others but they all have an impact. Let me know what you think….

Part two…

11. There’s no useful information on your site

It’s an old chestnut but content really is king. Remove your ego and pop it back in it’s box because your website is not for you; it’s for your visitors. Now provide the information that customers or potential customers actually want, put it in order of importance and then finally design and build your website around it.

12. Poor colour combinations

There are issues here beyond the fact that your site might be ugly and hurt your visitors eyes (although you should probably try and avoid that). If you get the balance of colours wrong you will make your site less visible to people with visual or cognitive problems. Your website should be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

13. Disabled back button

If you’re web developer has disabled the browser back button you need to give them a slap. It does not serve to keep people on your site in the hope that they might buy; it just irritates them. And they’ll leave anyway.

14. Too much text

But don’t overdo it. People looking at text on screen will typically only read about 25% what they would on paper. Don’t waste your time or theirs.

15. No or (worse) poor quality images

The web is a visual medium so make the most of it. If the picture on your TV is poor you change channels and visitors to your website will do the same.

16. It’s old

If you haven’t done any work to design or (god forbid), content for the last year your site is out of date. Even if the coding is up to date. Ignore your website at your peril it’s costing you business right now. Update at least some content monthly (minimum), weekly (better) or even daily (ideal). You don’t have to do much but the search engines love a constantly updated website and as an added bonus your visitors will appreciate it too. Regularly making small changes to the design of your site will keep it fresh and save you money. There’s no need to wait for your website to get old and outmoded so why should you. Little and often is key so budget time and money for it and you’ll never have to do a costly redesign.

17. Did you make it yourself?

We can tell, your customers can tell and the people who would have been your customers could tell. You wouldn’t print your glossy catalogue that you send out to 100,000 people yourself using a photocopier, you wouldn’t paint your logo and phone number on the back of your van with a tin of Dulux… well here’s the newsflash: your website is the catalogue that you can put in front of every single person on the planet with a computer. Of all the things that you could try and do yourself building the website for your business has the biggest consequences. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but don’t devalue your business by cutting corners. Designing and building high quality web sites that can grow and evolve with your business is harder than it looks. But don’t worry – we can help.

18. Poor navigation

Visitors need to be able to find their way around your website and they do so using the navigation – the bits that say ‘Home’, ‘About’, ‘Blog’. Consistent, easy to use navigation is essential for a good user experience and the navigation should be completely unobtrusive. Here’s an apology on behalf of an entire industry – web designers and developers like to show off their skills and this quite often results in navigation that’s too clever for it’s own good. If you’ve got funky but inconsistent, unfathomable navigation your visitors won’t see it as an enticing puzzle. They’ll see it as an irritation and move on. And you’ll never know.

19. Orphaned pages

Related to #18. This is what happens when someone clicks on a link on your site and then finds they can’t get back and the navigation’s disappeared. Again users will get frustrated and just leave. But they’re not the only ones. We’ve done some work recently for a client whose old website had 42 pages jam packed with useful information. Unfortunately because some (quite a lot), of these pages were orphans Google thought the site only had 8 pages. That’s 34 pages that never ever came up in searches no matter how perfect they would have been for the visitor. 34 opportunities to catch potential customers gone. Forever. You get the picture.

20. Click to enter

Don’t do this. Just don’t. The only exception to this rule is if you’re an artist or a photographer with ‘virtual’ gallery of some sort.

21. Not accessible…

…oh no it’s as frustrating as the cliffhanger at the end of 40 year old episodes of Flash Gordon at the Saturday Morning Cinema Club.

Part three will be right along next week. It’s the last one and if you don’t want to miss it you can subscribe to the blog. If it’s easier just let us know and we’ll send it to you in an email.

Web analytics tools can deliver a vast amount of information to you about your website and your business. Arguably one of the most useful metrics is the bounce rate. Bounce rate tells you about visitors who have literally ‘bounced’ away without visiting any other parts of your site.

A great way to measure the quality of traffic to your website, the bounce rate is easy to understand and communicate to the other parts of your business and can help identify the areas in which your site is failing your visitors.

In the following video Google’s Avinash Kaushik explains why he thinks the bounce rate metric is so useful:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppgfjo6IIf4

If your marketing efforts are effective the amount of quality traffic to your website will increase, therefore fewer users will bounce away and the percentage will go down.

So the 20 million dollar question -- what constitutes a good bounce rate? Well, the lower the better. Remember you will never be able to reduce your bounce rate to zero but a good figure for a business website is around 30%. If you can achieve this, or even reduce it, you’ll find that your all important conversion rates will go up.

