Designing the website navigation is the fundamental step to building your website. Getting it right is essential for your website’s success as it will determine whether your site creates confusion or appears as a well-organized and well-framed design that takes your customers exactly where they want to go. It not only helps the customers get around the website but, helps you as the website developer displays the most important information on your site. Navigation is the doorway that guides customers through the content of the website.

A good website navigation design helps the user to easily surf and go through the website, leading to better interest generation and conversion. So, your ability to lay a good foundation for the website will determine to a great degree the success you will generate. Here are some rules to take into account for an effective navigation system.

1. PLAN THE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE (IA) FIRST

You need to develop the content for the website before engaging with the design layout for navigating the site. The usability of the website depends on your ability to have an overview of the content and at the same time be able to understand and manipulate it. The design must be approached keeping in mind the users’ perspective and their ability to relate to the content rather than the creator’s vision.

What you need to consider are the pages that can be created so that content can be divided into paragraphs to form into sensible sub-headings or content tabs, making it relatable and functionally feasible for all types of users and allow for future addition to the

2. SIMPLICITY IS THE KEY TO NAVIGATION

Users want to access the information they want without much difficulty or without too much time consumption. Keeping the navigation simple will ensure that the usability of the website is not hampered.

Make sure that the navigation bar is visible and easy to spot, and not cluttered within the content. The navigation area itself should not be crowded, and users should be presented with minimum choices without it limiting their options. Organizing the content effectively is key to simplifying navigation which will be beneficial both for the customers and the owners of the website.

3. PICK THE RIGHT ORIENTATION

As the screen of a computer is generally in landscape format, it makes sense to orient your navigation horizontally to make for easier viewing. However, e-commerce websites, which have to list numerous articles, tend to go for vertical navigation. This is done to avoid cluttering that would have resulted if they picked the horizontal orientation.

This is rarely an important decision as most web designers will make your site fully responsive to all the different devices (laptop, phone, or pad) in common use today. Every Site Web Design Proof build works well on all platforms

4. USE SUB-HEADINGS AND TITLES THAT ARE OBVIOUS

It is important to list the navigation bar in a way so as to correctly lead the customer to the desired content on the website. The purpose of a tab or button should be indicative of the name or title of the tab. The use of ambiguous or misleading terms will misdirect customers, and this will imply the failure of the navigation system. The purpose of effective navigation design is to direct the customers to desired destinations that are relevant to the customers’ intention of visiting the website, to begin with.

Using general terms can lead to the term covering a broad area that is not conducive to the customer or site owner’s purpose or end. Hence, it is essential that terms denote correctly and precisely what content lies within them.

5. LESSER THE OPTIONS, THE MORE EFFECTIVE

The idea is not to confuse the website users but to make the experience the least chaotic. Keep the number of available options minimum but sufficient for the customers. The number of options available should be sufficient without overwhelming the users of the website. Keep the number of navigation menus at a minimum. Creating sub-sections within top-level buttons helps to break down the content into clearly defined sections. A top-down menu is the most popular option when it comes to breaking down the content of the website. A long list can prevent users from gaining access to the most important content of the site.

The aim of the website is to provide customers the maximum amount of information without causing confusion to them. Hence, the lesser the options, the more effective the website.

6. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT FOR A WEBSITE

It is important that the navigation design is consistent throughout the site. A user-friendly site is one in which content is laid out consistently to familiarize the format to the customer. The same color, font, type, and place of the navigation bar should be maintained throughout the site so as not to be frustrating for visitors who are likely to direct their searches to other websites. Navigation should be designed so as to give users an easy knowledge of how to move through the site without being bothered by familiarizing them with new designs with every passing page.

To keep the customers from shifting allegiance out of frustration, it is essential that they feel like they know the page well and can navigate it without any problem. Familiarity, in this case, does not breed contempt.

7. APPLY THE THREE-CLICK RULE AND MAKE THE USER AWARE OF THE PAGE THEY ARE AT

The three-click rule simply states that the users should be able to reach or access the information they seek within three clicks. And upon finding the required data, they should be aptly reminded and made aware of the information thus uncovered. The three-click rule minimizes the time and effort required to get access to the information desired. Minimum efforts but maximum results are the key philosophy of this rule. Otherwise, users might get frustrated.

In closing

The user, upon reaching the information must be made aware that what the user sought has been found. Highlight the section that they are in. It must also be ensured that a key to the main menu or home page is provided so that in one click, the user is able to go back to the main.

