Here are the main reasons why I think we are going to have an SEO apocalypse sooner than most people might think…

1 - Increased personalization usage in search results. This has already started to happen - try searching for something when you are logged in to Google. You will often have different search results now, based on what you have search for before - and often different to other logged in users search results too. And Google are going to continue to increase the level of search results personalization, as a way of improving user satisfaction and to differentiate themselves from other search engines like Bing, who don’t have anywhere near as much user search data to be able to offer this. This will therefore mean increased fragmentation when it comes to trying to rank well for keywords - and will give SEO firms less power and influence, and more power to the actual search engine users.  

2 - Increased focus on bounce rate and website user engagement to determine search rankings. Very much like how search quality in Google Adwords works currently, I predict that pretty soon this is also going to start applying to regular organic search rankings. In other words, if you are getting lots of clicks on your search engine ranking, but many people are leaving your website immediately upon arrival because of a bad site (users not finding what they want or poor navigation etc), Google will learn this over time and lower the ranking of your site. Google will therefore effectively promote the rankings of the sites who offer a better user experience.

3- Google introducing site result filtering preferences. Don’t like results appearing from About.com or Yahoo Answers in your Google rankings? In the future I guarantee you will be able to easily set preferences in Google to not serve results from that site, or any other sites you don’t like. And unfortunately the site you may be trying to perform SEO on may be removed from a user’s search engine results by this new feature - potentially for reasons outside of your control as an SEO expert. What happens if a user removes your site from their results because they had a bad customer experience or your product prices were too expensive? You get penalized in the search engines by the user, and there will be nothing SEO experts would be able to do about it. I predict this feature will happen pretty soon… I even mocked up below how it might look in the Google preferences section:

4 - Increased search engine focus on real-time search engine results. This one has already started, albeit in a botched way - Google have begun to understand the importance that users are now much more time sensitive in their need for information by introducing Twitter search results. Even though in my opinion they failed at this first attempt (often with highly irrelevant results), they will get this right, expand usage of this, and will no doubt start to give even more ranking boosts to sites with content that has become updated within the minute (rather than with a day or so as it seems like it is today). This will make it even more complex to rank well for keywords, with increased importance placed on non-traditional websites for information like Twitter and Facebook. Which leads me to my next point…

5 - Increased usage of non-traditional websites to find information online. Twitter and Facebook are smart. They want to gather real time information on their hundreds of thousands of members, and ultimately make it searchable, and thus become even more indispensible for people to use - thus increasing pageviews and ad revenue. Yes, Facebook and Twitter really are just new Googles in disguise. Only just last month, while out in Hollywood, the traffic was even worse than usual. Where did I think to search for reasons why the traffic was so bad? Twitter - I typed in ‘bad hollywood traffic’ into Twitter search, and sure enough found the answer within seconds - it was because of a Christmas parade. I didn’t even think to search Google because their data isn’t real time enough, and they don’t have armies of people experiencing life in order to tap into like Twitter and Facebook have. And mark my words, pretty soon you will start to see Facebook get into the search field - subtly at first. And then watch out Google. And performing SEO on Facebook and people’s wall updates? That’s going to be VERY tough.

6 - As a resulft of the above issues, SEO will become even harder, and thus even more  competitive and cut throat. And this is already beginning to occur with search engine rankings - increasingly, you not only have to excel in SEO for your websites, but you also have to monitor and track what your competitors are doing. For example, it’s no longer as important to be #1 in Google if you can become #2 with a better link bait result title that is more compelling for the visitor to click on. Therefore, it will its getting much harder to perform effective traditional SEO because of increasingly sophisticated non-regular SEO techniques like this.

So there we have it. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this because I am trying to brainwash you to try a different type of non-SEO website optimization that I preach and offer services for on this site. I love SEO, I just don’t see a particularly rosy future for it. And when other mediums like TV-based internet finally become mainstream (already starting to finally become a reality) its going to spell big trouble for the SEO industry.

