Online
Marketing Research Survey
An online marketing research survey could be one of
two distinct types: one type measures how well your site is doing, the
other measures how your customers think.
| So... who do you trust to measure your
success? Or your not so
success? |
Online marketing survey firms would have you
believe that they are the ones who can mystically determine how
successful your website really is.
Balderdash.
They don't know a silly thing that you can't
determine for yourself, especially if you are a small company. For
instance, if you have signed up with a strong website provider, and use
the tools provided, you will be able to determine:
- How many people visit your website.
- How many people come back and visit again.
- How many signups you get for your ezine.
- Which pages are most popular.
- Which keywords are most popular.
- Which search engines are most likely to find your
site.
- Which keywords work, and which ones don't.
- All the hundreds, or thousands, of keywords that
people use to find your site.
- Which pages draw visitors, and which ones
don't.
- Your rate of conversion for your sales.
- Your Alexa ranking.
- Your Google Page Rank.
- What country your visitors come from.
- What the growth of your site has been, month by
month. Or even day by day if you want it.
That's a lot of information. And for the very
curious, there is even more.
These online marketing surveys are promoted as a
means for you to make your site better, to get more visitors to your
site. The promoters use terms like "SEO", which looks
impressive. In fact, "SEO" means nothing more than "Have you
optimized your page for search engines?" ("SEO" actually means
"Search Engine Optimization".)
With a strong web host, your website will be fully
optimized as you build it. You will be able to
- Identify keywords that will pull visitors;
- Identify a site concept that will draw
visitors;
- Create strong pages with those keywords;
and
- Analyze and track it all as you work on
it.
And how would you like to have a list of hundreds
of keywords that your prospective visitors will actually use to find
you? A good web host will provide you with that list.
So don't worry about hiring an online marketing
survey company to do any of this for you. It is already
done.
So how about determining what
your clients want?
There are a number of ways of approaching this
issue. One way is to create a short little online marketing
research survey that you ask your visitors to complete -- just one or
two questions. I don't know about you, but I'm not too likely to
take the time to respond to long questionnaires, especially if they ask
personal questions.
Another way is to study the existing stats that you
have. Clients can't hide from these. These stats are
generated automatically when someone visits your site. And, Yes,
they are all part of the information package that your web host will
provide for you.
Perhaps the best way to conduct online marketing
surveys is just to establish communication with your visitors. Be
open to questions, and make it easy for them to reach you. You
will be amazed at what they will tell you if you just let
them.
If yours is a large company, you may indeed want to
hire a company to conduct your online marketing research survey.
But for smaller firms, you can do it better (and a lot cheaper)
yourself.