Hi, my name is Reno and welcome on LivingWithPixels Today we’re going to dive into Adobe Xd. So if you’re interested in learning Adobe Xd, you want to get into the world of web design, but you’ve never used the tool, and you know that this is the right tool to create websites, because it is then this video is for you We’re going to create This project, together, It’s a very simple header image for a travel website. It’S not really a complete website, but it’s just to show you the basics. It has a button over here. It has a shadow. In the background It has this cool font. I’M going to give you all the icons and the text and the fonts and the images that you’re seeing over here, so you can download them. So, let’s just get started with this project All right. So the first thing that you’re going to see if you open, Adobe Xd, is this screen.

I see my recent files over here because I’ve already created a lot of projects inside of Adobe Xd, But what you’re going to do? If you want to design a website, is you want to go into the custom size over here? This looks like a website, but it’s not the right size for a website design. What I suggest you do is always start with 1400 by 800. If you, then press Enter you’re going to get an art board. This is your artboard, and this is where we’re going to create the design. Now, let’s go over the basics, really quick, It’s a very simple tool compared to all the other Adobe tools. So if you’ve worked in another Adobe tool, this will not be that hard On the left over here. You have your selection tool. You have the rectangle the circle, the triangle. You have the line tool, the pen tool that you maybe know from Photoshop and, of course, the text tool.

Over here you have the design and a prototype feature For this video we’re going to just focus on creating the design, because we’re not going to make it too complicated And over here you have the controls. So if you click on a specific item, you can change the controls of that specific item over here. So that’s actually all you need to know You can zoom in with commands and then scroll on a Mac or on a Windows. I think it’s Alt, so just zoom or if you’re, on a MacBook or on a laptop. You can just use your fingers on your track pad to zoom in or you can use the tool over here to zoom in on a specific point on the canvas

Right now, I’m going to zoom out By the way you move around in your artboard by holding space. So if you hold space, you can move around your artboard, So you zoom in you press space and then you go back to your selection tool. So if you’re designing websites, you always have space on both sides, Because all websites have the content in the middle and then there’s white space on the left and on the right, And you want to prepare that And you’re going to prepare that with the grid option. So if you check this grid option you’re going to see a few settings over here, I’ve already set mine up, So you can just copy these numbers. You need two columns. You need 1140 in width. That’S the distance from here to here And over here you’re going to need 130 And if you’re going to use these numbers, you will have the perfect size for an average modern website. So this is my advice to start with all right, So just leave that click away all right. So now we’re going to import our first image.

And I have prepared all of the things that I need for this tutorial in this folder and you can download all of these files in the description. It’S just one link download it onto your computer unzip it, and then you will have the same files as me. So the first thing that I’m going to do is grab one of those images. I’Ve just grabbed those images off unsplash.com, That’s also a nice tip. If you want to get into web design. Unsplash.Com is a great website to get your images. If you need a photo of Amsterdam, for example, you’re just going to click on it And you can freely use these pictures, because these pictures are copyright-free.

So that is super nice. So I’ve prepared these two images So we’re going to go back to Adobe, Xd open the finder and you can just drag in an image from your folder or your Explorer and just drag it in here and then it’s very big. So I’m going to zoom out a little bit and I’m going to make it a lot smaller. You can just drag the corner over here and place it inside of your artboards. Just do it like this and then place it in the middle. You will see those blue lines which will help you align your image, all right, I’m going to zoom in for now.

And right now I want to lock this image, so I cannot move it anymore, and that is nice when you’re working with a lot of things on top of this image, So I’m going to right click and click on lock. You can also use command, L or Ctrl L on Windows and then we’re going to work with our first text. So we’re going to click on the text tool over here and you’re just going to click somewhere over here and we’re going to create a title. So, for example, I’m going to type Travel & Go that’s the logo or the company. So now we are inside of the text tool, I’m going to click again on the selection tool, And now I can change the settings of this title over here. You can easily make a title bigger and smaller by grabbing this little circle over here. That’S the easy way, but you can also just type in a number over here So, for example, 62 or another number. You can change the font or the typeface over here.

And I’ve also prepared two fonts over here that you can install on your own computer, which I’m using in this tutorial. So I would advise you that you can install these fonts before you’re going to move on. So you will have the same style as me, But of course you can also use your own fonts. It doesn’t really matter So now, I’m going to change this one to Montserrat and it’s a very modern font For this tutorial. I’M going to use the bulls version.