Your thoughts? I would love to hear everyone’s opinion on the future of SEO - post below!

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1: The Art of the Landing Page: 7 Tips For Increasing Conversions
A great guest blog post by landing page optimization expert Tim Ash, offering some excellent, clear, concise, and actionable tips for helping to improve website conversion rates.

2: 6 Tips for Improving High Bounce/Low Conversion Web Pages 
Avinash Kaushik offers some great unique ideas for optimizing websites, including entry analysis, mismatched calls to action and first impressions. Also, don’t forget about Avinash’s great new web analytics 2.0 book  that just came out, an essential read to help understand your website and its visitors.

3: Conversion Optimization: When & Where to Address Customer Anxiety
Unfortunately, website visitors are still anxious when it comes to parting with their credit card details online. And many websites do a pretty poor job of reducing anxiety, therefore contributing to poor conversion rates. Linda Bustos does a great job discussing.

4: 5 Steps to Twitter Success - Twitter Optimization Series Overview
2009 was the year when Twitter became a powerhouse for driving and converting traffic to your website. Tad Chef over at SEOptimize did a great post early in the year revealing 5 steps to improve your success at using Twitter.

5: Is CAPTCHA Eating Your Conversions?
Thanks to spambots and malaware attacks, in 2009 it also become harder than ever for users to register for something online, or even often just submitting a button. Anil Batra covers this interesting subject and its effect on conversion rates.

6: Optimizing Website & Landing Page Copy – A 10 Step Process
Having poor copy and calls to action on your website is one of the biggest causes of low conversion rates on websites. Brian Eisenberg did a fantastic post all about how to optimize your website text, full of great actionable tips.

7: How to Improve your Homepage (in 10 Easy Steps)
Your homepage is one of your most important parts of your website, and often many website owners and marketers do a poor job of converting their homepage visitors, particularly first time visitors. One of my best posts of the year I like to think…

8: Conversion Makeover: LandsEnd.com – Part 2
One of my favorite things about this website optimization blog post by Brian Eisenberg is that it follows a visitors actions from Google, all the way through to the LandsEnd.com and potential purchase, and talks about the importance of having a visitor follow a good ’scent’ to improve conversions.

9: 22 More-Unusual Ideas to Test & Help Improve Your Website
Often many books and blogs talk about ideas for website testing - but I find that many of them always discuss the same types of tests, so I came up with a list of more unusual things to test and help improve your website.

10: Your Baby Is Ugly
I saved the best for last - surely one of the best posts ever if you ask me. Tim Ash really hits home something that website designers or anyone else related to making websites needs to know - understanding the harsh reality that your website actually sucks and needs help.

So there we have it - another year goes by, and 10 blog posts to help improve your website in 2010! Feel free to reply and mention your favorite other blog posts of the year too!

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In particular, many people asked me for additional in-depth help to improve their website. As a result of this, I am pleased to announce my new premium website optimization service which is specifically designed for those looking for a more in-depth analysis for helping improve and optimize their website.

With this premium service I go a step further than my basic optimization service by actually analyzing your website traffic metrics in your analytics tool to find insights to help optimize your website, and also include a 30-minute phone consultation to discuss my findings with you. Here are the full details on this new service:

Whats Included in My Premium Website Optimization Service:
Based on major insights I gain from analyzing your web analytics traffic data and a website usability overview, you will receive the following:

1: A personalized 10-page report containing fully actionable insights geared to increase your website conversion rates and to improve visitor engagement. Report contents:

• A 2-3 page website improvement overview.
• Major website usability issues on your website and how to remedy them.

• Recommendations to improve your website’s worst performing pages (for example pages with high bounce/exit rates, forms and pages with low conversion rates, and pages with usability issues).

• Your websites top performing pages for goal conversion and user engagement, and what you can learn from them and apply to other pages.

• Traffic source analysis,  revealing your top and worst performing sources and what sources to optimize, and recommendations for other potentially high performing traffic sources.

