This is similar to time based goals except you are tracking goals when a visitor exceeds (or doesn’t exceed) a certain number of pages. The same conditions apply, meaning greater than or less than and the number of pageviews you would like to set up as a goal for each visitor.

URL Destination Goals

Identifying a specific URL destination has alway been the traditional method of tracking goals in Google Analytics. To define a goal in Google Analytics, you specify the page that visitors see once they have completed the activity. For an account sign-up, you might set the “Thank You for signing up” page as a goal. For this type of goal, you can even enable a funnel to see where visitors have dropped off in the process. The trick here is determining the type of “match” for your URL. Google has three to choose from. I recommend visiting the following URL for more information on match types - http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en_US&answer=72285&utm_id=ad

Downloads

The process of establishing website goals begins with identifying and then tracking specific events on your website. Alas, most analytics programs, Google specifically, give us the ability to track a wide variety of events visitors take on websites and then act on those results to improve upon your website’s performance.

The first of the two-step process begins with you, the site owner, asking questions in order to determine what event it is you would like to track. For example, if you have an e-commerce site then you would probably want to know how many sales were  generated last week or last month. That seems obvious. But, have you ever wondered how many people are clicking on Product A on the products page? For non-e-commerce related sites, you might ask yourself whether people are opting-in your recurring e-newsletter or downloading the latest e-newletter in PDF format.

Event tracking really depends on the specific goals and needs of your site, and what you want to track. Nonetheless, you should be tracking some type of event because when a visitor interacts with a video player or game on your website, no pageview is generated, thus making it difficult to measure.

Here are some common events that are tracked that do not generate pageviews:

• Clicks on links that take the visitor to another site
• Clicks on an image or button (ex. Facebook icon or ‘shop now’ button)
• Banner Ad clicks
• File downloads (ex. PDF)
• Page widgets
• E-commerce activity/shopping cart purchases
• Member functions (ex. tracking new member sign-ups, log-ins, etc.)
• Flash, Ajax and Javascript related contentPlay button on a video or audio

Tracking specific events, the second part of the process, is relatively easy. If you are using Google Analytics, then all you need to do is call the_trackEvent() method each time you want to register an event such as how many clicks to an external link or video downloads.  For example, if you want to track how many people clicked on the “follow us” Twitter icon/link on your web page then the code would look something like this:

The “Home”, “Follow” and “Twitter” identifiers represent the category, action and label so you can view the specific results for this event right in your Analytics account. It’s really that simple. For more information on setting up event tracking in Google Analytics visit:  http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerGuide.html

Remember, event tracking is there to help improve your overall online sales and marketing goals and allow you to have a better understanding of your visitors’ actions. Now, isn’t this a resolution worth sticking with?

January is Cervical Cancer awareness month.  The Pearl of Wisdom Organization promotes Cervical Cancer Awareness.  This January they are running a special campaign “Take the Pearl Pledge to Prevent Cervical Cancer.”

This year, more than 11,000 U.S. women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer. And more than 4,000 will die.

>> Now, Take the Pearl Pledge and help protect yourself from this preventable disease!  Please also share the pledge with the women in your life.

Please also share the Pearl Pledge on Facebook and Twitter.  In setting up this website for them, we were able to integrate all forms of Social Media to spread the word including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging.

10 Stupid Things Entrepreneurs Do To Mess up Their Businesses by Chris Shipley on December 20th, 2009

1. Do Think Like a Gupp, not a Small Fish

If you want to be a big business someday, think like a bigger business now, not “just a small business.”

2. Do not Confuse Vision and Focus

Have a Clear Vision, and execute it.  Now “Focus is how you get there.”

3. Do not Confuse activity for focus

“Lots of activity doesn’t necessarily mean lots of progress.”

4. Do not Fall in Love with Technology instead of your Customers

“While dedication to technical excellence is admirable, in  a startup it’s the wrong target for your affection.  Instead, fall in love with your customers.”

