Disclaimer: There is no guaranteed way to get your company listed at Wikipedia. These are only methods and tips to get you started, but there are no guarantees that your company content will stay on Wikipedia.

See Part 1 in this series

Starting a new article about your business is tricky and difficult. First of all, Wikipedia does not advocate employees or owners to start a Wikipedia entry about their own company. An important tent of Wikipedia is third-party neutrality. Awhile ago, Microsoft got into some hot water for commissioning a third-party blogger to insert company-sponsored content onto a Wikipedia entry on OpenXML. If the Wikipedia community can track down the connection between third-party contributors and a company that sponsors them, it will have no trouble connecting the dots between you and the company article you’re attempting to post up.

Getting your company on Wikipedia requires a lot of work and investment.

1. Get a Reputation

If your first action as a Wikipedia contributor is to post up an article or make edits on behalf of your company, you’re making it easy for the editing community to delete your contributions. You have to earn a reputation as a Wikipedia contributor to show that your contributions are altruistic and neutral. It’s easier to get away with company-based edits and contributions if you’ve already proven yourself to the community. If you want to exert some degree of control over what’s published in Wikipedia about your company, you’re going to have to build a reputation as a reliable editor first.

2. Make Some Friends

Having allies in the Wikipedia community can come in very handy if your contributions get flagged. Let’s say that you’ve become a reputed editor and contributor, and you’ve implemented a link in an article that gives a favorable review of your company’s products. The link will come under fire for conflict of interest or relevancy, and having a few editors vouch for you will go a long way in making sure your contributions stay intact.

3. Obey the Rules

Remember to stay away from content that you might have a conflict of interest with. Reference everything with reliable third-party web-based sources that do not require registration to view. It also helps to put reference links in the reference section of the Wikipedia page you are editing, instead of the external links section, where they have a bit more traction and are less likely to get flagged and deleted. Stay as neutral as possible in the contributions you make.

Finally, do not spam! This may seem obvious, but the Wikipedia community loves to find spammers and blacklist them. So don’t roam Wikipedia looking for pages where you can insert references to your company or links to your company; focus on the page you are creating about the company and make sure the content is neutral in tone and extensively supported with third-party references.

4. Don’t Force the Issue

So you’ve cultivated a reputation and made some friends. You finally think you have the community capital to start an article about your business. You’ve followed all the rules and made sure the article is in-step with what Wikipedia wants. You post it up and it gets flagged for a conflict of interest. The only thing you can do at this point is engage with the Wikipedia community. You have to hope that your reputation and your friends will help sway opinion otherwise. Be civil, be polite, but ultimately accept the verdict. If you force the issue, you’ll lose whatever reputation you’ve spent valuable time cultivating. And who knows? If you’ve raised issues by posting your company entry, you might convince someone that your company is notable enough to deserve an entry and write it themselves.

Wikipedia is NOT a marketing opportunity. It can be a great marketing tool that can drive website traffic, but it can’t be controlled or used like normal web marketing methods like SEO or pay-per-click advertising.  You have to realize that getting your company on Wikipedia will take a lot of time, a lot of gruntwork, a civil disposition, and some luck.

Sample Alerts that you’ll run into as a Wikipedia editor.

The best way to deal with these alerts is to engage the community through the Talk page.



A little tired after doing all those edits? Maybe you forgot to make sure all the information was in-line after collecting all those references. This alert is pretty self-explanatory and is readily resolved through some discussion with the community.

Someone in the community disagrees with the factual claims you’ve made. This can spark a confrontation with someone in the community, but be civil and polite. If it’s a claim you’re iffy about in the first place, let it go. If it’s something you know to be true, politely convince the dissenter otherwise.

You’ll most likely run into this if you insert company-sponsored content into an article, or if you start an entry on your own company. Remember, use the talk page and plead your case. Hopefully you’ll win the right to keep your edits, but do not force the issue.