2: A 30 minute phone consultation to discuss my report and its findings, to help clarify points raised and to answer any questions you may have.

What is the cost of this premium website optimization service?
The cost of this premium service is $599 - much lower than similar priced services by other companies. This includes 8-10 hours of my analysis time and the 30-minute phone consultation with you.

What is needed in order to start this service?
1: The main goals of your website (for example to increase sales/generate leads).
2: Login details to your web analytics tool (to perform part of analysis).

What type of website is this service most ideal for?
This service is ideal for small-to-medium business websites - in particular ecommerce sites, media sites, and lead generation websites, and also for large scale blogs. For smaller websites or personal websites, check out my other more basic service.

What makes me the expert?
I have been helping improve websites for nearly 10 years - both large fortune 500 websites and small business websites. I also am a certified landing page optimization expert. On my blog I have also been discussing website optimization techniques and tips for a long time.

How the process work/how to get started:

• Firstly, complete the form below and submit your website URL and the 3 main goals of your website.
• I will then contact you to arrange payment via PayPal and to get login details to your analytics tool needed to perform this analysis.
• I will then begin this optimization service and send you the personalized report within 7 days.
• After you have read the report, we will then schedule the 30 minute call to review and discuss the findings and answer any questions you have.

Start improving your website and get started now - simply enter your details below to start the ball rolling - I will then contact you for the next steps.

Still undecided? Learn more about website optimization in my free ebook!

Or if you are looking for a more basic, cheaper optimization service, check out my ‘10 Things to Improve Your Website for $149′ service that might suit you better.

Fill in these details to contact me and get started with this premium service:

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But unfortunately many of these service websites are just glorified online brochures and make many mistakes when it comes to having a well optimized website that satisfies and converts its visitors into sales or leads. So I thought I would put together some tips to help improve these very popular and upcoming type of service websites…

Tips to Improve Service Sites and Generate More Sales from Your Visitors:

1: Don’t use a ‘cool’ flash intro page or flash animation on your home page.
These animations are common place on service website, but usually only serve to inflate the ego of the website owner or company and do very little for the actual user. They usually take too long to load and can make the visitor abandon your site early, and often plain just get in the way of what the user is actually looking for on your website. Avoid!

2: Always state your value proposition of your business to your visitors.
Service websites often make the mistake that the visitors will immediately understand and know why a visitor should use them rather than a competitor. Don’t just claim you are the best - state the top reasons why a visitor should use you - cheapest in town, guaranteed, most customers, service specialties etc.

3: Improve your website lead generation to get more sales.
Don’t just simply rely on using an email link on your website that just opens up an email in the visitors email tool (this will also guarantee you get spammed by spam email bots too). Instead use a dedicated contact us page, with a contact form, that has fields so you can get more useful information from the user, like name, phone, service requested etc. Better yet, offer some incentive to contact you, like coupons, or a free white paper. And if you really want to get advanced, then you could use auto responder email system like aweber to automatically send emails at set points after a user has contacted you.

4: Use the power of testimonials on your website.
One of the easiest and best ways to help increase the amount of sales or leads your website generates is by listing a good selection of testimonials prominently on your site - even on your home page, with a visible link to see more. I would actually go out of your way to encourage these testimonials from your recent customers - without them your website certainly won’t convert as well.

5:  Offer a way for visitors to search your website.
If visitors can’t find what they are looking for on your site by clicking around a few times, then they are more than likely going to leave and go back to Google and visit one of your competitor sites instead. One way of preventing this is by offering an internal site search - its a very quick and easy way for visitors to to see if you have information on what they are looking for. This is particularly important if you offer many different types of services.

6: Create coupons for visitors to print out and mention on phone or bring in.
Creating exclusive printable coupons that are only available on your website not only provides your customers with cheaper services, but also gives you a great way of knowing how many sales your website is generating offline - by looking at the amount of web coupons used, you can see exactly how many sales are due to your website. Give it a shot!

