Once you have invested the time, money and effort to build a company website, it is important to maximize the ways in which your website is improving your business. How do you know if your marketing campaigns are paying off? Are those search engine keywords working to bring new clients to your website? Are your affiliated partners helping you gain new customers? And where is your target customer base located?

These are all questions that web traffic analysis can help you answer. With a better understanding of your website effectiveness, you can write better-targeted ads to focus on your best markets, as well as engage and convert more visitors to your business.

How Web Traffic Analysis Can Help Your Business

Registering a domain name and putting up a website is the first step to marketing your company on the Internet, not the last. Once your website is open to the public, you need to measure its effectiveness in bringing in clients and boosting your profits. Web traffic analytics are designed for this very purpose. Depending on which web traffic analytics program you use, you can utilize a wide range of programs and functions based on your needs and goals.

Marketing Strategy

Most likely, you decided to build a company website in the first place as a marketing strategy, to give your business wider exposure to potential clients through the Internet. You may have chosen one or more of a number of marketing strategies, including purchasing search engine keywords and using referrers, directories, advertising sites and banners, and/or email campaigns. But how do you know which of these marketing strategies are actually working and giving you the best return on your marketing investment?

Web traffic analysis helps you get the best ROI (Return On Investment) by tracking sales and conversions through email campaigns, banner ads, offline ads and more. The traffic analysis programs can trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, get loyalty and latency metrics, and identify your best revenue sources. They can also optimize performance of search engine keywords, such as Google Adwords, with post-click data on your keywords, search queries, match type and more.

With detailed reports on the performance of your current marketing methods, you can improve future marketing strategies by focusing on the highest-performing investments, and tailor your advertising by using the most effective keywords and targeting the highest-concentrated customer locations.

Website Design

Another aspect of ensuring successful online marketing is the design, layout, and content of your website. There are a number of factors that go into having a successful website, but the most important goal is usually to attract and retain clients. How do you know if the website you have built is doing the job it is supposed to do: converting clients?

Web traffic analysis answers this question by tracking and reporting visitor information such as page views, duration of stay on a particular page, click-paths, and entry and exit pages. You can utilize these reports to see not only how visitors found and entered your website, but how long they stay on the site, which parts of the websites are most interesting to them, and at which point visitors leave the site. This information is helpful as you maintain and update your website to focus on the areas that are most appealing to visitors, and modify those parts that are less successful.

Site Monitoring

In addition to measuring marketing success, it is also important to make sure that your website is up and running smoothly. It is critical that clients and potential clients who are interested in your company have constant and easy access to your website. Most web analytics companies also provide site monitoring services, which keep track of your website downtime, connect times, and alerts you via email or phone if your website goes offline for any reason, especially during unplanned emergencies.

Choosing a Web Traffic Analytics Program

The two prevailing companies providing web traffic analytics are currently Google (through its Google Analytics application) and Web-stat.com. While they offer many similar tracking and reporting services, there are some marked differences between the two services.

Google Analytics

Like many other Google applications, Google Analytics is a free* but relatively basic web traffic monitoring and reporting application. Its main features include:

• Advertising ROI – as described above, this function tracks sales and conversions by tracing visitors to email campaigns, banner ads, offline ads, search engine keywords, and loyalty and revenue sources.
• Cross Channel and Multimedia Tracking – Google Analytics also offers mobile tracking, internal site search, benchmarking, and Flash, video and social network application tracking.
• Customized Reporting – Users can choose highly customized and segmented reporting based on custom variables and using advanced data analysis tools. Data exporting and integrations with external applications are also available. In addition, analytics intelligence monitors reports and sends alerts to changes in data patterns. Report formats include motion charts, geo-targeting, funnels, spark lines, and score cards.
• Sharing and Communications – Users can control how sensitive data is shared and which reports are available to users on their account, as well as schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails.
• Integration with other Google applications, such as AdWords and AdSense, as well as third party applications.

*Google Analytics allows up to 5 million page views per month for no charge. Page views are unlimited for users who also have an active AdWords account.