A note to bloggers: don’t panic! Blogs are different. Visitors are often attracted to your site by a single relevant post, they’ll enter your site at the post and may well navigate away again after they’ve read it or by clicking on a useful link that you’ve provided. This doesn’t mean you haven’t attracted quality traffic; it’s just the nature of blogging. There’s still a rule of thumb metric for you though. If you can achieve a bounce rate of 50% or less you’re doing well.

Forthcoming related posts will include more ideas for getting the most from your analytics tools. If you want to keep up why don’t you subscribe to our feed?

Related posts:

• Beginning analytics

In the last few days Google announced that they have again made changes to their ranking algorithm. That’s the clever mathematical bit of Google that works out how far up (or down), the list your website appears.

Before Christmas we saw a major change which for the first time had Google paying close attention to real time search results. This meant that using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook suddenly had real impact when it came to position on Google’s search pages.

The latest change takes into account the speed with which web pages load and could see slow loading sites falling down in the Google league tables.

Google say that they have made the latest change because their research shows that people prefer to visit websites that load quickly. They also say in their central webmaster blog that the effect of a slow website can be cumulative: that is people remember their experience and are reluctant to repeat it.

I have to say that I agree with Google. If a web experience is poor I have to be pretty keen to persevere. I’m not the only one of course – your customers will be the same. In Google’s own words ‘faster sites create happy users’.

The good news is that Google have said that the most important criteria for search ranking is still the relevance of a page to a particular query.

If you want to test the speed of your website (or ours for that matter), you can do it here at WebPagetest.

Ursus Media produce usable, accessible, beautiful and, let’s be honest, pretty speedy websites and they’re all handcrafted here in sunny Swindon. Feel free to get in touch and if you’re in need of a new website take a look at our latest offer.

From a business point of view there are lots of good reasons to write a blog. The best business blogs give their readers a more personal perspective on sometimes impersonal corporations and allow them to engage in real dialogue with those in charge. A good blog can foster a loyal following of fans that will help you market your business in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

Here are 7 reasons to blog for your business:-

1. Become established as a thought leader in your industry.
This will appeal to customers who will visit your site or even subscribe to you as source of reliable knowledge and to potential customers who will see that you have your finger on the pulse and you understand what you’re talking about.

2. Foster a community.
You never know, you might end up engaging some of your competitors in conversation and find that you could work together. This happens a lot in creative industries; why should yours be any different?

3. Share knowledge.
Well why not? Educate and inform people and you’ll quickly find that they have a greater understanding of what you do. Take this article for example; after you’ve read this you’ll have a better understanding of blogging for business. If you ask us to build a website you’ll at least understand why you should consider adding a blog to it. If you do decide to write a blog you’ll have thought about what it needs to do for your business and maybe even have a content plan in place.

4. Court the search engines.
The search engines love websites that have lots of regularly updated, relevant content. If you blog little and often it will massively help your websites ranking on the likes of Google. If you link to other relevant sites and they link back to yours you’ll get even more of a boost.

5. It’s a ready-made PR channel.
Every so often you can insert a bit of exciting news about your company. The people that follow your blog and find it interesting will be pleased to hear the odd snippet of good news about you. We’ve just launched a special offer and moved offices and I’ve blogged about both. Now though we’re back to business – something useful for you. Don’t overdo the ‘news about us’ angle. It can backfire. Blogging is a type of social media so you give something to your readers and with a bit of luck they’ll give you something back maybe some free feedback or a community of eager testers.

6. Building relationships.
Let’s be honest, your website exists to help you sell.  Your blog however is a forum where your main objective is not to sell. It can help you establish a more personal relationship with your customers some of whom will engage with you much more deeply and on a less formal footing. They’ll see your blog as a way to talk to you on a level playing field and you should embrace this. These people will be your most loyal supporters.

7. You might learn something.
Seek out information and write stories that interest you. Expand on them – maybe turn these stories into a series. You might learn something useful in the process and be able to add even more value to your company’s offering. Think about your readers and what you can give them.

I think these are all pretty good reasons to write a blog. If you can think of any more or even if you disagree with me (cough splutter), let me know.

It’s rare that I do an unashamed plug like this in the blog. This is generally where you can come for good quality information about all things webby for your business and all you normally get dotted around my posts are subtle hints that you should be using us for your digital media projects.

Every so often though I’m going to reserve the right to tell you all about something that I think is too good to miss. This offer is for those of you who are just starting out in business or who just need a very simple website. Remember anything that we create for you will be designed and coded to the highest standard and built so that it can grow with your business.

The offer’s really simple: £495 for a 5 page website that gives you everything listed below:

• Unique professional design
• Four pages with your own content (text and images)
• One contact us page with a built in form
• A custom error page just in case
• One .co.uk domain name
• Two email addresses of your choice
• Hosting for your new site for a year
• Coding to the highest, best practice standards
• Guaranteed W3C standards compliant
• Thoroughly tested to work in all standard browsers
• Optimised for the search engines – Google here you come
• A simple CMS so that you can update your own site
• Basic site statistics
• Built to be scaleable to grow with your business in the future
• We’ll project manage things for you throughout
• If you’re in a hurry just let us know – we can be very fast
• You can talk to the project team at any time
• Peace of mind of knowing exactly what it costs: just £495!