7: Try using a web chat service to generate more leads and sales.
Don’t just rely on getting people to call the phone number on your website or emailing you from your website. By offering a web chat option (like BoldChat), this gives visitors an alternate way of talking to you online, that is less committal and less intrusive. It also provides a great way to reach out to visitors who seem to be pondering or stuck on certain parts of your website.

And lastly don’t forget: don’t just focus on search engine optimization.
Even though its very important to generate traffic to your website via effective search engine optimization, if your actual website isn’t optimized and doesn’t meet your visitors needs, then you will be wasting the money you are spending on getting the visitors there in first place because your visitors will leave and go to one of your competitors instead.

So there we have it - some great tips for website owners in the service industry. But of course your success will vary on exactly what type of website you have, and your exact goals. Remember I can help to personally optimize and improve your website to generate more sales and leads for you too.

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Luckily, our friends over at SiteTuners.com are about to launch a great new free tool that bridges this website testing gap, and also ‘ups the website testing stakes’ with a tool that actually predicts your visitors click and eye flow, all without even needing a live website!

Their new tool, currently in free private beta, is called AttentionWizard and actually predicts what your visitors will pay attention to and what they are likely to ignore. Its going to be very simple - you simply submit a screenshot of the page you want evaluated and it makes instant predictions based on advanced artificial intelligence algorithms.  This tool will be VERY useful for helping to identify problematic areas of landing pages and to help increase converstion rates. There will be a free version, and also a paid premium version with extra features.

Here is a screenshot of Attention Wizard in action on the old SiteTuners.com homepage. Looks pretty amazing right?

I know I am very excited to test out this game changing website optimization tool! If you are interested in more details I suggest you sign up for the updates or the private beta . Hopefully this will be launched by the end of the year!

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Therefore, I decided to create a list of more unusual things that you could test to try and help improve your website - depending on the type of website you have of course. Just like coming up with the unusual test of what would happen when you combined Diet Coke and Mentos… unexpected, but pretty impactful! So lets get started with the test ideas…

1. Test adding drop down menus instead of regular flat navigation menus to improve navigation  (doing this will allow users to get a better sense of what your website offers, without having to click around unnecessarily).
2. Test creating a ’first time user’  page and adding prominent link on your home page (first time users are often neglected, but often form a high percentage of visitors to websites).
3. Test adding a live web chat tool like BoldChat to help your visitors in real time (this helps reduce the amount of confused visitors on your site).
4. Test adding a tag line to just below your logo to help clarify your sites value proposotion  (don’t just presume a visitor will know what your website is about - creating a tagline will help).
5. Test making more use of bullet points rather than long paragraphs on product or service pages to improve scanability (because remember that web users like to scan instead of read long sentences).
6. Test removing the leaderboard banner ad on your home page in order to reduce ad irrations  (seeing banner ads in prominent places can often make visitors leave prematurely).
7. Test removing the ‘email confirmation’ field on your forms to increase conversions  (users often just cut and paste into this field anyway, removing may increase form completion rate) .
8. Test making registration non-mandatory before user can make a purchase (while it might seem like a good idea, making registration mandatory can greatly reduce conversion rates).
9. Test downgrading any of your flash animations into static images, particularly on home page (this is likely to make your pages load quicker and not frustrate users as much).
10. Test increasing your font size by one point to increase readability (you will be surprised how many websites’ text size alienates visitors without the site owner realizing it).
11. Test underlining all of your text links to make it obvious what is clickable (this is always the source of much debate - but just test it - your conversion rates might increase - too often its hard for visitors to know what is a link and what isn’t).
12. Remove some on the more unnecessary links on your pages to reduce confusion (studies have shown that too many choices of links can often confuse visitors and make them leave prematurely).
13. Test the color of your checkout or submit buttons to increase conversions (colors often can convey negative unintended meaning).
14. Test using an email autoresponder tool like aweber.com for post-purchase or signup emails, particularly to include thanks, next steps or tips (this often assures and helps your new clients/customers).
15. Test moving your site search box into the top right of every page to aid user navigation (if a user can’t find what they want, internal search is often looked for next - so should be prominent).
16. Test prominently adding your sites value proposition above the fold on your homepage (always let your visitors know whats in it for them by using your site).
17. Test adding first name personalization to the body copy of any newsletter lists or emails you send to clients (remember someones name is the most important word to them).
18. Test renaming some of your navigation tabs to make them more logical and understandable to users (when builing your site, you may not have spent long on naming the items - revisit and improve them).
19. Test adding related links to the end of your articles to increase user engagement and click rates (these reduce the chance of the visitor leaving your site prematurely).
20. Test adding a site feedback tool like Kampyle.com on every page to gain ideas and feedback  (listen to your visitors - they have great ideas!)
21. Test only having up to 3 major calls to action on your home page to remove potential confusion (again, the more choices you offer visitors, the more confusion your site will cause).
22. Test moving your site security seals into the site header to increase conversions (dont just move into the body - try the header - particularly important for ecommerce sites).