Web-Stat

Web-Stat offers similar web traffic analysis, advertising ROI tracking, and customized reporting services as Google Analytics. Web-Stat also measures conversions, referrers, search engine keywords, site entries and exits, file uploads and Flash sites, and sends customized reports to its users. However, Web-Stat differs from Google Analytics in some significant ways.

Live Traffic Analysis

Unlike Google Analytics, which only offers pattern reports from designated time periods, Web-Stat also offers live traffic analysis. This means that not only can users look for patterns from past time periods, they can also follow visitors as they travel inside their website – in real time. Every time someone visits your site, Web-Stat can see where they are located, which pages they visit, how long they stay, etc. When you log into your Web-Stat account, you will get live information as to who is currently on your site, who has been there, what pages they have looked at, and how they found your site.

Independence from other Google Applications

Generally, it is recommended that you use a third party to measure the results of your advertising campaigns. Many people promote their websites by advertising with Google AdWords, which helps business place ads using keywords and the Google search engine. However, if you use Google Analytics to measure the success rate of your AdWords campaign, you are using the same company to both sell you the advertisements and measure their return. Web-Stat is independent from Google and can do you web traffic analysis without conflict of interest.

Web-Stat Watchdog

Web-Stat also offers another unique service: Web-Stat Watchdog. This feature monitors not only the content of your website, but how smoothly it is run. Watchdog keeps track of factors such as your site’s downtime and average connect time within a specified time period. If your site goes offline for any reason, especially during unforeseen emergencies, Watchdog will send you an alert via email or cell phone. This feature is essential for ensuring that current and potential clients can access your site easily and quickly at all times.

Keep in mind that because Google Analytics is free, but Web-Stat offers independent analysis and unique features, users can choose to use both services at the same time.

For more info – click here.

In the simplest of terms, a logo is a unique symbol or a graphical interpretation of the name of a company, organization or even an individual commonly used to aid and promote instant public recognition. Logos can be purely graphic or composed of the name of the organization or a combination of the two, but the goal of a logo is always a visual representation of what your company stands for.

Your business’s logo can be as important as its name. A good logo creates a favorable first impression and differentiates your business from its rivals. People process an image in their mind more readily than words alone, that’s why opinions about your company, its integrity, individuality and reputation can be formed at a first glance. So it is important to include your company’s name or slogan in your logo design to make consumers associate them with your logo.

You can also give some personality to your business by using different logo design concepts. For example you can make your customers feel at ease and develop a sense of trust in your company by using a cartoon character or cute animal in your logo, or you can make your company look more original and innovative by using bright colors or unique design in your logo.

A logo is an important component of your marketing and branding strategy. Using your logo in advertising vehicles, such as newspapers, magazines and internet banner ads, flyers and business cards, is a great way for those who are interested in your services and products to get to know your logo, and by extension your business. Logos can also be placed on pens, T-shirts, hats, mugs, Frisbees and bumper stickers and released as promotional products.

Logo Design Tips

Whether you decide to design the logo on your own or entrust it to a professional designer, the first thing you should do is answer some questions about your business in general. For example: How would you define your business in a few words? What products or services are you offering to your clients? Who will be your potential target market? What differentiates you from your competitors? All these questions will help you or your designer understand the essence of your company and depict it in the most relevant logo.

The next step is to consider what type of logo and design characteristics works for your company. There are three types of logos: text logo, symbol logo and text-and-symbol logo. Whichever type of logo you decide to choose, you should keep in mind that it’s not about what you want to see, but how your customers will perceive it. There are also a few design characteristics to consider. Color, font, shape, presence and contrast – all these elements must be considered, because even a small oversight can inflict damage to your company’s reputation or budget. As an example, you need to be careful when picking colors for a logo. It may look excellent in five or more colors, but when it comes to printing on stationary or corporate literature, the price won’t be so attractive.

Each logo design should also meet certain requirements. An ideal logo design should be simple and memorable, if it is too detailed and complex, the design in not recognizable. Uniqueness is also an important characteristic of a good logo design. Your logo must stand out among the millions of other logo designs and it must not violate any copyrights or trademarks of other companies. As long as a logo’s purpose is to represent the company, it must be easily associated with the industry, service or product to which it relates. You should also think over the functionality or flexibility of your logo design, because it will be used in many forms, such as in emails, on letters, on business cards, on envelopes and on promotional items. It must work well with different backgrounds and in various sizes. So you must be sure that your final choice is going to be equally compelling in each appearance.