The catch? Well there is no catch. You do have to order your swanky new site before 1 May 2010 and some terms apply but that’s it. Read more about the offer.

Related items:

• 10 Reasons your business needs a website
• 7 Questions to ask your web developer

I was recently asked by a client ‘what’s the difference between you and them?’ and they referred me to one of these big ‘off the shelf’, design shop websites.

Good question. This big design shop had lot’s of lovely looking sites in it’s portfolio, a very slick website (not to my taste but pretty slick) and some very, very good offers. They even gave away lots of free stuff with every commission. If you’re in the market for a new website this kind of thing is hugely attractive.

I know from experience that there’s almost always something hiding behind a shiny website with unbeatable offers that means money for old rope to the people that invest in their ‘expertise’. A little investigation proved me right.

But rather than pointing fingers and criticizing I’m going to give you the tools to find out exactly what you get for your money. This is just a list of questions that you can ask anyone in the digital media industry whether they’re multi-million pound digital media agencies or pimply faced youths beavering away in their bedrooms (and some of them are very good).

So 7 questions to ask before you commission a web designer:

1. Are your sites made with ‘tables’?
   Tables are part of the code that a website is made from. They’re fine for things like price lists or time-tables and once upon a time most sites were made this way. Now though it’s bad practice and usually means that search engines like Google can struggle to see the content of the page. This is fundamental to a websites performance in search results. Generally developers creating websites using tables are cutting corners. It’s like buying a lovely new car with no engine – there’s no disputing it’s a car but let’s be honest: it’s performance is going to be limited.
2. Are your websites standards compliant?
   This leads on from question one and frankly if that doesn’t set of alarm bells this one will. There are industry standards for website design and development and every organisation developing and designing websites should aim to comply. The risk is that you will end up with a site that may not be indexed by Google and may not be available to all of your potential customers. At worst you could find yourself in hot water with the law as there are moves afoot in the UK to ensure that all websites are accessible to a minimum standard. At the very least ask if they:
   - Use CSS to seperate code and content
   - Validate their sites with the relevant tools
   At the bottom of our website you’ll see two little icons with ticks next to them. This means that our site validates for both code and CSS.
3. What do you mean by SEO?
   Search Engine Optimisation is a process by which the performance of a website on search engines such as Google is improved. This is a gradual and ongoing process that will push a site up the rankings with measured and careful changes to the code and content of your website. Some people will claim to provide free SEO with a new website – make sure you know exactly what this means. We optimise every site that we build so that it can be quickly and easily indexed by all of the search engines and we see this as simple best practice.
4. Is that really free?
   Let’s get one thing straight – there is no such thing as free. Sorry but that’s just the way it is. What free really means is ‘included’. That’s ok. It’s marketing speak. We’re all used to it. If things are included or ‘free’ that’s fine but you should find out where they’ve made savings. We occasionally run package offers and include lots of things in the price but we don’t work for free. We will build down to a price but we won’t sacrifice our standards so what it means is that some features and functionality that you might want right now will have to wait until your budget catches up with your ambitions – which brings me to next question.
5. Is it scaleable?
   If you’re a new business your budget will be limited – for now. Before you commission a new website ask if it can grow with your business. Can your web designer add additional pages and functionality to the site that they make for you without having to start again or make huge changes to your existing site? Can they refresh the overall look and feel of your site regularly so that it’s the best shop front your business can possibly have now and into the future.
6. What secondary services do you offer?
   It’s important to know whether or not your web developer has the necessary skills and resources available to help you make the most of your online presence. Find out if they can provide some or all of the following:
   - Support
   - Online marketing
   - Social media marketing
   - Training
   - Search Engine Optimisation
   - Copywriting
   You may not need these additional services now but the chances are you will in the future. Discussing these things will also give a good feel for the overall skillset of the company you’re talking to.
7. How will you ensure that my site is delivered on time?
   How do they manage projects? If the company you’re talking to can’t deliver work to you on time they’re no use to you. It doesn’t matter how cheap they are. For example we use an agile project management process call Scrum. This means that we deliver projects on time and communicate with you regularly. You’ll know exactly what’s going on every step of the way and when we need something from you (images or text perhaps), we’ll prompt you.

I hope this doesn’t sound too much like some sort of ‘infommercial’. There are many great companies out there creating stunning websites but at the same time there people who give a great first impression that just doesn’t stack up when they’ve got your money. Shop around, ask these questions, decide whether or not you like the person you’re dealing with and only when you’re completely happy should you commission them.

