Announcements

Finally! www.redcarpetweb.com site update

Our corporate website has been updated! We mentioned the update in our last issue and have been working very hard to perfect the new features and improve usability. The website is now divided into three sections: services, resources and company. Each section is filled with valuable information for clients and potential clients. We get most of our leads through our website, so the site is a very important part of our image and sales strategy.

New services!

We are now offering many new services. Check out the services page on our site for details.

New team member

Julie Joseph has joined the Red Carpet Web Promotion team as a writer and search engine optimizer. Her academic and work experience in journalism shines through in her writing. Julie's job includes writing and building sponsored sites, as well as managing, submitting and optimizing a portfolio of sites for various search engines and directories.

Search Engine Navigator - The New Overture

The Search Engine world is ever-changing. Go.com has essentially closed, and NBCi (formerly Snap) has followed suit. Excite went bankrupt and no longer displays original results, and Goto became Overture. Overture is a pay-for-placement search engine. A pay-for-placement search engine is one where the number one spot is auctioned off to the highest bidder. For example, as a merchant, you could bid ten cents per click at Overture to get the number one spot for your keyword. If your competitor bids eleven cents however, you get pushed to the number two spot in the listings. This means that for each person who clicks on your listing, you pay Overture ten cents. Of course, you could raise your bid to twelve cents and get the number one spot at any time. This is all very well and good, but how many people actually use Overture to do their searches? The recent statistics from Jupiter Media Metrix and Nielsen/NetRatings put Overture at about 7% (the percentage of web surfers who have visited the site). That's not very much considering that Yahoo has about 60%, MSN about 55%, and AOL about 48% (these numbers overlap because one person could go to all three sites). But Yahoo has just signed a deal with Overture to post its top three listings ahead of Yahoo results. Overture also has similar deals with AOL and MSN. In fact, Overture has deals to post its top three results with Altavista (7%), Netscape (19%), Go.com (23%), Excite (13%), Lycos (10%) and Iwon (9%). The top Overture results are on every major search engine except for Google. During the last six months, it has become increasingly important to get your site into the top three results in Overture if you wish to get exposure on almost every search engine (if you want to know how to get into Overture, feel free to contact: shawn@redcarpetweb.com). Remember, you have to bid a certain amount per click. Overture also has a couple of restrictions: 1) you must spend a minimum of $20/month, and 2) you must bid a minimum of five cents per click (both these minimums are in US dollars). Is the future of search engines in pay-for-placement? There is ongoing debate on this subject, but my personal view is that pay-for-placement will not replace free listings. Free listings are much better at offering information based results (research), whereas pay-for-placement is only better at sending people to the merchant with the largest marketing budget. There is a place for both kinds of results on the Internet, and I would suggest you try to get top positions in both. In another six months, all these numbers will change again. That's the search engine optimization business. It keeps us on our toes. Below are the most current statistics for each search engine. The numbers are the percentage of people that click through a search engine result (no overlap).

Yahoo 37.76% Google 23.48% MSN 12.87% AOL 4.90% AltaVista 3.18%

Lycos 2.26% Excite 2.11% Netscape 1.15% LookSmart 0.59% AllTheWeb 0.21%

HotBot 0.10% NothernLight 0.07% Overture 0.03% Webcrawler 0.03% Dmoz 0.01%

Next issue, I will update you on other changes in the industry.

Shawn Campbell is the co-founder and Chief Search Engine Optimizer at Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.
Shawn shares search engine news in each issue.

Feature: How to choose a traffic tracking service

The most important web statistic, is the number of sales your website generates. But the activity on your website that leads to those sales, and the details of what occurs in between them, can also be tracked and used to your advantage. Sooner or later, you're going to want to review this information in order to make updates to your site that will improve your sales-to-visitor ratio. Both large and small companies let this information slip by because of a lack of time or a lack of understanding. Here is how you can take control.

Habits

It always comes as a surprise to learn that not all users surf in the same way. In fact, most people rely only on one search engine (and secretly assume that everyone else uses that same search engine too). Furthermore, not everyone will use the same search terms or visit pages on a website in the same order. Some people like to open new windows, while others like to close new windows. Your website should accommodate these different approaches to web surfing in order to make finding relevant information and ordering products easy.

Tools

Traffic statistics provide an overwhelming amount of information. Once traffic reports are available to you, your first job will be to find out which statistics to review. Here are the most useful categories.

• Daily unique visitors: This measures the number of visitors to your site without counting the same visitor twice in any given day. Compare this number to the amount of sales that you made in a given period to find your sales ratio.