Maybe you only have the bulls version and that’s okay And now you’re going to see that it looks like this and to make it a little bit nicer, I’m going to change the spacing over here, And this is the space between the individual characters. So for now I’m going to type in -40 And now look at the text boom. Now it looks more like a logo instead of a text. So that’s all I’m going to do for now. I’M going to zoom out Make sure you’re on the selection tool, drag it over here, resize it to a little bit smaller, something like this and make the color white The colors. You can change them over here. So if you click on this color, you could just pick a color over here. So for now, I’m going to grab the white and I’ll just click outside of the artboards. All right.

And by the way, don’t worry about these blue lines. You can just uncheck them over here if you want to see the full result, But right now we’re using them to align all the objects. Okay, I have added this little triangle to make it look more like a logo, So I’m also going to show you how you can do that. So I’m going to go back to my design file and I’m going to click on the text and then I’m going to click on the rectangle. And now I’m going to drag a rectangle and you can do all kinds of shapes.

But I recommend that you use shift, so it will always be a perfect rectangle. So if you then release it somewhere around here At first release, your mouse click and then release the shift, I’m going to click on the selection tool uncheck the border. So we will not have a border And I’m going to give it a color that is somewhere something like this all right: Click back on the selection tool, zoom in a little bit and align it. Okay, I’m going to make it a little bit smaller And for this tutorial, I’m going to leave it like this. It’S not a perfect logo, but it’s something right. Okay, so now we are done with the logo and if you want to drag the logo to another place, then you need to select both of them.

So Adobe Xd has a group option, So what you can do is you can click on one of them hold shift and then click on the other item. So they are both selected and then press command, G or right, mouse click and then group, So command G is create a group. And now you can just drag the logo as one piece So right now. What we’re going to do is we’re going to create the bottom, So I’m going to go back to my design, I’m going to create this section over here And, as you can see, the seven over here has opacity because you can see the water through the character. So that’s a pretty cool effect. It’S also pretty easy to do So. I’M going to go back to my design file and I’m going to grab another text. Click over here, I’m going to type command zero, and now it will be remember that we were. We were still on montserrat,

So that is nice Click over here make this one a lot bigger or something like this, align it to the left And now we’re going to duplicate this one. If you press Alt and then you drag, you can make a duplicate of an item Now make this one smaller, align it to somewhere like this retype, so you double-click it and then you can type it. So I’m going to do something like this. Oh, of course not It’s it’s three out of seven and not seven out of three okay. So now I’ve changed the text. And now all I need to do is click on my seven and align it a little bit And if the mouse doesn’t work, you can also use your arrow tools on your keyboard to align it. The way you like Zoom out a little bit and now press five, And if you press five the opacity over here, will change. If you press seven, it will be 70 %. If you press two, it will it’ll be 20 %.

So now I’m going to press five and it will be 50 % And now you can look through the text over here. So that looks pretty cool already. So now we’re going to create the button over here, So we’re going to go back to my design file. I’M going to zoom in over here. First, I’m going to select the text tool, So click on the text tool Click over here and type, something like Sign up: Click on the selection tool and make this one 16 To make a button look nice. My advice is to always use 16 or 15 for the text size. Otherwise it will just look a little bit cheap or your button will be too big, So 16 or 15 is always a nice size. So now I’m going to click on the rectangle tool and I’m going to drag a rectangle just over the canvas. Something like this

And then release it uncheck the border. Now I want to get the same blue color as the triangle that we had created before And Adobe Xd has a new feature for this, So press space and just drag it and make sure that you can also see the triangle over here Now press I – and If you press, I you’re going to get this eyedropper tool, this color eyedropper tool, And if you click it, then it will select that exact same color. So this is pretty nice. You can also select something like this green, for example. If you want to match your button with the scene, that’s pretty nice, but for now I’m going to just select this blue over here zoom in again, And now I’m going to make this a rounded rectangle How you can do that is: go back to the selection Tool and easily just drag one of these in the corners and just drag it like this.

And, as you can see now it becomes a button. You can also do this by changing this number over here to maybe something like 100 and then it will also be rounded. So now I’m going to place this rectangle under my text, But if I’m going to do that, it will be above my text, And this is where you need the layers, because the layer of the text needs to be above the layer of the button background. So if you click over here, you can see a layer’s icon over here and you can see all of layers that we have created inside of this file. You can see your rectangle over here and the sign up text over here. The rectangle need to be below our sign up text, And now we can drag it up and align it properly, Zoom out a little bit to see if it works And the button, as you can see, is still way too small. So I’m going to grab one of the corners press Alt, so I can skill it on all of these sides and make it a little bit bigger.