This just means that someone has a problem with an assertion you’ve made and you’ll need to find a third-party source to verify it. If you’ve done your research properly, you should easily be able to link the offending content to a reliable source.

Weasel words can be a common mistake for newbie Wikipedia editors. Phrases like “some people say”, “research has shown”, “science believes”, etc. are considered “weasel words” that can mask a biased viewpoint. There’s no wiggle room in this alert, either delete or modify the phrases that are flagged.

Remember our last blog post, where Jonathan Hochmann asserts that “Wikipedia is not a place for original thought”? This is a clear example of why original research and original claims are not acceptable in Wikipedia articles. You’ll either have to verify the claims or find a source that references the research.

There are two things businesses should realize when they’re looking to leverage Wikipedia to drive website traffic:

1. Wikipedia pages are NOT MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES. Let me repeat that: your Wikipedia page is NOT A MARKETING OPPORTUNITY. Wikipedia is an internet source that tries to stay as neutral as possible in the information it conveys.
2. “Wikipedia is not a place for original thought, but a place where you can consolidate what has already been published elsewhere.” – Jonathan Hochmann, SEO Consultant and Wikipedia editor

Don’t get me wrong, Wikipedia should be a part of your online strategy. Having a Wikipedia entry for your company adds credibility when it pops up in search rankings.

Site visitors from Wikipedia have a lower bounce rate and tend to stay on your website longer than average. Wikipedia pages are usually highly ranked in a Google search, which can be used to a company’s advantage.

However, Wikipedia can’t be leveraged using traditional marketing principles. There are some non-guaranteed methods to influence Wikipedia pages to gain site visitors, but there is no bulletproof way to optimize a Wikipedia page to drive website traffic.

What A Wikipedia Corporate Page Can Do For Your Business

• Provide objective, fact-based, and concise information about your company. Your Wikipedia page can answer the basic “who, what, why, how, when, where” questions about your company. “Who we are”, “What we do”, “Why we do it”, “How we do it”, “When we started doing it”, and “Where we do it”.
• Wikipedia can improve search ranking potential because Wikipedia will often be the 1^st result for your company name. You can use this to drive SEO for your website, or displace competitors’ websites and websites that publish unflattering opinions about your own.

Google Analytics Data Comparing Wikipedia Visitor Traffic to All Other Site Traffic

Click to see data

What Wikipedia Can’t Do For Your Business

• Wikipedia is not a place for sales pitches, marketing language, or performance claims. If you make a claim that can’t be substantiated with an independent 3^rd party reference, it will probably be deleted.
• Wikipedia is not a forum to publish original research from your company. Remember, it’s not a venue for original content, but a place to consolidate and summarize content published elsewhere.
• Wikipedia is not a channel for mudslinging your competitors. If you include negative content about a competitor on your company entry, or if you edit a competitor’s entry with negative content, it will be flagged and deleted.

Read Part 2 in this series

All it takes is a quick look at your landing pages on a browser-enabled phone or tablet to understand the challenges your visitors face.

Compare Kumon’s mobile landing page compared to the desktop version:

Top Ten Best Practices for Mobile Sites

Google shares its mobile best practices live at SMX West in Feb 2012.

#1 – Keep it Quick – Mobile Pages Must Load Fast!

Mobile users have high expectations with 58% expecting that a mobile landing page will load as fast, or faster than the desktop version.

• Compress images – users may be on 3G or the much slower Edge network.
• Prioritize content and features that the mobile users needs the most. (use your web analytics)
• Text must be easy to scan. Less is better – take the time to make it short and sweet – think “tweet”.
• Reduce large blocks of text and use bullet points.
• Headlines really matter, make them compelling!

#2 – Simplify Navigation

• The visitor should only have to scroll one way – from top to bottom.
• Always have a search box at the top of the page.

#3 – Be Thumb-Friendly – Design for “Fat Fingers”

• Use large buttons and links to reduce accidental clicks.  Make sure text links are isolated from other links.
• Increase the size of action buttons – add drop shadows to buttons and surround with generous cell padding

#4 Design For Visibility

People are often looking at the screen at arm’s length; they may be walking down the street, or multi-tasking on the sofa. Test your site out on “Ready to Go Mo?”