Once you came up with a logo that represents your company’s mission at a glance, make sure it hasn’t already been trademarked by someone else. If no one has, then you could trademark it to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site or use a lawyer or another service provider to help you. If you are working with a designer, make sure the copyright ownership is assigned to you or your company in a signed document.

Choosing a Logo Design Company

Nowadays the Internet provides you with a great choice of online logo design services, you have access to the skills and talents which were once out of reach. We recommend the following companies that combine great quality of design with affordable pricing.

Logo Garden

LogoGarden.com is the simplest and most cost effective way to create a professional brand for businesses on any budget. Users can create a customized logo and business cards in just minutes, no design experience needed. Or, they can choose to have a logo custom designed for one flat price that includes unlimited revisions.

For more info – click here.

99designs

99designs.com pioneered the design contest, where designers submit competing designs in response to a customer’s design brief — and the winner receives a cash payment for their work. Through more than 268,346 design contests, 99design have paid out $66,455,134 to their designer community to date.

For more info – click here.

In today’s market, having a well-designed, informative and user-friendly website is essential to a business’s success. A significant and increasing number of customers are Internet-savvy and regularly use the Internet to search for a wide range of products and services. In response, company websites are becoming more sophisticated and interactive, allowing customers to make reservations and payments online, submit feedback, and follow company blogs and newsletters to stay current in the latest offerings. More sophisticated websites can also take advantage of integration with other sites like Google Maps and Flickr to supply additional information and creative content.

Basic Elements of Web Design

As the demand for professional and commercial websites has increased among companies of various types and sizes, so have the options that business owners now have in creating a website. A number of companies specialize in providing a wide range of website building services, from basic site building and web hosting, which are usually free, to custom website design by specialized design teams and additional services such as e-commerce, online marketing, and lead generation. Finding the perfect site and web hosting service for you depends on a variety of factors, including your business type, budget, and the level of interaction and feedback you seek to have with clients and potential customers on the Internet. Here are a few basics that you should consider when starting a website for your company.

Domain Name

The first and most fundamental step of creating a website is buying a domain name. A domain name is the web address that Internet users type into their browser to find your web site online (for example, www.yourcompanyname.com). For those who have the desire and skills to build their website independently, a domain name can be searched for and leased from the appropriate registry, which gives the domain name buyer the exclusive right to use that domain name. As an alternative, most web design companies offer domain name searches and leases as part of a design package, either as an included feature or for a separate fee.

Design Layout, Templates, and Stock Image Libraries

Once you have a domain name, the next step is creating the layout and content of your website. If you do not have any technical experience in programming a website, this is where professional web design companies become especially helpful. Established web design companies usually offer hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pre-designed layout templates that you can choose from, separated based on subject, theme, color, industry, and many other categories. No matter what your business type, you will have plenty of options and styles to choose from.

In addition to a layout and color design, web design companies usually also offer large stock image libraries to help your website look more attractive to potential clients and customers. Stock images usually include professional photographs and other creative depictions of different objects, products, or services.

Design and Editing Tools

Equally important to having a good basic design and layout is the ability to revise, edit, and improve your web site over time. Look for a web design company that simplifies this process by offering user-friendly, instant point-and-click editing.

Custom Design

Almost all web design companies offer custom web design by a specialized design team, for a higher fee. This is usually a better option for companies seeking a highly sophisticated or interactive website. Custom web sites are also ideal for companies that offer unique goods or services that do not fit well into pre-designed templates and stock images.

Email and Web Storage

Email and web storage are basic services that are offered by most web design companies. Having an email account that has the domain name as your website (for example, info@yourcompanyname.com) is much more professional than using popular free email services like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL. A professional email account will add extra credibility to your online business. There will usually be a limit on how much email storage memory you are entitled to.