Maybe even bigger To make it look really nice I’m going to zoom out – And this looks pretty good. So now I’m going to zoom in again click on the text hold shift and click on the background, So we have selected both of them and we’re going to group those again, so we can select the whole button and align it to the right Now. If you also want to align this button to the same height as this one, you can select both of them, So this group hold shift – and this group and now use this tool over here.

And this will then align both items on the same line And now we’re going to go to the social icons, because we also have some social icons over here, and these are super sharp, as you can see much sharper than the image. In the background, because these are vector icons And for vector icons in Adobe Xd, it’s best to use SVG files, So I’ve also included a few icons for you to try inside of the downloads In the social media, icons, folder, I’ve included a YouTube icon, Instagram and A few other platforms, So I’m going to go back to the exercise file, I’m going to zoom in click on the finder and select a few icons that you want to get For now. I just want to get Snapchat Instagram and YouTube. That will be enough. I’M going to drag them onto the canvas and I’m going to drag them actually outside of our artboards

So click over here, zoom out and now you’re, going to see that these icons are way too big. So, first of all, we’re going to align them properly, So just grab all of them and then click on this tool again, So they will be aligned at the same height Now. If one of those icons is too big, you can, of course also with shift resize them, But for now this is good. We want to make them right, So select all of them, and this is the nice thing about SVG icons. You can change the color inside of Adobe Xd, So make them white over here and click outside of it.

By the way, if you want to get icon files, you can use a website like flaticon.com And on a website like this, you can get icons a lot of them for free. As you can see, I’ve downloaded all of these icons for a client project and I can just use that on the website. So that’s pretty nice. So I’m going to go back to my Adobe Xd grab all of them and make them really small, So resize them. But don’t forget to press shift while you resize them, Make them really small zoom in drag them into your artboards zoom in again. Make sure that your right one is aligned like this, And now I want to have a lot more space between those items and Adobe. Also has a nice tool for this. So if you just drag one of those items to the left and you … By the way hold shift, so it will be just on one straight line And don’t forget to first release your mouse and then the shift And then, if you select all of them, So I’ve now selected only the YouTube one.

So I’m going to also select with shift the Instagram one and Snapchat one, And if I click on this icon, it’s going to give it the same space between those icons. So I’m going to click on it And, as you can see now it has the same. Spacing between all of those icons, I think this is a little bit too much.

So I’m going to make it a little bit less spacing something like this: I’m going to select all of them again click this icon again and now we are done all right So for now I’m going to just uncheck the grid option. For now, I’m going to close the layers and we forgot one thing, and that is the shadow on top over here, Because you can’t really see this logo very well. So if you go back to my final design, you can see that there’s a nice shadow over here, because let me turn it off.

You can see the difference. This is a super nice soft shadow. I will show you how to create that, So we’re going to go back, I’m going to grab the rectangle tool, make a big rectangle, something like this. First, let’s adjust some settings. Uncheck the border go to color click on solid color and click on linear gradients. Now what you want to do? The top one needs to be 100 % black and the bottom. One also needs to be black, but this one has to have 0 % opacity, Because if you do that, then it will create a gradient, and in this case it’s a …

And in this case this creates an upside-down shadow, So that is really nice. So now click on the selection tool again make sure you align it in the corner, Make it bigger like this, And now we need to move it to the back So open. The layers panel again and drag it under almost everything, So I’m going to place it right above the image And if I do this boom You’re going to see that logo will be on top and the button will be on top, and this is way too intense.

So what you want to do now is play with this opacity So, for example, make that 50 55 And now, if you release it click this one away. I actually think that these one are too big, So I’m going to select both of them and make that smaller, And now we have a pretty similar design to this one, and the only thing now we have to do is, of course insert this text, And this Text by the way has a very nice shadow. Let me turn it off, so you can see it. Then it starts floating a little bit. So I will also show you how to do that, and then we have the final design So again go to the text, tool and click over here and type in Travel Click. The selection tool again make it really big go to your folder and in the fonts folder, the font is called great wishes. So if you’ve already installed it, you can go to your Adobe, Xd and type in great wishes And, as you can see, we now have a super super nice font inside of our design.