5. Don’t just Focus on Fund Raising Instead of Building a Business

“But even in the best of times, the best way to raise capital to build your business is to build and sell products and services that people want to buy.  In fact, nothing catches the interest of VCs like money coming into the company.Consider that raising venture capital is a time-consuming activity.  Consider how you might otherwise use your time.  Developing a product?  Talking to customers?  Building strong channel partners?  Then consider this: what brings more value to your company: building PowerPoint presentations for Sand Hill Road or building your company?:

6. Don’t Fail To Measure

7. Don’t Ignore Yellow Lights

8. Do Hire Good People

“Smart founders hire great people. Period.”

9. Don’t Neglect the Details

“A little time and a few dollars spent with a bookkeeper and lawyer in your earliest days will save a lot more time and money later when you need clean books and protected IP to make your case to investors, customers, and partners.”  This will also help you not to sink all your time in administrative tasks.

10. Lose Site of Your Values

“Every company has a culture.  It’s either accidental or deliberate.”

>> Read the Whole Article Here

Here’s a great article (”Facebook groups vs Facebook Fan Pages: What’s Better“) by Ann Smarty

• Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
• Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.

Now let’s go into some details:

Other Articles:

• Facebook groups vs. Facebook pages by Tim Davies

• Causes from Facebook:
• Causes is an application that enables users to organize themselves into communities of action that support specific issues, campaigns, or non-profit organizations.For example, just over a year ago, a Harvard medical student created the “Campaign for Cancer Prevention” cause, which has grown to more than 4.2 million members. In addition to raising $75,000 for a cancer study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the cause features an active discussion board where members share stories and resources.Non-profits can use Causes to spread awareness about their work, recruit new supporters, launch fundraising campaigns, and sponsor petitions. Some large non-profits will launch separate causes for specific campaigns, and non-profits of all sizes will often find that users have already set-up causes in order to organize their Facebook friends to donate to the organization. Feel free to work directly with existing causes or start a new cause. Causes is the most effective organizing tool available to non-profits on Facebook. Since launching in 2006, Causes’ 30 million members have started and joined 150,000 causes, benefiting 32,000 non-profits and raising more than 4 million dollars.

For example, I belong to both Digg and Delicious.  They run in the background while I’m using Firefox all day while working (click here for Firefox Delicious plugin info).  If I post a new Press Release for someone like yourselves or see something else interesting, I will just bookmark while working.  All I have to do is press Control+D and write a few tags and then I’m done.

The bookmark function is the same as normal, it just now goes into your Delicious account.  These little bookmarks over time, help with your SEO ranking. It’s most beneficial when multiple users bookmark your site with these social media tools.  Again, don’t kill yourself over this little thing, but if you can fit it into your normal work flow and internet browsing - great.

Social Bookmarking Article

Article on Social Bookmarking from Vertical Response, click here.

Key Points

• Four Benefits of Social Bookmarks
• Ability to share pictures, videos and links through bookmarking sites
• Increased search engine visibility and brand awareness
• Increase in SEO value:

John Knox, Guest Writer

One recent morning I was watching the news on TV when a chart illustrating unemployment trends appeared on the screen.  My  initial thought was that unemployment needs to go down. Then I was  struck by how indirect my thought was, because what I really meant was that employment needs to rise.

The point is to think about what you’re saying, and to edit carefully after putting initial thoughts into a draft.  A good writer would substitute a positive statement (rising employment) for a double negative (falling unemployment).

Why bother taking time to edit your business writing?  Just as a top seller takes care to be well-dressed and groomed before calling on a prospect, a good businessperson is careful when presenting material in writing.   Your customers and prospects want to do business with someone who is smart, and there’s nothing like good writing to show how smart you are.

>> Visit John’s site to find out more and to get started today!

I saw the writing on the wall in February 2007 when Google began personalizing search results based on a user’s search history. But back then, a user had to log in to their Google account and opt in to enable Google to track their web history. Now personalized search is widespread, regardless of your log in status.

• Establish and maintain a social network “status”
• Increase the number of followers or fans
• Communicate with more frequency
• Create original content & update older posts
• Link to micro-blogging services (ex. TwitterFeed)
• Follow solid SEO best practices
• Encourage site visitors to react and share your content