Web storage allows you to store many different types of files that you use to build and customize your website. For example, you can store and transfer documents, photos, music and video files.

Choosing a Web Design Company

Different web design companies employ varying business models in terms of what services they provide, and how they charge for services. The two companies below are good examples of different features and fee structures. These companies are recommended by MyUSACorporation.com

Web.com

Web.com is a leading provider of online marketing services for small businesses, offering a full range of web services, including website design and publishing, online marketing and advertising, search engine optimization, lead generation and e-commerce solutions. According to their statistics, more than 15 million successful websites have been created with Web.com tools and services. These tools and services are offered as part of three different service packages.

The most basic package is the Website Builder package, ideal for companies that are budget-conscious and want only a simple web presence with basic design and functions. For a monthly fee of $19.95, Website Builder provides a domain name of your choice based on availability, over 9500 starter templates, a large stock image library, unlimited web storage for documents, photos, videos, and music files, as well as an unlimited number of email accounts with up to 10GB of email storage. In addition, the package also includes $150 in advertising credits for Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

The Business Builder package provides a slight upgrade at $29.95 per month (currently $19.95), adding a Marketing Bundle which includes Local Directory Submission, Search Engine Submissions, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consultation, and access to the Do-It-Yourself Logo Design software. In addition, Business Builder increases the advertising credits to $200.

Finally, for businesses with more specialized needs and a bigger budget, Web.com offers its eWorks! XL package. At $94.95 per month, this package offers all of the services listed above, but adds custom website consultation and design, as well as professional copywriting. In addition, eWorks! provides extra online marketing services including search engine submission, Internet Directory submission, and Google Maps submission with online coupon. Results tracking for website statistics and telephone call activity is also included. These services are essential to companies that substantially rely on the Internet to attract new customers and generate sales, by allowing these companies to maximize and track the effectiveness of their website traffic.

For more info – click here.

Yola.com

Yola.com is another website builder and hosting service that helps small businesses stand out on the web. The company’s services and products have received recognition from a number of publications, including Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, ABC News, CNET, and The Wall Street Journal. Yola.com offers web design services similar to those of Web.com described above, but with some significant differences.

Yola.com’s online marketing services are somewhat less comprehensive than those of Web.com, but it offers more focus and flexibility, as well as affordability, in its web design services. Its pricing structure is also significantly different, offering a wide range of options from a free sub-domain name, to highly customized web design services for $349 for the first year.

There is a range of options available on Yola.com for small businesses with varying levels of web needs. For companies that want a simple web presence to increase visibility and accessibility to current and potential customers, Yola.com provides sub-domain names on its main site for free. This means that if you’re not picky about having a custom website name, you can have a relatively basic website on Yola.com for no charge at all. As part of this free service, Yola.com offers over 100 customizable templates, easy point-and-click design and editing, unlimited bandwidth, and free site traffic statistics for the past seven days. As additional options, you may choose to purchase a custom domain name for $19.95 per year, or a premium website style for a one-time fee starting at $19.95 each. You can also buy Yola Mail as a consolidated source of emails from your website for $9.96 per year.

Yola Silver is an upgraded package that includes, as part of its $49.95 annual fee, a custom domain name, premium styles, and site traffic statistics for the past thirty days. Also included are stock photography credits, Yahoo! Search Marketing credit, Facebook advertising credit, and HP Logowork Logomaker credit. In addition, the Yola branding is removed from your site and all sub-sites.

Finally, for the most comprehensive services, Yola.com also offers Yola Premium, which includes one-on-one consultations with a professional website designer, resulting in a professionally designed, completely unique 5-page website, which you can expand as needed.

For more info – click here.

One of the first steps every new business should take is establishing Internet presence. Today Internet presents plenty of options to connect with your potential and existing customers, from email to various social media networks and more. However, launching a company website should be your top priority as the owner of a new business.

To begin creating a website you need to choose a service provider for domain registration and hosting. This guide allows first time users to understand the basics of domain name registration and gives them tools to choose the right hosting provider.

