It is difficult, sometimes, to convince a client that their website is actually performing quite well. Clients expectations, sometimes, far exceed their websites ability to perform. Google Analytics offers an industry leading statistics engine for website owners and developers to track and trend website performance.

Using Analytics to better understand how visitors behave, we can determine how they are finding a website, what search engines are people using and what keywords visitors use when searching. We can also review bounce rates and the number of pages viewed by a visitor.

The one thing we could not do in the past was demonstrate to the client that their websites performance is good, or bad, based on benchmarking. It was nearly impossible to demonstrate that other websites of similar size and nature perform better or worse than the clients website.

Google has “stepped up” and changed this by introducing “Benchmarking”. As users of Google Analytics, we have been given the choice to share the statistical data gathered from our websites. In return, Google has made the “Benchmarking” data available back to us.

Google states that there will be a minimum of 100 accounts compared in any given category. Some categories could potentially have thousands of sites being benchmarked.

The data from participating sites is averaged and anonymized through the aggregation process, then classified into a category. We limit the effects of outlier sites from the aggregate data in each category to help ensure that the benchmarking data is most representative of the industry vertical you choose to compare your site against.

Google Analytics Benchmarking Help

Google exposes vertical categories when there are enough websites that fall into the category. If a category for your vertical market is not showing, it is likely because there is not enough data to create a direct benchmark. You will still be able to benchmark websites of a similar size.Google Analytics benchmarking currently allows us to show a comparison for the following metrix;

• Visits – unique visitors to the website. Not hits… hits don’t mean anything.
• Bounce Rate – did they pop in and out again…
• Pageviews – total number of pages viewed during the reporting period.
• Avg. Time on Site – how long did the “stick”.
• Pages/Visit – how many pages a visitor viewed for this visit.
• New Visits vs. Returning Visitors

We currently add analytics to all of our accounts where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Online Marketing services are involved. If you are a website owner and would like to have Google Analytics installed on your website, please feel free to contact us and we would be glad to help you.

Understanding how your website is performing in relationship to search, online marketing and in comparison to your vertical markets is critically important. If you have a website and are not measuring it’s success, you may be missing an opportunity to improve.

Getting visitors is okay – Getting customers better!(tm)

Regards,

David A. West
eKzact is a leading Calgary Website Design company.

I read about “off line” or “disconnected” web applications some time ago. We are now starting to see these off line applications come into production use. Google has recently added the ability to use their popular “Google Docs” applications off line.

The Google Docs applications include a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application. Up until this point, Google Docs has been an on line only application. While the apps are extremely useful and easy to use, the limitation of only being able to work while on line was at time difficult. The limitation of only being able to show a presentation, for example, while connected to the Internet was one of the biggest limitations that I found.

The advent of the ability to synchronize a local copy of the Google apps and my actual files to my local laptop has removed the limitations. I can now work on a presentation or document on line, and in full collaboration with my peers, and then take my laptop off line (say flying to Vancouver) and continue to work on my presentation. When I arrive in Vancouver and setup to speak at the convention center, I can run the off line version of my presentation during my lecture!

If you haven’t tried Google Docs, you can easily create a free Google account and give them a try. If you are looking for an enterprise solution to email, document collaboration and calendaring, then you should consider Google Apps for your business. We have helped several small business clients in recent weeks to take full advantage of Google Apps in their business. Our own company, eKzact Solutions, has been using Google Apps for nearly 5 months now. We have grown to love the Shared Calendaring, Gmail Interface and the Apps for document collaboration.

One really nice feature of Google Apps is that we get all of the upgrades Google staffers enjoy! No fees for upgrades, and no fear of end of life. Google uses their own applications to support their own business and their 10,000+ employees around the world.

If you would like to learn more about integrating Google Apps into your business, please drop us a note here.

Cheers,

David West

Several months ago we found a web service called Picnik. As calgary web developers who deliver “content management systems” to our clients, it was important to teach the client how to manipulate thier content images prior to placing them on their websites.

Before Picnik came along, the only option was to try to teach the clients how to use desktop software to crop and resize their images. These were the most common functions that the client needs to know. Most of the commonly needed funcitons that Picnik offers are FREE!