If you want to align this one in the exact middle of your canvas, you can also use this one and this one And now it will be aligned in the middle. But now the text is in front of his face, So click on the background image. Again, It’s locked so we’re going to unlock that for a minute, Drag that one down and now lock it again And now that looks a lot better. Last thing that we need to do is click on the text and we’re going to add a shadow Zoom in so you can really see what you’re doing uncheck it, and this is a very subtle shadow, but we want to make it a lot. Bigger.

So I think I did something like 10 and maybe 30, And if you increase this one, the shadow will be lower And if you increase this one, the shadow will be more blurry, So zoom out a little bit and we can almost not see it. It’S a very soft shadow, So I want to make it a little bit more intense Click on the shadow and increase the opacity like this

Don’T make your shadows too intense, because that looks cheap And now, if I uncheck it you’re going to see that the text really starts levitating So yeah. I think this is a pretty cool result and if you want to learn more about Adobe Xd, I’m creating a course about Adobe Xd. So if you’ve liked this video, then you might be interested in that course. I’M going to give everybody who watched this video a discount for the course. If you want to get that discount. There’S a link in the description just fill in your email and I will email you when the course is out and there will be a discount link within that email that you can use to sign up for the complete Adobe Xd course. But I just hope that you really liked this basics. Video

If you want to get more videos like this, maybe a little bit more complicated design just leave a comment below on what website you want me to make, and I will create a tutorial about it. Thanks again, This is LivingWithPixels the channel where you’re going to learn how to design, build and sell websites. So thanks a lot for watching. So if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up, because that really helps the algorithm of this channel, and that allows me to create more videos like this So yeah. That’S it. I hope to see you in the next video..

As found on YouTube

I was chatting with a friend, who was telling me about an ex-client of his.

The client had a site re-design by a family member, and though he had done a lot of link building, the website wasn’t ranking anywhere. His site wasn’t even listed in Google. Was the site banned? On inspection, John Zumwalt found the designer had put a robots.txt file on the site, blocking all robots. A simple mistake, but difficult to spot if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Sometimes professional help is what is needed.

If your site is not being crawled by Google or other search engines, here’s a simple checklist to follow:

ROBOTS.TXT MAY EXCLUDE SPIDERS: 

Check to see if you have a file called robots.txt. This can appear in any directory but is usually found in the root. Either remove the robots.txt or make sure it conforms to the following robots.txt standard.

NO INBOUND LINKS: 

Search engines crawl the web, following links from page to page. If you don’t have a link pointing to your page from a page that is already included in Google, it is less likely that Google will find your site. Submit your site to a directory, ask a friend for a link, or beg, borrow or buy. It pays to get links from reliable sources, as opposed to link farms, which Google may discount.

THE SITE MAY HAVE TECHNICAL ISSUES: 

The server may be set up incorrectly, your site may contain code that makes crawling difficult, etc. Luckily, Google offers a reporting tool in the form of Webmaster Central. Use Sitemaps and the Site Status Wizard to help determine potential problems.

NO DEEP CRAWL: 

Google crawls the site but doesn’t find many pages. Check your linking structures to ensure that important pages are well linked. You may wish to use a pyramid site structure to help organize your site thematically. Remove, or alter, duplicate content. Increase the quality of inbound linking, and avoid poor quality outbound linking. See Matt Cutts comments roughly 3/4’s of the way down.

FLASH, SCRIPTING:

Google can have problems following animated and coded links. It is safest to provide an all HTML version of your site if using Flash. Google is getting a lot better at following scripted links, however, be sure to check with Webmaster Central if problems persist.

SITE BAN:

It’s unlikely, but possible, that your site may have been banned. Check with Webmaster Central, and if a ban is in place, try submitting a re-inclusion request. Here’s the definitive guide on submitting a re-inclusion request, straight from the horse’s mouth. Essentially, Google wants to know that the problem has been corrected, and it won’t happen again.

Driving Website Traffic

• It’s not just about how to get website traffic – it’s about getting the right website traffic i.e. the ‘right’ people to your website. 
• Ultimately it’s the site’s content that brings people in, much as  the type and quality of food brings people to a restaurant.
• The relevancy of your content to the people you want to do business with is key.
• Encouraging repeat visits as well as new visitors is also important.