• Create good contrast between background and text
• Use size and color to indicate link/button priority.
• Use plenty of negative space.

#5 – Make it Accessible

• Find alternatives to Flash because it doesn’t work on some mobile devices.
• Use HTML5 for animation
• Keep users in the same place when they change orientation
• Tablets are very different from smart phones. Detect screen size and deliver the correct page size.

#6 – Make it Easy to Convert

For every field you add to the form – expect a 50% reduction in conversion.  Keep forms short and use the fewest number of fields possible. Request only the information that will aid conversion, even if it makes the sales team work a little harder.

• Use click-to-call functionality for phone numbers
• Use check boxes, lists and scroll menus to make data entry fast and easy
• Reduce the number of steps required to complete a transaction – show the zip code field first and auto-fill the city and state.

#7 – Make it Local

Mobile visitors are often looking for geographic information.

• Have your address or store locator on the homepage.
• Include maps and directions.  Use GPS to personalize when possible.

#8 – Make it Seamless

• For users who move between your desktop and mobile pages maintain key features of the site across all channels when possible.
• Provide prominent access to login information.  Give visitors the option to “remember” their login so they don’t have to type it in every time they visit from their devices.
• Provide the same key information for product and services.

#9 – Use Mobile Site Redirects

• Give users the choice to go back to the desktop site by providing a link in the footer.
• Let users choose which version they prefer to see for later visits.

#10 – Listen, Learn and Iterate

• Use your desktop web analytics to understand what your mobile users are doing
• If possible do user testing before launching a complex site.
• Implement and collect user feedback after launch.
• Do A/B testing – Google Website Optimizer is a free tool to make this easy.
• Iterate often and continually improve your site.

More Resources from Google on Building Mobile Websites

Check out Google’s go mobile program offering a DIY mobile site builder with free hosting for a year, templates and features such as “click to call”.

For B2B Websites it’s All About ConversionGoMo Guide for Agencies
GoMo Guide for Advertisers
GoMo Guide for Publishers

Lead conversion depends on making the mobile landing page as user friendly as the desktop version.   To create landing pages that will convert, learn what your mobile visitors are doing on your site now.

Analyze web analytics to see the pages and features they are visiting.  Then deliver that experience on your mobile site/pages.

Key Findings from comStock’s 2012 Mobile Future Focus Report

• 60% followed posts and links to websites
• 57% read posts from organization, brands or events
• 41% shared links to websites.

Download the 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report.

A lot of people are asking questions about Google's new Privacy Policy. They're raising the typical concerns about how secure personal information really is online.

Google recently announced a number of changes to its privacy policy, sparking a firestorm of controversy online and off.

Large waves of criticism have been leveled at Google, labeling the changes a violation of privacy and a malicious attempt to intrude on Google users’ private information.

The thing is, all Google is doing is integrating the separate privacy policies of YouTube, Google, Search, and more into a single policy that will allow it to better deliver targeted ads based on one’s web usage history, along with other minor changes in the way their services and products interact with the user. In addition, Google can only do this when the user is logged into their Google account, and the user has options to restrict Google from mining their web usage information by changing their settings. Of course, turning off Google’s eyes on your web usage is going to involve digging through your user settings across multiple services, which means that few people will actually take the time to turn Google’s tracking devices off.

Are The Policy Changes Really Bad?

That all sounds fairly innocuous, and in reality it is. Google is simply taking information it already has about users of its products (which its users agreed to when they consented to the terms of service) and combining it so Google can use the information across its entire portfolio of services and products. Some people seem overly agitated about this change, but this is nothing new.

For decades, credit card companies have compiled massive databases containing customer profiles that include their entire shopping history; legally they can only share that information with “affiliated” companies, but “affiliated” is a blurry definition that’s constantly exploited. In fact, companies like Visa and MasterCard might have more information on you than Google does!