So there we have it! Hopefully you can take advantage of some these good ideas for you to help test and improve your website - no matter what kind of website you have. And feel free to add your own more unusual things to test on websites - simply comment below to add your ideas…

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For a limited time, for just $149 (regularly $199), I will do a review of your website, and recommend 10 personalized ways that you can improve your website. I guarantee you and your website visitors will be pleased with the results - if you are not completely satisfied I will refund your money no questions asked.

For just $149 I will help improve your website by:

• Increasing goal conversions. Depending on your site, this could be by increasing sales or signups for example.
• Reducing the bounce rate and exit rate of your pages (i.e. help engage your visitors once arriving).
• Removing common website usability mistakes that frustrate your website visitors.
• Keeping your visitors coming back for more (much cheaper than paying for new visitors to show up)

Here are the types of things I review and help improve:
Based on what type of website you have and its goals, here are some of the types of things I will review and make recommendations for improvement:

• Your homepage and main landing pages
• Your product or service pages
• Your major ‘calls to actions’ on your website
• Your website sign-up forms and flow
• Your website shopping cart flow (if you have an ecommerce site)
• The navigation flow on your website
• The imagery/look and feel of your website
• Your websites ‘value proposition’  (the benefit to your visitors)
• General website usability issues for your website

Bonus - Traffic Driver Recommendations!
Based on your type of site, I will also recommend 3 personalized more unusual ways to help drive traffic to your website that you probably aren’t doing now.

How the process work/how to get started:

• Via PayPal button below, send me your $149 payment, your website name,  domain, and the 3 main goals of your website.
• I will then spend 2-3 hours reviewing your website, and send you a personalized report with my recommendations within 7 days.

What makes me the expert?
Well, I have been helping improve websites for nearly 10 years - both large fortune 500 websites and small ‘ma and pa’ websites. I also am a certified landing page optimization expert.  On my blog I have also been discussing website optimization techniques and tips for a long time.

Why should you take advantage of this new service:

• It offers completely personalized recommendations for your website - no generic ‘canned’ responses.
• It will gain you an advantage over your competitors whose websites are lacking in website optimization.
• Its very cheap considering the return on it investment it will bring you (more sales, sign ups, repeat traffic).
• I guarantee you will be happy with my service - if not, I will refund your money no questions asked.

What type of websites do you offer this service for?
All types - blogs, e-commerce sites, media sites, service websites, non-profit websites, personal websites - any kind of website really.

Other things to note:
This is different than search engine optimization (SEO) services - I don’t help increase your search engine rankings - I help improve your website so that visitors are engaged better and convert more once they arrive. And lastly, I don’t actually make the changes - I just make recommendations for what to change - many of these things are simple, some may require tech help to do the changes.