It’s not simply a case of driving traffic to your site – it has to be the ‘right’ people coming in i.e. those you want to do business with. Too often we see the mistake being made of focusing on traffic in general and not targeted traffic.

Website success ultimately comes from conversions, which means visitor interest being turned into a positive next step along the way to doing business with you. That can only happen if you have the right people coming to the site.

Targeted website traffic – your Right People

Who are your right people? Not everyone who comes to your site is your target audience, same as not everyone you do business with is your ideal customer.

Your customer base will be made up of all types of people, but who is it that really has the potential to grow your business? You need to identify these people (or groups) and make sure your website content is specifically geared up to satisfying their needs. For clarity, these people will typically be the 20% of your customer base who make up 80% of your revenue

Understanding your target audience 

Before we start this section, it’s important to make one thing very clear – your content is the most important aspect of your website. To put it into context – the content is as important to your website as food is to a restaurant, or animals are to a zoo. Content IS the reason people come to your site.

So in that vein, it must be written primarily for your identified target market, and only secondly for Google.

Creating content for your audience means you first have to understand their:

• Goals. What are your target audience looking for from your site? Are they looking for special offers, specific or general advice, or simply where the local stockist is?
• What is likely to stimulate them? If your target audience is professional your content will need to be structured differently to if you’re trying to appeal to end users. For example, for the former, your content might need to be very technical in nature, for the end user it might need to focus far more on benefits.
• Language. What type of language do they use – and why is this important?

If you want to engage with them you have to use the language they’re comfortable with. This means avoiding trade or technical terms if that is not what your audience would use. Many websites are full of acronyms etc. that although well known in the trade are totally lost on the target audience. Another example is language style: lawyers and accountants often use a form of high brow language that is out of sync with their audiences.

However, understanding their language has another key benefit; it means you can use it to bring them into the website in the first place. This is done by using the words they use in their search enquiries prominently in your content.

Google’s primary purpose is to present web pages that relate directly to a searcher’s enquiry. If your content matches these search terms, you are already on the right path for drawing them in.

Using the Right Words in your Content

We strongly advise researching these search terms (known as keywords) before writing your content, so that you can structure your content around the right words for your ‘right’ people.  This is known as Keyword Analysis.

Sometimes a simple choice of word can make a huge difference. In the webinar, we used the free Google keyword tool and imagined we were a campervan rental company. We showed a significant difference in the number of people searching for ‘motorhome’ over the word ‘campervan’. We also looked at the potential target market. For motorhome rentals (as opposed to sales) these are likely to be overseas tourists. If we feel that the US is the primary source of these, using ‘motorhome’ won’t be as effective as using ‘Recreational vehicle’, or better still ‘RV’. We also discussed the differences between the short generic terms such as ‘motorhome’ (known as short-tail keywords) and the much more specific long-tail keywords such as ‘Oklahoma City motorhome rental’. These long-tail terms will obviously have fewer people searching for them, but it goes back to the opening diagram, if you are a rental company based in Oklahoma City, the people using these longtails are extremely likely to be your right people.

This diagram shows that each keyword, whether short or longtail, has 3 factors influencing whether it is the right word or not. It needs to be relevant, so in the example above it needs to relate to the particular target audience (RV renters from the US), it needs to carry a high degree of commercial intent (someone looking for a rental company not just in the USA but in Oklahoma is indicating quite an intent to want to hire a van out as they start their trip in Oklahoma City). Competition – this is probably the hardest thing to get right. Obviously, the most obvious terms for each business sector will be highly competitive. Look at alternative keywords that aren’t as competitive. Sure, the number of searchers using them might be less, but you have a much better chance of being shown in the search results.

Repeat Visitors

A huge assumption often made when talking about website traffic is that it is NEW traffic. However, don’t forget about returning visitors. These include existing customers – ideally so that you can sell to them again, either more of the same or better still, other stuff. Returning visitors also include people who have been on the site, liked what they saw, but for whatever reason weren’t ready to take the next step at that point. Often people will need to visit the site several times over as they do their research before they end up doing business with you.

What is it that will get people returning? New content – particularly relevant content. Articles and new product information, plus promotions are key areas for new content additions. Our suggestion is that content is updated every 1 – 2 weeks at least, and that before each bit of new content is added you perform a keyword analysis based on the subject matter to find the most productive terms to base it around.