Ultimately that old chestnut still rings true: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you need any help with your web project please feel free to get in touch with us. Whatever your plans we’ll provide you with a free, no obligation quote.

Even in this, the internet age, is it a given that every business needs a website?
The simple answer is yes. Sorry; were you expecting something else?

I suppose that you want me to quantify my answer with good clear reasons. After all someone from a company that designs and develops websites is bound to say that.

1. The internet is a global shop window
   Unless you’re very lucky you’re facing competition from all directions. A good website can extend your reach to anyone with a computer, anywhere in the world, immediately. They can see who you are, what you do and how you do it instantly. They can then make contact and interact with you all the while marvelling at how you’re absolutely the right people for the job.
2. Communicate with your customers and clients
   I guarantee that most of your customers are already online. Perhaps they do business online, their banking perhaps; how many people do you know that have book a holiday online or ordered Christmas presents from Amazon? The web is an easy way to communicate effortlessly with your customers. Encourage them to get in touch with you. Get them to talk to you.
3. Open yourself up to new opportunities
   You can open up your business to opportunities that you didn’t know existed until you got online and your shiny new customers from around the world got in touch. £3.8bn is spent online in Britain alone every month and some of that could be yours.
4. Learn from the people on your site
   At the risk of making myself sound incredibly dull, I love the data that websites can provide. You can get an understanding of what people want and need, not just from what they say but from what they do. The data that you can gather from users of your website is empirical. You can adapt your website quickly and cost effectively based on real evidence as opposed to ‘gut feelings’. I know of a very famous online DVD rental company that increased sales by 10% overnight by changing two simple things on its website. The decision to do that was based on good hard data.
5. Catch up with your competition
   Not a good enough reason on its own but I bet the competition are online. If they use their website effectively they’ll be picking up business from your potential clients. Don’t let them get away with it. Remember too that the web levels the playing field – you get the same access to the same clients as anyone else online.
6. Work around the clock every day of the year
   Your website will work hard for you (at least it will if we build it), long after every other member of staff has gone home. If you sell online you can look forward to coming into work in the mornings and flicking though a pile of orders from around the world as you enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee.
7. Save lots of money
   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The web is the most cost effective way of marketing and selling that there is. Do it properly and your website will make far more for you than it will cost. Don’t cut corners though or it’ll just be a white elephant with the name of your business painted on the side. The internet is complex and clever so hire a professional whose job it is to deliver value for money.
8. Free advertising
   Your website is the perfect place to advertise. If you have a good flow of traffic you can tell people about new products and services, sales and special offers. You can even let them send information to their friends directly from your website. Remember your reach is global and constant so make the most of it.
9. Portray the perfect image for your business all the time
   Keep your website up to date (little and often is the key here) and you can update your image and develop your brand continuously. The web is by far the most cost effective way to show people who you are and what you stand for.
10. If you think you’re so great – prove it
    Show people how great you are. Show them why your cheese is better than Sainsbury’s, why you can deliver better service than the other dry cleaners up the road, why your widget costs twice as much as your competitors. Sometimes you need to show what goes on behind the scenes in order to make people appreciate just what a great company you are. Make people comfortable with who you are and tell them exactly why they should buy your product or service and they probably will.

So there you are: 10 good reasons why you need a website. And 10 equally good reasons to give us a call and get our help to grow your business online.

Related items:

• 7 Questions to ask your web developer
• Special offer

Analysis of the traffic on your website goes way beyond the simple counting of ‘hits’. Analytics gives you a real understanding of how people are using your website, what they’re doing once they arrive and where they came from. You can see conversion rates, work out what works and what doesn’t for your site and even work out the value of each visit.

A good analytics package will help you to give your customers what they want, improve your website, get more for your marketing spend and increase revenue because of the business insights it can deliver.

There are lots of great analytics packages available to you and by happy coincidence one of the best, Google Analytics, is free. Don’t be mislead by the word free, there are some very big businesses using Google Analytics every day. I have experience of using it on a site with an average of 750,000 visitors per month and I use it here on the Ursus Media website because it’s such a powerful tool. You should bear in mind that although a Google Analytics account is free your developers will charge you for the time required to set up the account and implement the code on your website.

The following video from Google gives a quick overview of interpreting and using the data from Google Analytics. Most packages deliver similar metrics so although this is Google specific it’s easy to relate to other tools.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdsb_uH2yPU

Google Analytics is a superb tool and it never fails to surprise me that it’s free (although there are some exceptions -- see Google’s T&Cs). There are of course other tools available to you but but they all give you similar information and the insights for your business should not be underestimated. This is only the beginning.

Useful resources

• Ursus Media courses
• Wikipedia on web analytics
• Technorati on web analytics
• Google Analytics