For an optional, and nominal, fee of $24.95 per year you can unlock the more advances features, fonts and techniques available to premium subscribers. It is well worth every penny. The team that developed, and continues to develop Picnik, deserve our support!

With the advent of Picnik, now it’s really fun teaching clients to use the web-based application! If you have a content managed website, blog or if you use facebook or any web based social network… you should give Picnik a try! (link is further down the page…)

Direct Quote From Picnik;

• Fix your photos in just one click
• Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
• Crop, resize, and rotate in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
• Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
• Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
• Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
• No download required, nothing to install

So, here it is… the link you have been waiting for!

Visit PICNIK.com Today!

Here are some screen shots of Picnik in action… all resized and edited in Picnik!

After developing websites and web-based applications for the greater part of the past decade, I have distilled the process down to four potential hurdles. The hurdles, or milestones, of web development are often the points where a project will stall. After all, if you can’t get over a hurdle, you can’t make it to the finish line.

The four hurdles;

1) Planning
2) Design
3) Content
4) Finish Line

The Planning Hurdle

Planning your web development project is a hurdle that is often skipped. Many prospective website clients rely on the web developer to tell them what they need. If you skip the planning phase of your project and leave the project deliverables up to the developer, it may become hard to overcome the last hurdle, which is the “Finish Line”. After all, if the project is not carefully planned from the begining, how will you or your developer ever know that it is finished?

Take the time to review your competition online. Make notes and prepare an outline for your website. If all you need is a marketing website, at minimum, define what pages you want and what the key message is for each of the pages. A content outline will be very helpful when you attempt to take you project over the “Content” hurdle.

The Design Hurdle

Your website design team will be tasked with creating the “look and feel” or theme for you new website. The more information that you can provide your creative team, at the begining of your project, the better the result will be. We have a carefully developed process that is intended to capture the essence of our clients design needs, at the start of their project. The design creative is a document that is refined until it finally goes to the designers, who use the creative briefing as a guide to reference when creating a new website theme.

Projects go sideways at the “Design” hurdle if the client is not prepared to speak to their business both from a technical as well as a social prospective. Research, by the client and the designer, prior to the start of the design project can greatly assist getting past this hurdle. One key here is the word “before”… Do the research before the designer starts. Don’t start doing research after your designer starts to design. The injection of new ideas after the initial design is started can stall the project.

The actual design and revisioning process for a website can often take a fair amount of time and is 100% dependant on the client being able to review a design and communicate clear feedback to the designer. It is crital that the client not confuse the “content” shown on early designs as “written in stone”. Early design reviews should concentrate on the theme, general colours, fonts, font sizes – the “look and feel” of the site. Don’t worry about the words on navigation points or titles early in the design process.

One point of stall, when it comes to the design hurdle, is the client who can not be designed for. Some clients, but fortunately very rarely, can not be designed for. They, simply put, will never be happy with a design concept for their business.

I have recently written another entry in this blog titled “Planning to Buy a Website?”. Please review it, as I speak in more detail regarding planning for your new website. It may help a prospective client to overcome both the “Planning” and the “Design” hurdles.

The Content Hurdle

A website is just a pretty picture, if there is no writing on it. The majority of small business clients make the choice to write their own website content, at the start of their project. Hiring a professional writer to develop content for your website can be expensive (but it doesn’t have to be), so the choice to write content yourself is often a safe choice, in terms of keeping a project on budget. Unfortunately, writing, even just five pages, is apparently much more difficult than some entrepreneurs anticipate.

Many projects will flail to a stall when we call the client to provide the content for their new website. Some clients actually disappear. The fact is, a lot of small business owners find that writing is much harder than they originally thought. Others are simply too busy to spend the time necessary for drafting their content.

When you start your website project, please know that there are options when it comes to the written content for your website. You certainly can write your own content. Start right away, write a little bit at a time and keep chipping away at it until you are done. Ask a peer to review your writing. Or, if you don’t want to pay for professional writing you can substantially reduce the cost of a professional writer if you provide the writer with a full outline of your proposed content. The writer then acts more like an editor and can usually refine your thoughts and ideas into very professional copy. The reduced time required can save you money and the results can be quite good. The other option is to consider the true value that hiring a professional writer can bring to your project, and just do it.

I am not going to labour on about the importance of the text content on your website in this article. I will just say it once… a website without quality content will not surface on search engine results.

