I provide lots of links to other websites .
How do I measure which of those links you click on?

Google Analytics makes it simple to measure the clicks to links within your own site. But Google Analytics also provides a way for you to track clicks on links that lead to to other websites, away from your website.

It is useful to see where people go when they leave your site; indeed there are websites making a good living by charging companies to send clicks their way. This is a free way to count those outbound clicks.

Take a look at this helpful article describing outbound link tracking using Google Analytics

In brief, all you need to do is add a bit of additional tracking code (highlighted in red) to your links

<a href=”http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=74983″ onClick=”javascript:urchinTracker(’/outgoing/tracking_article’);“>

The word onClick means just that: if somebody clicks on this link, Analytics starts counting.

Use of the /outgoing folder will put all the reporting of outbound links neatly together in a separate folder.

And I have used the phrase tracking_article which will appear in my Analytics reports so I know which exact Google page I was linking to (in case I forget what answer 74983 was!)

I’m going to experiment with Analytics Talks script to automate the creation of the outbound tracking URLs.

And of course for you WordPress readers, you simply need to install the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin to keep track of all those outbound links.

The outbound clicks will appear in my Top Content report.

How do you pay for stuff on the Internet?

PayPal is a household name that most of us will have used, but how familiar are you with Google Checkout?

Hitwise report that Google’s payment service overtook PayPal in the UK this Christmas as an alternative payment provider.

As you might expect, the majority of PayPal’s purchases are coming from the eBay platform. On the other hand, independent retailers and companies like Dabs and Vodafone are offering Google Checkout as a payment option.

Google Checkout have just published a useful newsletter providing an update on the latest service offerings.

Another alternative payment offering that is getting alot of traction in the USA is BillMeLater, a deferred payment provider that doesn’t require a credit card.

Amazon are reported as having invested in BillMeLater, along with the likes of Walmart, Reebock, and Toys R Us.

Just enter your date of birth and the last four digits of your Social Security number, and a bill will get posted to you with special payment offered by the retailer such as terms like “no payments for six months.”

You can be sure the service will hit our shores soon.

Google Calculator is a hidden feature in Google Search. You can type in all kinds of mathematical questions, or questions that give a mathematical-ish answer:

Try multiplying Roman Numerals like VII*X

Or doing conversions like 200 pounds in stone

Or calculations like how many seconds in year

There are other questions you can ask, like

What time is it in Philadelphia?

You should also take a look at my blog posting how American Google is still different from UK Google.

But my favourites are the off-the-wall questions, like “how often is once in a blue moon?” Apparently, it is thus:

There are unscrupulous search engine optimisation companies out there, and you must recognise their behaviour, and avoid them.

One tactic that is still going strong is selling a link building service that comprises sending out bulk spam link requests. It’s bad practice, but lots of small businesses are still falling for the con.

Here’s an example of what one looks like:

Why are spamming link building services like this likely to do more harm then good?

• they are using software that scans through the web, scraping up random email addresses to generate link requests. Fundamentally you are paying the SEO to generate email spam that harm’s your company’s good reputation
• you are actually paying them your hard earned cash to get utterly irrelevant websites to link to your site
• they are probably getting links from sites that are never going to generate a single click or enquiry to your site
• they are getting links on “Links” pages that have dozens or even hundreds of other random company links
• and you are certainly going to do more good linking to them then you are ever going to get in the link back

And my personal view of the particular company selling this service?

The SEO company sending the spam mail has a website Google Page rank of big fat zero.

They are hiding behind a post office box address and an 0845 number.

The SEO company has been reported as a spammer by Scamdex an email scam, fraud and phishing resource

And other people are complaining about the SEO company’s idiotic link building activities

So, if you are considering using one of these services be sure to check the SEO company’s reputation, and the kind of practices they use.

And don’t ever reply to any of these link reciprocating requests!

Professionally designed websites are a must for small businesses, but there are times when a simple, quick, and free little website would do the trick.

Read on for my review of free web creation tools…

It may be that you need you want to create a site for a new product, a new service, you want to optimise for a particular key phrase, or perhaps you want to dabble with affiliate marketing. These little websites are called microsites.

I’ve done a bit of an experiment with the free web building tools to see just how effective they are. And my definition of “free” is more accurately called “cheap” – because I want to have my own domain name attached to the website, if possible, so there will be some costs involved.

The Clear Winner: WordPress

WordPress is free web building software that also allows you to create standard web pages, although it is best known as blogging software.

In the matter of 4 hours and spending a grand total of £22.78 I built the new website Susan Hallam.

I’m not sure how you factor in the cost of my 25 years experience, but I’m discounting that for the moment.

I’m using the site to discuss this experiment, so read about my free web design experiences here.