• Pageview: Another popular measure, the pageview is the number of times a page is accessed as a whole. This will be a higher figure than your daily unique visitors because many visitors will be counted multiple times as they surf your website.

• Referrer domains: This list will show the top websites that have referred traffic to your website, and how many visitors each site has sent you.

• Search engines: Search engines are the best way to attract visitors to your website. This feature will list the search engines that are generating the most traffic on your website. There are also options to see which search terms were used.

• Top Paths: The path that visitors use when surfing your site is tracked and can be studied for insight into the most popular shopping patterns. It's important to see where visitors go from your home page in order to make adjustments that will better meet your goals.

You have many options for gathering information about your visitors. In fact, many options are free. Here are some of the three most popular types of traffic tracking solutions.

1. Hit counters: A free hit counter is the most basic type of traffic tracker. It is usually a black rectangle with white numbers in it, which count how many pageviews you receive. Hit counters may appear amateurish however, and have the added disadvantage of only recording pageviews. We advise against hit counter in favour of more detailed reports.

2. Server logs: Your website is hosted on a web server which most likely maintains detailed lists about each visit to your website. These lists are called log files, and whether or not you have access to them depends on your hosting agreement. Call your hosting company and ask for access to your log files.

   Once you have the log files, you can extract and compile the relevant information with the help of free software, online services, or companies specializing in this task. Start with the free services. For a list of log analysers, click here.

   You will be able to access traffic reports on just about everything, for periods of one day, one week, one month or one year. Familiarize yourself with the available reports and use them to improve your marketing strategy.

3. Hitbox: Another method of collecting traffic data, is to put a piece of code on your site that monitors visits or "hits". With a service such as Hitbox or Webtrends Live, this information can be accessed online via a password. Hitbox requires that you place a banner on your website in order to collect the information. It also offers a fee-based service that is very affordable and banner free.

   Just as with server log reports, you will have access to an overwhelming amount of information. Start by comparing the monthly reports for both "daily unique visitors" and "referrer domains". Also, pay close attention to the "top paths" in order to customize your site for users.

By studying your traffic history, you will be in a better position to understand your situation and how to improve upon it. Learn from all your available resources and take some of the guesswork out of your web strategy.

Good luck!
Jason Campbell

If you have any comments on this article, please respond to news@redcarpetweb.com

Jason Campbell is the co-founder and President at Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.

Stay on Top

Each month we review articles from leading industry magazines and newsletters. The following headlines are the most interesting. Click on the headline to view the article.

Search Engine Marketing: Luxury or Necessity? www.internetday.com/article/0,3983,1381_901231,00.html Search engines and directories now offer various forms of paid inclusion, paid submission and paid placement options in addition to their free listings, which take longer to appear in databases. Understanding the Power of Search Engine Marketing www.clickz.com/search/opt/article.php/909181 "It's one of the most cost-effective marketing tools available, yet most companies spend little on search engine optimization (SEO)". Cooking the search engine books specials.ft.com/ftit/nov2001/FT3X5YF7OTC.html "Several of the sites listed high in the rankings will have paid for the privilege, either through a straight pay-for-placement listing, or, more subtly, through the use of search engine optimization." AOL vs. Microsoft: The Cosmic Struggle Over You www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,16677,FF.html Although the article is a few months old, it still brings you up to speed on the upcoming projects and overall strategies by Microsoft and AOL. Includes Microsoft's .net, Passport and Hailstorm projects. Also, XML, distributed computing and AOL's secret project called "Magic Carpet". The Defogger: The Table Is Set for Web Telephony www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,35012,FF.html A look at the current state of making long distance calls using the internet instead of a long-distance provider. Web telephony is useful between branches of the same company or for people on a private network. But you still cannot call someone's phone from your computer, although a company can receive calls from regular callers. The article describes some very interesting applications of this technology. Why should I hire a 3rd party search engine optimization consultant or marketer? seopros.org/articles/self.htm "Do you really want someone who only knows how to surf to Yahoo and push a submit button, listing your site on a directory which provides 35% (even more if it is B2B) of all traffic from search engines?"

Letters to the Editor

Write your questions and comments for our next issue to news@redcarpetweb.com. Be as specific or general as you want - other subscribers are probably wondering the same things as you are. You should also let us know of any promotions, sales or new products on your website.

Next Issue

- Analysis of holiday shopping
- More on how Search Engines work
- Stay on top: Articles from industry newsletters and magazines
- And more...

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