Summary

• Determine who are the right people
• Write content for their needs, in their language
• Optimize for the most productive keywords
• Don’t forget repeat visitors
• Add new content – 1-2 weeks

Today we’re looking at something that will teach you more about your customers. One of the most valuable uses for Google Analytics is being able to see which keywords people searched for in Google that went on to be a conversion. Today I’m going to run you through how you can go about this and on top of that I’m going to show you a trick on how to move past the (not provided) that you will probably run into. I’m going to assume that you have goals set up in Google Analytics, if not, then you should take a read of this article.

Please note that when I refer to a conversion, it’s the same thing as a goal.

Converting Keywords

The first thing we need to do is set up a custom report that allows you to drill down and extract the keywords that are leading to conversions. The process of doing this is as follows:

1. Log into your Google Analytics account and navigate to your profile of choice.
2. Select “Customization” in the orange bar, click on it and then select “+ New Custom Report”.
3. Configure your custom report as per the example below and click the save button.

Time Saver: If you’re lazy, you’re welcome to click this link and it’ll automatically add the custom report above to your website profile on Google Analytics.

The screen that loads after you’ve saved the custom report shows you the sources of visitors who were converted on your website. You now want to click on the source of choice, “google” if it appears. Follow this by clicking on “organic” if it appears. (If neither “google” nor “organic” appear in the process, this means you haven’t had any conversions from people performing Google searches).

Now you’re left with a list of keywords that your converting customers searched for in Google. That’s incredibly useful information!

Getting Past the “(not provided)”

(not provided) appears instead of the keywords when a person that is logged into a Google service performs a search and arrives at your website. Google changed its privacy policy and decided that people logged into Google, their searches should remain private. But now what? We’ve created this custom report, but we can’t see what keywords people are looking for! No problem, here’s what you want to do:

1. Look for “Secondary dimension” and click on it.
2. Choose “Landing Page” from the list.
3. Now, on the right of (not provided), you will see which pages your converting visitors arrived on.

From the landing page you might not be able to determine exactly which keyword a person searched for, but you could get an idea at least. For example, on our website there are a large number of (not provided)’s in our list, but when we add Landing Page as a secondary dimension, we can see that a large number of people landing on our SEO Services Page and we can therefore deduce that the keywords leading to a conversion revolve around topics such as “seo” or “seo Oklahoma City” or “Oklahoma City seo” and so forth, because those are the words we’re targeting on those pages.

Invaluable Information

This approach certainly doesn’t give you exactly which keywords are leading to conversions on your website, but it brings you as close as possible and assists you in understanding the nature of the keywords that are converting and through which areas of your website these conversions are taking place.

Invaluable information like this can be used to further your reach. For example, if we were getting conversions from people searching for “seo Oklahoma City”, for example, and when we Googled, “seo Oklahoma City” we saw that we were ranked in position 9, imagine how many conversions we would get if we moved up to position 1, 2 or 3!  The beauty of this approach is that we know that these keywords are converting, so we’re not guessing – the rule of more traffic will lead to more conversions is more than likely going to fit.

Google Analytics: Keyword insight through landing pages

Beyond finding out which keywords were bringing business to your website, I want to touch on a similar topic that will assist you in determining which keywords are performing well for you.

The first thing you want to do is fire up Excel and create a column for the landing pages on your website and a second column for the keywords that you are optimising for each landing page.

The next step is to open up your Google Analytics account and navigate to Landing Pages, which can be found under Site Content, which is under Content on the left. This report gives you a list of the landing pages on your website ordered by the number of visits received.

Finally, we want to take the list of landing pages and keywords, and link it up to the list of landing pages and the visitor counts. What we’re doing here is determining which landing pages are getting the most visits and in turn, taking a look at which keywords are potentially bringing the most traffic.

Bonus: If you create multiple columns in the spreadsheet to track month to month data, you could create a useful graph that maps out the traffic trends of the various landing pages, and that would give you further insight into which keywords are performing the best.

Because the “(not provided)” count is getting greater and greater, learning how to access useful information about your keywords is becoming more critical than ever.

Which pages on your website make the most money?

In the past few weeks we’ve been asked to assist various people with figuring out which landing pages on their website are leading to the most conversions. I decided to write up this so that the information is freely available to anyone who is interested.

A landing page is defined as the page that a person arrives on your website. People do not always arrive at your home page, they could arrive on an About Page, a Product Page or perhaps a Blog Post.

Knowing which pages lead to the most conversions (purchase, enquiry, download) allows you to direct more traffic to these pages through our marketing efforts or to use them as inspiration for other pages which aren’t converting as effectively.