For a limited time there is a $50 discount - now only $149
This service is $149 now, but on Oct 31st 2009, this service will increase in price to $199 - so hurry and take advantage of this special $50 discount on this service.

Start improving your website and get started now - simply enter your details below and click ‘Pay Now’ to pay securely with PayPal. You will get your review within 7 days.

Still undecided? Learn more about website optimization in my free ebook!

Fill in these details below to contact me and get started:

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So. Let me explain to you 5 ways that Facebook Ads is actually more effective than Google Adwords…. you may learn a thing or two!

1: Way better for targeted demographics/keywords
Yes, Google Adwords and others can do this, but what’s great about Facebook advertising is that you can target keywords or demographics much better. This is because users have to be logged in to see Facebook ads, so you can be sure that your ads are only shown to only the people with profiles that contain your targeted keywords or demographics. For example, say you want to bid on the keyword ’shoes’ to females between 21-45 - this will ensure that only women aged between 21-45 that mention the keyword ’shoes’ in their profile will see your ad.

Google Adwords doesn’t know as much about the user searching (apart from their limited cookies and previous searches) and therefore can’t target as accurately.   As a result of this better targeting options and results from my tests, Facebook advertising  often has higher click through rates and conversions than Google Adwords.

2: Usually MUCH cheaper - much better for small businesses
This is one of my main issues with Google Adwords - its just got way too expensive to even bid on medium popularity keywords, especially words relating to things that can be bought online. On Facebook Ads, some initial keyword comparisons reveal you can get very decent results at about one quarter of the cost per click on Google Adwords. Take my classic rock community - bidding on the keyword ‘Led Zeppelin’ costs a minimum $1 on Google Adwords (let alone good amount of clicks), but I can get good clicks for just 25 cents on Facebook advertising. Much more cost effective - and in particular way better for small businesses trying to gain a presence online without a big budget.

3: You can take advantage of using images/photos in ads
This is VERY powerful feature of Facebook Ads. As they say, an image is worth a thousand words - and the ability to show images in ads in Facebook is a huge advantage over Google Adwords. The only way you can do this in Google Adwords is by creating your own image banners (which we all know often don’t convert too well). In Facebook advertising though, its very easy to upload a small image that helps convey the text of your message, and helps draw your target user’s eye to your ad for more clicks. Its also particularly great for showing images of products or brands. Great job with this advertising feature Facebook… take note Google, Yahoo and Microsoft!

4: Way less restrictions when setting up ads
Not only can you benefit from inserting images in your ads as mentioned above, but you also have more space for your ad descriptions (135 characters versus just 75 at Google Adwords) thus allowing more marketing creativity. Facebook ads also don’t mind the use of exclamation points in ads (which can be used to great effect), and they don’t restrict using nearly as many different words that Google Adwords do in terms of possible copyright issues. Much less frustrating when setting up an ad campaign on Facebook!

5: Works particularly well for dating and community sites
If you stop and think about the type of user that is on Facebook - people who like to be a part of a community, it means its particularly effect to advertise community or dating websites to users on Facebook. Users are going to be far more in tune and receptive to what you are offering, because they are already engaging in a community site. This is why you see so many adverts for dating and community sites on Facebook - because its the perfect target market and its likely getting them great results. Another example is that I advertise my ClassicRockersNetwork.com community on Facebook and it is getting amazing conversions as a result of this factor - people are more likely to want to join another community because they are already using one - Facebook.

However… Facebook advertising does still have some teething troubles though, for example, their is no conversion tracking options (Google Adwords is great for this), and their is no ability to show ads at particular times of the day only. Its also not good for business-to-business advertising (because of the type of users typically on Facebook).

But seriously. If you are using Google Adwords, or any other paid search platform, immediately go experiment with Facebook advertising. You will probably be pleasantly surprised with the results. I know I certainly was!