Domain Name Registration

Choosing the right domain name is the most critical yet challenging step in website creation process. Domain name can reflect the name of your company or the type of your business, so it makes it easier for your customers to find your business on the Internet. It also should not be too long or difficult to remember. You can always do a quick search to make sure that the domain name you picked is available by typing “whois” into search or address bar and use one of the services that provide free lookup. If the name is available you can register it.

The service that adds your domain name to the worldwide Domain Name System (DNS) is called “website registrar”. When domain name is registered, it’s associated with an IP (Internet Protocol) address. When submitting a domain name to a web site registrar, you must also choose one of the extensions (for example: .com, .net or .org). You can prevent others from registering your domain name with a different extension and diverting some of the traffic intended for your site by registering domain name with more than one extension.

There is an annual fee that you must pay to website registrar to retain ownership of domain name, and a variety of payment plans that will allow you to pay the fee for several years in advance (as you increase the number of prepaid years the annual cost decreases). During registration DNS requires your business name, address and telephone number, so anyone can look it up. However, you can pay additional fee for private domain name registration (also called “proxy registration”) to protect your account information from anyone who wants to search for it. A proxy service replaces your information with its own name, address, phone number and e-mail.

Website Hosting

After registering your domain name you should consider finding a reliable website hosing service. The main function of web hosts is to provide connectivity to the Internet, as well as storage space for all files, images and video that you’ll need to run your website. You can include a variety of other services that can be adjusted for your own requirements. Before signing up for a web hosting service consider your budget, the website needs, the kind of server, and the types of services offered by the web hosting service.

The variety of web hosting services can be divided into six types.

Choosing Website Registration and Hosting Company

Among the huge variety of website registration and hosting companies that today’s Internet search can offer choosing a reputable and reliable one can become a real headache, especially for newbies. For your convenience we have reviewed a number of more established and known players in that field:

GoDaddy

GoDaddy.com is the world’s largest domain registrar and is the flagship company of The GoDaddy Group, Inc. As a ICANN-accredited domain registrar, GoDaddy has more names under management than any other registrar, offer products at prices up to 70% less than the competition and supports them all with world-class 24/7 live customer service. GoDaddy.com offers a complete product line, including comprehensive hosting solutions, Web site creation tools, Secure SSL certificates, personalized email with spam and anti-phishing filtering, e-commerce tools and more.

As a domain registrar, GoDaddy offers a great variety of domain extensions including international, bulk domain discounts, private registration, GeoDomainMap tool, domain transfers, auctions and backorders. The cost of your domain registration includes a long list of free extras, such as:

• hosting with website builder which allows you to build 1-page site,
• personalized email account,
• GoDaddy photo album,
• getting started guide,
• domain forwarding & masking,
• 100-pack e-mail forwarding,
• auto renewal protection,
• total DNS control,
• status alerts, and
• domain locking.

For web hosting GoDaddy.com provides a range of hosting plans and types of servers. Whether you choose Windows or Linux Hosting, GoDaddy’s services also include email, databases, free applications, free access to the exclusive GoDaddy Hosting Connection community and much more. GoDaddy offers affordable web hosting which is fine for most personal and small business sites and Business Hosting packages that offer discount bundles with all the products you need to build, optimize and promote your web site. GoDaddy takes advantage of 4th generation hosting which uses advanced features as Dynamic Traffic, Defense and Server Management, making your site fast, reliable and secure.

GoDaddy has three most common hosting plans. For a $4.99 per month you’ll get Economy 4GH which contain 10GB space with unlimited bandwidth, 100 email accounts, 10 MySQL databases and a free ad credits from Myspace and Google. Deluxe 4GH hosting plans will provide you with 150GB space and unlimited bandwidth, 500 email accounts, 25 MySQL databases and the same free ad credits as in previous hosting plan for a $7.99 per month. You can get unlimited space, bandwidth and MySQL databases, 1000 email accounts, free ad credits from google and myspace, free premium DNS, site scanner, SSL certificate and fixed IP address by purchasing ULtimate 4GH for $14.99 per month.

