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Ebay and Dropshipping, A Marriage Made In Heaven?
Believe it or not, eBay is the 'BEST' opportunity you can use right now to make money online in the dropshipping business from the comfort of your own home.
Thousands of people just like you use eBay auctions on a daily basis to...
Go With Quality Over Quantity And Your Business Will Prosper
In the early days of developing my home business, I went for the numbers instead of focusing on targeting prospects. It took me a while to appreciate the importance of targeting (quality) instead of just going for the big numbers (quantity).
...
How To Set Up an Ezine Encyclopedia
Do you read all your Ezines? Or do you file them away in special folders and then forget about them?
I used to be like that.
When I first started subscribing to ezines I was amazed at the quantity of valuable information that ...
Old Meets New in the Web Store Business Plan
E-commerce may be revolutionizing the way the world does business, but it shouldn’t change your approach to writing a business plan. Whether you’re starting a Web store from scratch or taking an existing outfit online, the basic elements of your...
Online Press Releases Tipped As Internet Marketing Strategy for 2006
Combination of PR and SEO attracts marketers' attention With
consumers taking charge of what they read and when they read it,
online news has attracted the interest of marketers. The new
report Search Marketing Benchmark Guide from Marketing...
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Site Statistics - What they should be telling you and probably aren't
Site statistics are the underlying visitor details of your site. They can tell you things like: where a visitor came from, what key phrases people are using to find your site on search engines, how many visitors have come to your site, what pages people looked at the most, what pages people looked at the least and even what web browser people used to get to your site. It would seem like that is all the information anyone would ever need to know about a site. However, virtually all statistical analysis programs are very difficult to understand, and the data isn't organized in a very useful manner. While there seems like quite a bit of information, there is so much more useful information that is possible to achieve that could give you much more highly telling results.
For example, with the use of cookies and tying that information into the raw statistical logs that your server tracks, you suddenly can watch amazing things. For example, you could easily watch one user over any period of days or months as they go and come from your site. You would know exactly what pages they saw and if and when they bought from your site or signed up to your newsletter. Affiliate programs and many online shopping carts are using cookies to keep track of when a person buys something or makes a certain action. However, using them in conjunction with server log statistics seems to be a rarity.
By combining cookies with server logs you would be able to track every single marketing strategy. You would know if your pay per click placements turned browsers into buyers or subscribers. By using different domain names, you would easily be able to track all of your offline promotions from beginning to end. Once a person enters your site you would always know exactly where they came from, when they got there and ultimately if you
should continue marketing the same way you are marketing now, or if you should try something new.
Having this understanding would change how business is done online. Every marketing investment, every page created and the entire flow of a site could easily be tracked and understood.
Additionally, how you market to people would change significantly for both the site owner and the site visitor. If a person bought one product you could easily suggest other products that they would probably like. Amazon has virtually mastered this feature. This could also work for sites that don't sell online. If you knew a person enjoyed a certain article you could easily suggest to them that they read another article. You could track the exact path people take through your site and compare that with your most wanted response. By understanding this information you could easily tweak your site until this response increased.
However, while the technology is available to do this, most statistical analysis programs largely do not provide the information in this format. The technology that enables this kind of detailed, valuable information is either custom made for a specific, deep-pocketed company or is just extremely expensive. The reason this has happened, in my opinion, is that the average site owner has no idea this information is available. And if there is no apparent demand the chances of seeing this kind of analysis tool in the near future in not likely.
About the Author
Sage Lewis, founder and president of the web site promotion firm SageRock.com. He has been employed as an Internet Strategist and design/promotion consultant for 5 years. To subscribe to SageRock's marketing newsletter, send a blank message to mailto:sagerock-subscribe@egroups.com or visit the company's site at http://www.sagerock.com
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