Having an awesome website is great. But you can’t effectively monitor and track who are visiting it without an analytics package. Website analytics solutions are essential to assessing your online performance over time. There are a lot of options out there, but here are just a few that you should consider:

AWStats

AWStats comes pre-installed by a lot of web hosts. It can be downloaded for personal use, which is useful if you are setting up your own server. This solution burrows a bit deeper than other options, with unique features like monitoring whether people are hot-linking files from your site.

Google Analytics

The go-to option of many websites is Google Analytics. It’s free, powerful, and has a ton of features to take advantage of. Google Analytics makes seeing who is visiting your site a breeze with a ton of graphs and visuals of traffic. One of the most popular and robust options on the face of the planet, you can’t go wrong with this solution.

Compete

Compete is best known for showing the estimated amount of visitors the top websites receive. This package helps provide creative intelligence by showing how your visitors got to your website by tracking clicks before and after viewing your site. Compete has varying prices, but is definitely a tool worth checking out if you are serious about competitive intelligence.

Website usability is all about ensuring site users can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. There are a variety of factors that play a role in maximizing site usability. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

Easy and intuitive navigation

In order to maximize usability, it is important to make sure that your navigation is intuitive. Common conventions are organizing your navigation tabs at the header and footer of every site, with main sections highlighted in the nav bar. Also, try to keep your navigation system pretty simple. People visiting your site should be able to reach important information and areas quickly, without having to dig through multiple menus.

Ensure there are no broken links or image errors

If your website uses a lot of graphics to explain concepts then you have to make sure that all the images display correctly. Nothing is more bothersome to a user than clicking on a page and finding that none of the information loads properly. The same goes for making sure all hyperlinks and forms are working properly. The point of usability is to minimize user headaches, not increase them.

Pages must download quickly

People get tired of waiting. That’s a fact. Having long page loads will drive traffic away from your site and undermine its usability.

Easy information retrieval

Most people scan web pages these days. They don’t read everything word for word. Your website needs to make the important information pop out. Use headings, link text, bold text, and bulleted lists to make important information easy to see and understand.

The small business world is an exciting one. There are tons of directions you can take your marketing, you have the flexibility to do so, but not necessarily the funds. Blogging is an excellent cost-effective marketing tool that is becoming more and more popular. This marketing approach allows you to generate dynamic content to share with your audience that helps build traffic to your website. If you think the idea of blogging appears daunting, fear not! It is very easy to do, and there are plenty of tips and tricks out there to help you along the way. Here are a few:

Create a realistic, manageable schedule

Blogging is only as time consuming as you make it out to be. If you don’t have the time to blog much, try and create one article a week. It should only take a few hours to research and write. The time needed for this will also drop the more you blog as you get it down to a science. You should never force yourself to blog when it comes at the expense of something that is potentially more profitable for your company. Also, realize that building a following by blogging does take time, so by creating an article a week you will help lay the groundwork for more exposure in the future. People will be impressed by the depth of your content database, as well as your dedication to blogging. A good schedule will help to keep your business top of mind among consumers, and put you at the forefront of options when they are ready to buy.

Create and keep an idea file

There are many excuses thrown out there as to why it’s hard to blog. One of the more common ones is that ‘there isn’t enough to write about.’ A great way around this is to keep an idea file, where you place article ideas every time one comes to mind. You can also try researching trends or best practices in your target industry since other people will probably have already written about them. Compiling a list of ideas and sources to pull writing inspiration from will help smooth out the learning curve.

Make it shareable

The entire point of blogs is to get people to share your content. Putting social media links to share articles is an absolute must. Promote your articles on your social media accounts as well to maximize exposure. If you give people the option of sharing content they will do so. Email campaigns for users who subscribe to your blog are also great for keeping your company top of mind.

An enterprise website is one of the most important pieces of any company’s marketing strategy. It’s important to invest enough time and money into your website to make sure it’s implemented well. There are five areas you should focus on to make sure your website design is executed properly.  Check them out:

Focus on the fundamentals.

What are the fundamentals? There are a lot of answers out there, but for us it’s delivering a clear message throughout the website. Your message needs to be clear and consistent across content, navigation, visuals etc.

Make sure you can appeal to multiple audiences.

As an enterprise you will have a variety of different audiences looking at your site. You need to make sure your website can cater to every potential customer/partner type. Keep your website’s overall feel in line with what your target segment is looking for. Ensure that your approach can appeal to a wider audience. Don't focus on a small niche that doesn’t reflect your entire customer base. One good way of doing this is by using different tabs for your different audiences. For instance, on our Fast Track website we have small business, designers, and enterprise tabs.

Utilize advanced design solutions.

Your website design needs to be able to seamlessly bring together the different components of an enterprise website. You need to ensure your e-commerce storefront, database/content management systems, and other systems synergize with each other.  A clean, unique, and consistent approach that adeptly reflects your brand is important. Also, keep up with the latest advancements and trends in enterprise design approaches. For instance, if your website isn’t responsively designed yet, by all means invest in that!

Focus on maximizing search engine visibility.

Search engines are king on the Internet today. Every enterprise website design needs to be built search engine friendly. Organic search is one of the best ways to get your company in front of your target audience. Invest early in a search engine friendly design to eliminate headaches down the road.

Treat your website like a showcase.

Think of your website as a showcase for all the great things your enterprise provides. Focus on how to bring your value proposition and products to life. Doing this will help to create a website that is vibrant, dynamic, and a sales asset for your company.

Social media is one of the most powerful marketing platforms today for any brand. As a retailer, you need to leverage social media channels to generate buzz, and increase brand awareness. So how do you go about doing that?

Get active on every social media channel that your target market is active on.

The first step is to know who your target market is. Once you know that you can easily figure out what channels you need to be active on. Are you a small restaurant? Go where the foodies are. Instagram, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter etc. This goes the same for any business. Being active where your target consumers are means you will quickly gain brand exposure. Also, STAY active. Post daily on channels like Twitter or bi-weekly on Facebook. You need to keep your brand top of mind among consumers.

Create a unique online brand persona.

As a retailer, you have a unique advantage over B2B companies by appealing directly to consumers. You can employ much more creative social media strategies since you don’t have to be as strictly professional as B2B marketers. Creating a unique brand persona is critical. What do your customers like? Are they snarky? Then by all means create a snarky persona. Some of the top performing brands have great personalities like Old Spice and Taco Bell. Again, knowing your target customers’ profile is critical to finding which brand persona will work for you.

Encourage brand engagement with a word of mouth strategy.

One of the best ways to market your retail brand online is to use a word of mouth strategy. Social media is all about posting things that go viral. Strategies like offering special deals if you Like/Re-tweet/Share/ brand posts are great at generating buzz. Also, be sure to not just promote selling your products. You can also post other types of engaging content like humorous musings, or pictures/videos of your offerings. As long as your content relates to your customers they will share it. Mix it up, don’t spam your followers, and you will be in great shape.