Everyone Tracks Your Information.

On top of all that, Google definitely isn’t the only online business that tracks your web usage. Microsoft does it too, despite the opportunistic criticism they’ve level on Google. Julia Angwin of the Wall Street Journal reported in 2010 that there is a rapidly growing online business in tracking software, software that is used by many major websites that gathers real-time information on their visitors. The software sets cookies and what are known as “beacons” that try to figure out your usage of the site. These cookies and “beacons” attempt to learn about your individual tastes and preferences, not just tracking which pages you visit and how long you spend on them. Your web browser is most likely stuck with thousands of cookies, beacons, and other tracking software unless you’ve turned off all cookies from being set. Very few people are actually paranoid enough to block all cookies, since manually providing their login information with every site visit can be a pain in the neck.

In Feb/12, the New York Times’s article titled How Companies Learn Your Secrets further illustrates that you are being tracked with every purchase you make.

What Privacy Actually Means Now.

Our standards of “privacy” have been re-shaped with this new approach of targeted advertising. We lead more and more of our lives online, and we now trust online entities with all kinds of personal information. The current generation of twenty-somethings shares a deep level of personal information on Facebook that their parents incomprehensible. It might be scary to some, but this “brave new world” of unparalleled access into our personal information is not really that new.

How to Opt-Out from Google’s New Privacy Policy and TOS.

Unfortunately, there is no way (currently) to have a Google account without abiding by its new privacy policy. If you want to keep using Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, and more, you’ll have to reconcile yourself to the new policies (or hope that they won’t go into effect, Google is planning to roll out the new changes on March 1st). If you still think that Google is crossing the line, you can switch to other web services. Google will even help you move with its Takeout tool, part of its Data Liberation Front. With Takeout, you can export your contacts, calendar, documents, and all sorts of Google Account data into other services like Microsoft or Yahoo! (who will be doing the same thing as Google soon).

• First, go to Account Settings and click on “Data liberation”. Click on “Download your data” and Google will list all the data it has recorded on each of the services you use.

• From there, you can create a unified archive or specifically select the data you want to export, and download it into conveniently .zip’d files.

• After that, you can delete your entire Google account by going to “Account Overview” and scroll down to “Services” where there’s an option to close your Google account. Google will ask you to re-enter your password to make sure, but afterwards, you’ll be free to choose from any other web services to handle your email, calendar, contacts, and online documents.

Go “Incognito” in Your Chrome Browser

Don’t feel like nuking your Google account but still feel a little vulnerable? There’s a few ways you can hide certain information from reaching Google. If you use Google Chrome, use “incognito mode” by clicking on the wrench icon and clicking on “new incognito window”.

You can opt-out of personalized search by clicking here and turning off personalized search, and opt-out of targeted ads by clicking here. This way, you’ll be able to hide most of your personal info from Google, but you’ll have to deal with using Google as a unified service instead of a portfolio of separate services.

Google Analytics Displays Traffic from Image Search

Why Care About Image Search?

Optimizing your images with file names and good alt tag descriptions is another easy way to let Google know the theme of your web pages, which in turn improves rankings.  The result: more visitors!

Here’s what you need to know. The first three points are considered critical to improving image search rankings.

POINT ONE – Use a Descriptive File Name

The file name should always include keywords that are relevant to the image and are words you want to be found for.  A file name like DSC1232.jpg doesn’t tell Google anything useful about the image!  And use dashes or underscores in the file name to separate words so the Googlebot can easily parse it.

GOOD: high-quality-red-womans-shoe.gif

CONFUSING: highqualityredwomansshoe.gif

POINT TWO – Alt Text That Describes the Image

The Alt Attribute text (sometimes erroneously described as an “alt tag”) should describe the image in a simple manner. Use the keywords that are relevant to the image description, and where possible, the text should include the keyword phrase the page is optimized for. By that I mean the keyword is used in the Title tag, within page content, and is used in links pointing to the page. But don’t “stuff” the Alt Attribute text with keywords, just use one, two or three at the most.