The Finish Line

The final hurdle to overcome is the “Finish Line” hurdle. Your new website has to go live on the internet. Some clients feel as though once their website is online there is no turning back. Once your site is live, it is not frozen in time like an oil painting. Unlike printed advertising, a website is easy to update and change. This is especially true of a website that is developed using a content management system that allows the client to make changes without the input of their webmaster.

When a website production is 98% completed, with only minor formatting to refine, set it live. A reputable web developer will allow you time to make final revisions and content updates for a period of time after a new site is launched, usually without additional fees. eKzact actually provides clients with a warrently for the post-production period of new websites. We continue to work closely with the clients to fix any content formatting or scripting issues for this “warrently period” to ensure that the client is completely satisfied with their new website.

Don’t stall getting your new website live, over minor issues. Get it live, get it working for you, and then work through the final revisions. Don’t miss opportunities by not getting your site live. This post-production grace period, that our client get, is also a great opportunity to get other people to review your new website and include some of their observations into your final revision task.

Only a Team Can Overcome These Hurdles

There are some key ingredients that every successful website design and development project requires. Two ingredients are critical, and if either one of them is missing, your project will most assuradely stall on one of the four hurdles noted above.

The two main ingredinets are a “professional developer” and “the clients participation” in the project. Without a doubt, a project where either of these two stakeholders loses interest, will not make it to the “Finish Line”.

Preparation is key to receiving useful proposals from web developers. Not only will a bit of preparation help you get more detailed propsals, but it is more likely that you will be able to compare the pricing – apples to apples.

A great number of prospective website design clients do very little preparation prior to calling web designers. They tend to search online for a web designer and then start down the list. Some call, others fill out the request for proposal “form” that is commonly found on web designers websites. The website developer will control the interview, or the form will drive the questions. There will be no consistency, conversations will go in different directions, forms are all unique – proposals and pricing will come back to the prospective client as varied as the colours in a rainbow. One of our prospective clients, last year, received three proposals for their new website, prior to choosing eKzact. The client later confided in me that the pricing ranged from $3,500 up to $10,000.00. Presumably these prices were all for the same website.

A lot of small business owners decide to research getting a website, but it seems that the first place a lot of them begin their research is at the top ranking website design company websites. While this may seem a logical place to begin, I would recommend that you begin by developing a simple specification for your website. Do a basic “needs” analysis.

Research Your Competitors

I would strongly suggest that you open a web-browser, go to Google.com and search for your competition. Look for other businesses that are online, and doing what you do. Start a list of “competative websites” for analysis by your prospective web developer. Beside the website address, make note of the following;

• What you like about the site (best practices)
• Are there any components on the site that will help you generate leads for your business?
• Are there any forms on the website that your business should have on it’s website?
• Speak to the general design of the competitors website design (look and feel)… do you like it or not? What do you like?

Do the search again mixing in demographic words like City or Province names. This will return more business websites in your industry, but not necessarily in your immediate area.

The more websites you look at, related to your industry, the better you will be prepared to tell your prospective web designer what your business needs are. A skilled web developer will do some of this research for you, but it is still recommended that you make the effort before starting your project.

Research Websites “in General”

Do another search on Google.com now… use the keywords “nicely designed business websites”, or something similar. Google will return a “result set” of websites for you to surf. I recommend that you look at lots of websites

Make more notes. This time, you are looking at the general website layouts, colour themes and textures. Try to find example websites that have a “look and feel” that appeals to your business sense. Keep in mind that you are developing a website for your business – not for yourself.

Who Is Your Target Visitor?

A business website should appeal to the prospective website visitor – not the business owner. Make note of who your typical client is and what “environment” will appeal to them. For example, if you are developing a website to attract new apprentices into an Iron Workers local, then it is not likely that rosey pinks and reds will appeal to the visitors.

Make notes about the types of images that will help to communicate to your website visitors. Visit a website like Dreamstime and search for images realated to your business and list the image serial numbers as examples for your designer. Don’t buy the images, just use the reference number.

Generation of Leads

Once the visitor arrives at your website, what do you need them to do? Is it important to you that people phone you when they come to your website? Do you want them to complete a survey and then receive a free report about your industry? Do you want the visitor to register? Reqest a proposal?