The process of figuring out which pages are converting the most is not complicated and all you need is a Google Analytics account. Herewith are the steps:

#1 – LOG INTO GOOGLE ANALYTICS

The first step is to log into your Google Analytics account. 

#2 – CLICK ON CUSTOMIZATION

See that big orange bar that goes across your screen? Click on the “Customization” link.

#3 – ADD A NEW CUSTOM REPORT

Below the title, “Custom Reports” you’ll see the “+ New Custom Report”, give it a click.

#4 – SET UP THE REPORT

Type in a Title and Name, followed by selecting the Metric Group, “Goal Completions” and Dimension Drilldowns, “Landing Page”. Finally follow this with a click on the Save button right at the bottom and you’ll be presented with a list of your top converting landing pages. It’s as simple as that! 

In the report you’ll see a standard goal conversion explorer graph, but below that you’ll see the landing pages on the left and the number of conversions related to those landing pages. In other words, the number of conversions completed on the website by people who landed on these specific landing pages:

# – BONUS

In the diagram above you’ll see the “Secondary dimension” button, if you give this a click and select “Source” from the list that appears, this will take the report one step further and allow you to see where people who landed on these top pages came from. This then allows you to target these sources more which in turn will potentially lead to more conversions!

Let us know if you have any problems by leaving us a comment and we’ll assist as promptly as possible.

Table of Contents

One of our e-commerce clients is looking for ways to increase loyal customers on their website, so we set up some custom reports to assist with decision making. Ultimately, we wanted to determine which days of the week as well as what hours of the day the most organic visitors were coming to the website.

 

Why were we doing this? Well, we want to identify the most ideal moments where new customers are arriving in an effort to convert them from new visitors into returning, loyal customers.

 

Acquiring new visitors to a website through Google is difficult when you’re operating in a competitive niche and we want to walk you through what we did to determine the best time of day to target these new visitors.

 

These custom reports and steps are designed for Google Analytics only – functionality and steps will be different for other analytics software. We suggest you have at least a month or two worth of data to gain a more realistic insight into your data while using these custom reports. Don’t worry if you don’t have enough data yet, simply bookmark this blog post and visit it again in a few weeks.

Day of the Week

Finding out what day of the week you get most of your visitors is fairly straight forward. 

1. Click on “Customization” at the top of Google Analytics (big orange bar).
2. Click on the “+ New Custom Report” button.
3. Type in a suitable title, such as “Days and Hours Overview”.
4. Type in a suitable name for the report, such as “Days of the Week”.
5. Choose “Flat Table”.
6. Enter in the dimensions and metrics as per the image.
7. Click the Save button.

You’ll be presented with a list of days along with the associated visits per day. Please note that Sunday is represented with a 0, Monday with a 1, Tuesday with a 2 and so forth.

Hour of the Day

The next step is to create another custom report showing which hours of the day bring the most people to the website. This process is very similar to the Day of the Week Custom Report we’ve just created. Follow these steps.

 

1. If you’re still on the report showing you the days of the week, look for the “Edit” button at the top, next to “Advanced Segments” and click it.
2. The previous custom report table will appear again, this time click on “+ add report tab”.
3. Type in a suitable name, such as “Hours of the Day”.
4. Choose “Flat Table”.
5. Enter in the dimensions and metrics as per the image.
6. Click the Save button,

You’ll be presented with a list of hours as well as the associated visits for each hour to your website. The times are over a 24 hour period and therefore 11 represents 11h00, while 16 represents 16h00 and so forth.

Conclusion

The two custom reports above may be used to determine what days of the week your website is most popular, as well as during which time frame of the day visitors are arriving at your site.

 

These relatively simple reports can unlock a great understanding of who your customers are and when they’re interested in your products. This information can be used for running specials, sending out newsletters, or perhaps you could think of something more creative?

Please leave us a comment with your clever ways of how you could benefit from using these custom reports – we always love your feedback.

Bonus

We can’t just leave it there, so here are some more pro tips:

• Used advanced segments to filter your day of the week and hour of the week reports showing “New Visitors” or “Returning Visitors”, and get an even better idea of when your loyal customers visit the website.
• Use a custom segment to filter for only organic or direct visitors to see what times of the day people performing searches are coming to your website.
• Include some social media filters to determine when Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social networks are resulting in visitors coming to your website.

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