While the Alt tag doesn’t contribute very much to ranking in Google’s main index, Google implies that it helps in image search ranking.

POINT THREE – Image Relevance to Page Content

It may go without saying but the image should be relevant to the text content on the page.  Where possible include descriptive text or captions on the page shown near the image, as that also helps Google understand what the image is about.  This descriptive text should contain the same keywords used in the Alt tag and file name.

It also helps when providing a link to a full-size image to do this:  “Click here for full size image of Polycom Speakerphone” — instead of “Click for full size” or “enlarge”.

POINT FOUR – “Harmonize” the Alt Text, Filename, and Page Text

It may seem obvious, but for maximum effectiveness use the same keywords in the Alt Attribute text, filename, and page text close to the image.

POINT FIVE – Image Properties

Because Google is now factoring in page download times as part of their ranking, images should be optimized for fast download times and the image height and width should be specified in pixels in the HTML (that helps the browser render the image more quickly).

POINT SIX – Don’t Block the Bots from Your Images Directory

Believe it or not some sites exclude search bots from indexing their images directory. Why? I don’t know. Be sure and allow engines to index your /images directory.

Check out Matt Cutts Video on Image Search

What’s The Big Deal About Video?

Google is in beta with software that will translate the words spoken in a video to text that can be indexed by search engines. The SEO implications are enormous. Once this technology is perfected, it will allow video content to be found in the search engines based on the spoken words in the video.

But wait, there’s more…

Google/TechTarget Survey

A collaborative survey between Google and Tech Target confirms that there is a big opportunity for companies providing video content to further engage with IT customers during their product research cycle. The survey concludes that IT buyers are showing a growing interest in video content as a means of educating themselves during the buying process.

What the Survey Tells Us About Using Video to Engage With Customers

• 55% of survey respondents report that video content would be very useful in educating themselves about products and services they were researching, with the intent of buying.

• 59% report watching video on YouTube, manufacturer, and content publisher’s sites. Watching video on vendor sites trailed far behind these choices, suggesting that vendor sites could see higher rates of use if they featured relevant video content.

• 41% report that they prefer product demos to be less than 5 minutes in length. Attention spans are short, requiring companies to get to the point quickly.

Jim Rodgers of SFO Design suggests video conveys complex ideas and technologies faster than a white paper.  Rodgers suggests that a 2 minute video introducing a technical white paper can significantly increase white paper download rates.

Try it for Yourself – Watch the videos on these 3 sites and see if you come away with enough of an understanding of their products to spend more time on the site.

• PowerPorts
• Serious Materials
• Arista

Getting Your Video Out There

Try publishing your video on Tube Mogul – a video analytics and distribution company that makes it easy to get published.

And in true Web 2.0 style – don’t forget to Twitter about your new video.

Your company may not have jumped on the Social Media bandwagon yet but that hasn’t stopped your customers, prospects and even employees from talking (AKA tweeting) about you.

It’s often an eye-opener for companies to find that even though they aren’t participating on Twitter – their customers are.

What do people say about your company on Twitter?  Let’s find out:

Go to: search.twitter.com and run a search of your company name, your product names, and even your CEO’s name. Scan the posts for anything that you can reply to or follow up on.

Forrester is one of the best examples of Twitter in the B2B environment

If you want to get started with Twitter and aren’t sure where to start, begin by following Forrester. Go to: http://twitter.com/forrester and click on the follow button (it’s not very obvious) that is directly below their logo.

Get The Stats

If you use Twitter and your Tweets contain URLs, you can track click activity with TwitClicks. I used to use TinyURL to create short URLs for posting on Twitter (Twitter can only accommodate 140 characters per Tweet) so using TwitClicks means a switch for me but I like all the data I get. They also provide a great demo video (you don’t even have to read) to learn how it works.

This is a great way for B2B companies who do use Twitter to post webinars, product launches – or anything really – and see if visitors follow that link.