WordPress ticked all the boxes I required:

• Search engine friendliness
• Easy to use
• Free design templates
• Extra functionality like contact forms
• Web statistics to measure if it is working or not
• Flexibility in terms of content and layout
• My own domain name
• Doesn’t look “free”
• Help when I need it

The Losers

My first loser is BT TradeSpace. It fails for most of my criteria:

• it is clearly branded BT Tradespace, and looks like a freebie website
• no use of my own domain name
• very restrictive design limitations
• very limited page content
• it doesn’t look very search engine friendly

My second loser is Google Page Creator. This is a free service offered to folk with a GoogleMail account. Again, I found the same limitations as BT TradeSpace as a web design tool in terms of limitation of design and content and use of domain names.

One particular strength of Google Page Creator, however, is the ability to design your pages and then upload them to the free 100MB of hosting space. If you’re looking for a place to store stuff on the web, then this might be useful to you.

Next week I’ll be evaluating two more services: Microsoft Office Live
and Yahoo Site Builder

If you want me to try out any other free services, then just let me know.

The New Year is a great time to review the performance of your website.

In terms of visitors, I must confess my posting about the John and Anne absconding to Panama had an extraordinary response, with more than 2,500 people reading it in the first 24 hour period. It shows the value of writing topical postings!

I’m evaluating the response to my blog articles in order to guide what I write next year. There are a number of different measures that I am considering:

• the number of times the blog posting was read by unique visitors
• the number of times the blog posting was a landing page meaning it was the first page people saw, for example from a Google search
• the response to my email newsletters

But in terms of my Internet marketing content, my most frequently read postings in 2007 were:

1. Analysis of the differences between American Google and UK Google
2. Google Analytics versus Web Trends for web statistics
3. Google Checkout’s free credit card processing service
4. Free Web Tools
5. Writing for the web: readability tests (2006)

It was quite a different story if I look at the click through rate from readers of my email newsletter. Keep in mind these results will be skewed so that my recent articles will have higher click through rates because the number of subscribers grow month on month. The most popular postings for the newsletter subscribers were:

1. How to search engine optimise your PDFs
2. The importance of Meta Tags
3. Spammy Google Adword Advertising
4. My recommendation for the Best Internet Marketing book
5. A great keyword research tool

And finally, there are some older postings that reliably drive traffic to the site:

• Doodle for Google (2006)
• Internet Usage in the UK (2006)
• Networking via the mains (2006)
• The Google F Word (2005)
• Ten Top Blogging Mistakes (2005)

Tourism plays a huge part in the East Midlands economy, and even Mister Luddite knows tourists use the Internet to research and book their holiday arrangements.

Everybody loves tourists (or more accurately the pounds in their pockets), and that’s why each of the 5 counties in the East Midlands have official tourism websites.

So you would have thought our counties would try and take pride in what makes our counties special, show off a bit, take the chance to strut our stuff.

But you would be wrong. Dreadfully wrong. One particular county’s tourism website is pants. That’s Olde English vernacular for “they put us to shame.”

I’ll be the one to mention the Emperor’s New Clothes. These sites are just not good enough. They lack enthusiasm or passion or spirit.

The real question is: would you want to visit our region based on their websites? At the end of this posting I’ve listed some good examples that you might want to take a look at.

I’m so cross about this I am recommending that you write to your MP to get these sites up to the standard that our region deserves. (I’d write, but I’m disenfranchised, and that’s another story…)

The Worst: Nottinghamshire

Unspeakably awful colours and design. Cluttered, cramped, and confusing. Deadly boring, frustrating to use. I went to the Arts calendar, only to discover Nothing is On. Nor are there any Sports events. It is quite simply a mess, and this is without a doubt one of the worst websites I’ve looked at in a very long time. And I’ve not even mentioned the slanty N. Click on the image to visit the site:

The Best: Lincolnshire

I was pleasantly surprised with Lincolnshire’s site. The imagery was appealing, and it talked about Castles, and Film Locations, free horse riding lessons and other fun stuff. Lincolnshire actually looks interesting

And All the Rest: Northamptonshire

Nice touch to be able to send local e-postcards. But somehow the site made even the Silverstone and all the wonderful Stately Homes look boring. Some change has taken place with domain names that makes people like my mother worried. It’s just not right.

Leicestershire

This website doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. It all a bit overwhelming with so very many inappropriate menu choices: Investment opportunities, conference facilities, the tourism industry, and something mysteriously called LPL. And it flashes, yuck.

Last but not least: Derbyshire

Derbyshire do a very good job – interesting content, online booking. But the site doesn’t really convey the essence and beauty of Derbyshire – again, a missed opportunity.

I have to admit I’m biased, and I know California would be a predictable website to recommend as best practice, but the site is great.

But even lesser-known tourist destinations like Minnesota , Oregon, Tennessee or South Dakota have an enthusiasm and spirit lacking in all of our East Midlands sites.

I am teaching two new courses which may be of interest:

Pay Per Click (PPC) for Property Developers
How to spend less money on Google Adwords advertising, and get better results. Find out how landlords, BMV buyers and sellers, and property investors make more money by using successful Pay Per Click advertising on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Learn How to Optimise Your Website
A one day Intermediate level course showing you how to improve your website rankings in the search engines. 22 February. Loughborough Innovation Centre, just 2 miles from the M1.