This is a critially important area for your new website. There is a multitiude of opportunities for a website to become a lead generating tool for your business. A professional website developer will have a lot of different ideas for lead generation – but come prepared with some ideas.

Conclusion

Most professional web development companies will have some strong recommendatios for you. We have the advantage of having designed and developed several websites every months. The more you prepare, prior to asking a web developer for pricing, the better the resulting proposals will be.

A company like eKzact has a full compliment of Internet Consultants, project managers, web designers, programmers, search engine optimizers and online marketers. Visit our business website here…

Here are 15 questions that a prospective website client should consider when shopping for a website developer.

1. Do you have a service guarantee? What can I expect from you with regard to service levels?

A quick search on Google for the keywords “Calgary website designers” returns a result.

A quick search for the term quarantee, or service guarantee on the home pages of the top natural search results shows that no-one talks about guaranteed service levels.

2. Will I have access to my website statistics, and can you help me to understand them?

So many of our new clients don’t even know about website statistics. Evey web server tracks visitors to a website. Most website hosting companys provide statistical reports through an online link. You need to review your logs and make you online marketing “measureable”.

3. What process do you use to guarantee me that I will not receive an invoice that I am not expecting?

Several times over the past years, prospective clients have commented to me that their previous web designer “nickle & dimes” me to death with little bills. We made an effort to ensure that this doesn’t happen, by implimenting a process. It is important, as a client, that you understand that you have to pay for services from you website designer. The onus is on your web developer to ensure you know how much your request will cost.

4. Do you answer your phones or do you use a conveluted interactive voice system that will cause my heart to pound?

If I have to call Rogers Cellular service (my soon to be previous cell phone provider) one more time, I am going to spit nails. 50% of the time, that I phone them, my call is dropped. Some of the time I get through to a person, and some of the time, the department that I need is closed.

Trying to get ahold of one of our clients recently – they had an IVR, dial 1 for this, dial 2 for that… I tried 5 different phones and evey one of them was unrecognized (the tone) for this system. I could simply not get through to the person. I finally email him and asked him to call me.

I will never use an IVR for our customer support lines.

5. How many designers do you employ? Will my project include the creative talents of more than one person?

The depth of your web designers resources can impact the quality of the results.

6. What is your refund policy? Do you have policies?

A good question. Find out what will happen if you decide to end your project. A number of website projects fail to get completed for any number of reasons, including business closures, inability to produce content, or a change in business plans.

7. Do you ask clients to sign a contract, before begining a project?

I believe that the more clearly documented a project and service level expectations are, the better the project will proceed. All website development projects should be documented in an agreement.

8. How will you bill us for our new website project?

ie: deposit, any progress billings, when is final due?

9. Will I own my website when it is complete?

Here is an article that I wrote, some time ago, called “Do you really own your website? Maybe not.”

10. Can I have a CD with a backup of my website when it is completed.

11. Will my website be developed using industry standard codes and databases, so that in the future, should I choose to change service providers, there won’t be any issues?

As a prospective client you don’t have to be technical. No acronyms here please… just make sure that the code-base your site is developed with. is widely used and that the code is not encrypted. You need to be able to move-forward if you web devleoper does not.

12. When you lose a client, are you graceful, or do you hinder their ability to move forward? Tell me about the last client you lost.

Hmm. Wonder what kind of response this question will drive. We have transitioned several website owners from their previous website developers to our company. It is not always graceful and professional. Some developers make it very difficult. On the same note, not all clients who leave their website developer have left on good terms. In some cases they have treated the developer poorly, been rude or in the worse case – not paid their outstanding debt. Graceful works only when both parties are capable of being professional.

13. Does your business have a continuity plan, so that if “you” get hit by a bus…

14. Do you have designers, programmers and marketers on staff?

Designers are designers, programmers are programmers and online marketing is online marketing. Very few designer are programmers… very few programmers are designers and so on. The depth of talent that your website company can provide is important to acheiving goals for your online business.

15. Will my website be search engine friendly if I allow your team to design for me?

I still see a lot of websites that are being deployed that are over designed, under developed and using techniques that are not condusive to easy indexing by search engines. While the importance of search engines may not be apparent to you as you start your first website project – trust me, when you website starts to generate new business leads… you will thank your website developer for making your site work for the search engines.