Twitter is to Social Media what Google Alerts is to Web 1.0 Marketers – A Reputation Management Tool

Initially for B2B companies, I couldn’t justify including Twitter as part of a Phase One strategy into Social Media Marketing but now it’s part of my Reputation Management check-up.

A Word About How Twitclicks Passwords Work

The way TwitClicks works is through you existing Twitter account.  It doesn’t store any passwords, but requires your Twitter password in order to log in and perform the Twitter communications for the session.  For this reason, the system can’t email your  login details because it doesn’t store anything except your twitter username.  If you’ve forgotten your Twitter login, there’s a “forgot your password” feature on the Twitter website.

How have you used Twitter in the corporate environment?

Yesterday I had a taste for one of those delicious Noah Bagels with the cream cheese and smoked salmon.  I thought I’d pick up lunch while I was running other errands.

And that’s where the trouble began!

I wanted to find the closet bagel shop to REI so I went to www.noahs.com looking for store locations. Silly me – you would think that Noah’s would make it real simple to get me to their physical location given that you can’t order a bagel online.  Right?

No way… after a frustratingly long wait for the homepage to load I’m presented with more silly animation and a coffee cup that follows my mouse.

I suspect Noahs spent somewhere between $50K to $100K for this website yet it doesn’t serve up bagels in a way that I care to repeat.

Using the stop watch on my iPhone I compared the time it took to gather store location info for the stores I was planning to visit.

1. 35 seconds:   Noahs.com
2. 28 seconds:   LongsDrugs.com *see note below
3. 18 seconds:   CrateandBarrel.com
4. 16 seconds:   REI.com
5. 11 seconds:   Macys.com

While your own results may vary depending on your bandwidth, finding this information on Noah’s site took over 3 times as long as the fastest website.

* Longs Drug Store gave me an Google Maps API error message when I clicked on Store Locator that said “The Google Maps API key used on this web site was registered for a different web site.”

For SEO Geeks: Being a search engine optimization consultant, I wanted to see how Google was interpreting Noah’s site content.   A check in Google’s Cache for the homepage brings up information about the Flash player instead of website content – because of course there was no site content.

The Title tag is simply “Noahs Bagel Home”.  For more examples of how NOT to optimize your site – do a <site:noahs.com> search and look at all Noah’s Title tags – they are equally weak.   I suspect that Google is ranking Noah’s website on the first page of a search for “bagels” because of its inbound links and not because of content on the website.

Once again, the site fails to meet the audience needs of the search bots!  What were they thinking?

I hope getting served in the real world Noah’s location won’t be as slow and frustrating as using their website!

Many of our B2B clients are now engaging in Web 2.0 Social Media Marketing. The problem is that it’s overwhelming – even the terminology sounds like a foreign language.

Another hurdle is that marketing measurement tools don’t apply in gauging success of the initiative.

We recommend that clients start with a few basic Web 2.0 strategies to help them understand the power of social marketing. B2B is hard to measure so we have selected strategies that have some measurable component.

GETTING STARTED: B2B SOCIAL MEDIA

WIKIPEDIA

Build a page about your corporation and include links to highly targeted pages on your site. Warning! You must first read the Wikipedia content guidelines and strictly adhere to them or risk having your new page deleted by the editors.

Measurement: Track inbound visitor traffic from Wikipedia. Our experience is people from Wikipedia stay longer and view more pages than your typical visitor.

LINKEDIN

Build a company page using LinkedIn’s new Company beta feature. Request that the top management in your company also create LinkedIn profiles. This content gets indexed in search engines and can have a positive impact on your search rankings.

Measurement: Track inbound visitor traffic from LinkedIn and rankings.

LAUNCH A BLOG WITH RSS FEED

It’s a technically easy place for most clients to start. The biggest drawback being what to write about and who is in charge of this initiative. We suggest that one employee dedicate 4 to 6 hours per week to the blog and to posting on other appropriate blogs.