GoDaddy.com also offers Dedicated and Virtual Dedicated Servers which are perfect fro hosting multiple traffic-intensive Web sites on one server, running enterprise or gaming applications, or operating development environments. There is an option of purchasing a preconfigured dedicated or virtual dedicated server plan or the flexibility to build your own server. And if conventional hosting plans can’t keep up with your demands, Grid Hosting from Go Daddy puts the power of multiple servers to work for you. With elastic scalability, 99.9% uptime and no need for site migration during growth spurts, Grid Hosting is always at the ready.

For more info – click here.

Web.com

Web.com is a leading provider of comprehensive web services and products that enable small business to establish and maintain an effective Internet presence. Web.com offers a full range of web services on an affordable subscription basis, including domain name registration, website design and publishing, Internet marketing and advertising, search engine optimization and submission, logo design and call center services.

When you register a domain name with Web.com you get the following:

• simple domain management with Web.com’s easy-to-use control panel,
• private domain registration that will help to protect business from Internet spammers,
• domain locking which safeguard your domain name from hijacking and unauthorized transfers,
• for advanced users: complete DNS control allowing you to edit your name servers and MX, A, and CNAME records for complete control over your domain.
• 24-hour customer service.

The annual fee for domain name registration is $37.00 per year and decreases depending the number of years you want to register. You can also get a free domain name when you sign up for a Linux or Windows web hosting plan. Web.com also offers some upgrade options for domain registration: private domain for $1.95 per month, marketing bundle which will get your business found on the web with local directory and search engine submissions for $14.95 per month and a hosted exchange that allows your email, files, calendars and contacts to be always synched in near-real time for $8.95 per month.

For web hosting Web.com offers: unlimited storage, unlimited transfer and multi-domain hosting with all of the reliability of a dedicated server and enterprise grade technology in a clustered website hosting platform. All for only $11.95 per month you can build and maintain a great web presence with an assurance that Web.com powers your site. Web.com hosting services are offered as part of Windows or Linux hosting plans that includes:

• unlimited data storage,
• unlimited bandwidth transfer,
• unlimited MySQL databases,
• unlimited hosted domains,
• 10GB web mail storage,
• clustered reliability and green hosting,
• support for development languages,
• unlimited FTP users,
• 24/7 technical support,
• free 1 year domain name
• search engine marketing credits.

Web.com also allows you to protect your domain from expiring if you forget to renew with Domain Expiration Protection for only $1.95 per month.

For more info – click here.

Dotster

Dotster offers a range of innovative solutions to individuals and businesses designed to enhance online brand management. Because of their commitment to customer success, Dotster is one of the world’s largest domain name registrars. They serve millions of customers worldwide and have millions of domains under management. From its inception, Dotster was designed to deliver high quality products and services including domain registration, web hosting and do-it-yourself website builders, email, custom web design, online marketing services, security and privacy solutions.

In general Dotster offers domain registration services similar to those of GoDaddy.com described above, but with some significant differences. Dotster offers all general top-level domains (TLDs), many country-code extensions (ccTLDs) and third-level domains. When you register a domain at Dotster, you have the option of adding additional services such as email and URL Forwarding, NameSafe and DNS Management or purchase a Domain tools Bundle and save 10%. Dotster also offers such services as domain renewals and transfer, private registrations and domain sync which allows you synchronize your .com and .net domain renewals to the anniversary date of your choosing.

As GoDaddy.com, Dotster offers different hosting plans and solutions on Windows and Linux platforms, instant website and blog hosting. You can build your website using one of Dotster’s hosting plans on Windows platform: Basic, Deluxe and Ultra, with a $6.75, $9.45 and $17.95 per month fee respectively. Prices for the same Dotster’s hosting plans on Linux platform are little bit lower: $5.75, $8.75 and $15.99 per month. Dotster also offers a VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting services which provide you with the speed and flexibility of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost.

Dotser is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and one of their primary initiatives is to purchase renewable energy credits equal to 150% of their hosting server power consumption. This means that by hosting your website with Dotser, you’re supporting renewable energy programs. Dotster.com purchase a tree from Trees for the Future program for every new Dotster web hosting customer. Dotster hosting customers can add Eco-friendly hosting badges to their websites to promote that they are powered by renewable energy.

For more info – click here.