Measurement: Improvement in Inbound links,  blog page views, blog posts and trackbacks.

CREATE VIDEO AND PODCASTS

Even the amateur video files in YouTube can get thousands of visits! I suggest adding video and/or podcasts to your site and submitting them such as Feedburner, YouTube, and even iTunes.

Measurement: Most of these sites offer measurement information.  TubeMogul – a video publishing and analytics website – is a great resource that let’s video owners publish and track video useage (basic service is free).

ADD TAGGING CAPABILITIES

All our clients seem to have a library of content and we recommend that they add the “share/book” links.

Measurement: Occasionally check to see the number of bookmarks.  For example:

• Delicious.com: Under the Bookmarks tag do a look-up for your company URL and track the number of times pages from your site have been bookmarked and had notes written about it. (The notes can be very interesting to read as well)

TWITTER

Think of Twitter as a broadcast mechanism and the rest is easy. Use it to alert your followers about new blog posts, events, or your latest video.  The hardest part is fitting the message into 140 characters.

Measurement: While measuring “Followers” is an easy metric – it’s not as reliable as you’d like it to be. What you want to have happen is for people to ReTweet (RT) your posts.

Do you know which website content captures site visitors interest? Earlier this year I tested a tool called Crazy Egg that displays clicks as “heat maps” and now I can’t live without it!

CrazyEgg Heat Map Plans start at $9.00/month

Let’s Compare CrazyEgg to Google Analytics: While Google Analytics is hard to beat as an easy-to-use analytics tool I’ve found that our clients can more easily grasp the visitors intent when they see the page in the “Heat Map” view.

Initially I was excited by the data from Google Analytics. Their Site Overlay function measures and highlights the links that visitors click on. Unfortunately, without additional coding Site Overlay can’t distinguish the difference between a visitor clicking on a “Services” link in the main navigation versus a click on the “Services” link in my page footer.

What I really needed was the whole picture without having to depend on our client’s web developer to make additional changes for us. Previously this took too long to implement when I wanted to run a quick test of new content or design elements.

What Did I Learn from CrazyEgg Reporting? I can now instantly see the content that visitors are most interested in on some of the most important pages of a website and did I learn a lot!

• Visitors clicked on images that were not intended to be links. This meant we had to go back and recode the image files for graphs, logos, etc. so that we wouldn’t lose visitors when they were interested in specific content that wasn’t a hyperlink.
• Visitors clicked on links in the footer area – way below the fold! In the past we have been using footer site maps (see example footer site map on this page) as a way of improving search engine rankings but now we see that visitors actually use those links. That’s good to know.

What Do I Use It For?

1. Testing new designs or design elements on a specific page – the software allows you to retain previous tests so it’s easy to compare.
2. Testing “Calls-To-Action” call-outs – test click activity between graphic and text links.
3. Testing content – the software indicates visitor and click counts so it’s easy to see changes in a given time period.

CrazyEgg Drawbacks: The software doesn’t do a good job of tracking click activity for Flash elements and fancy JavaScript, and many of our clients’ homepages contain Flash. The reports can take 1-5 minutes to generate and it can feel like an eternity.

Customer Service: I have to applaud the company for its prompt response in handling all my requests since I started using their product. They’ll actually talk to you on the phone and reply promptly to emails.

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WHAT DO THE REPORTS LOOK LIKE?

Heat Mapping Technology: Previously this type of reporting capability was expensive and required skill in setting up a test. But now, in ten minutes, you can be set up and gathering data..

Click Activity Bubble: This is a cool view because you can see which areas have the highest click activity by the color of the circle associated with each link. And, if you roll over or click on the circle you see the actual number of clicks.

There’s several other report styles but these are my favorite versions.

Set Up Tricks: To start tracking visitors you need to add a piece of JavaScript to the page you would like to track. I’ve found the easiest thing to do is to add it to all pages of a site and then once in the interface, you can determine which pages you want to track.

For more reports and information, visit CrazyEgg