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But even though its pretty easy to setup an online community, its entirely much harder to make a successful online community. So given my experiences, I thought I would put together some best practices for helping to optimize and improve online communities. So let’s get started…

- Customize the look and feel of your online community. Even though Ning  and KickApps offer plenty of themes for communities, in order to really brand your community and set it apart from others, you have to stylize it, particularly a good header graphic - if you aren’t good at design yourself, there are plenty of cheap options out there for web design. But don’t try and wing out though - trust me, image is HUGE for a community.

- Create your online community’s value proposition - then clearly state it on your home page and near your logo. For example, my Classic Rockers Network online community states clearly ‘The Only Online Community for Classic Rock Fans’ - in other words, don’t make your visitors guess at the true value of your website - make them easily understand why they should join your community - or you may not get a second chance to convert them into a happy repeat visitor!

- Think of a great, catchy domain name for your community - this goes a long way to making your community seem more authentic - don’t use the subdomains that you get given to begin with. Domain names are very cheap these days and go a long way to help branding your community.

- Create original content for your online community members. Give members a reason to come back to your website by coming up with your own original content. Here are many ideas for creating great content - interviews, polls, reviews, latest news, contests, commentary on hot issues, user guides etc. Another great idea is to do a series of related posts, as these will encourage people to come back and read the latest.

- Add fun interactive web 2.0-like content to your community. Don’t just offer regular text content - add videos of related content (find and embed from YouTube or even create your own), add related photos, and even add widgets (but don’t go overboard!) You can even add music if your website is music-orientated.

- Customize the member profile questions to match your theme. Don’t just stick with the generic ‘age’, ‘gender’, ‘location’ questions - come up with some fun community related profile questions that will spark conversation between members. For example, if you have a movie online community, you should add profile questions like ‘What are your top 5 movies?’, or ‘Who are your favorite actors?’. It works remarkably well!

- Send personal comments to your new members. Treat your new members like gold. One of the best ways to do that is to send each new member (particularly in the beginning) a personal welcome comment, thanking them and telling them what they can do on your social network. Trust me - this is great way of introducing yourself and the site, and to start community friendships.

- Customize the welcome email that gets sent to your new members. Its very important that new members understand what they can do on your community. The best way to remind them is via the auto-welcome email, but its usually just generic to begin with. Find out how you edit this on your community, and customize it to mention the first things that a user should do your on your community, thank them for joining, and ask them to invite their friends!

- Send regular ’broadcast’ messages to your members to stay in touch - a great way to stay in contact with your members is to email them with your latest community news and your latest great new content. Always encourage them to come back for the latest and greatest - its easier to get existing members to come back than to get new members. Don’t send more than a couple of emails a week though - you don’t want to come off as a spammer and lose members!

- Run a refer a friend contest to get more members. Getting new members to join is often very hard - particularly in the infancy of your community. One of the best ways to get more members is to encourage your existing members to invite their like-minded friends to join up - a great incentive for them to refer their friends is to set up a contest, where the person who refers the most members wins a prize (gift certificates, or something appropriate to your community).

- Use RSS feeds to add to freshness to your community. If you don’t have time to create regular new content, a great way to keep your online community fresher is by finding a related blog and put the RSS for it up on your site. Remember to ask permission from the blog owner - chances are they will be grateful for the extra traffic and exposure to their blog!

- Search engine optimize your community! This is where it gets a little tougher, but there are some important things you should do to help increase your rankings in the search engines (thus generating your free targeted traffic). Firstly you should pick and place your target keywords in the description of your community, as these usually form your page title and meta tags. Secondly, think of your target keywords while writing new content - always try and use target keywords in the content title, and in the body text and even in the image ALT tag. Then lastly - start building links from other sites - reaching out to related blogs for link exchange definitely helps. All this helps build your search engine rankings.

- And lastly… advertise your community on Facebook. What better place to find new community members than to advertise on a place that is full of people who understand and love communities - Facebook! The Facebook advertising platform is fairly new, and it allows you to easily target your advertising by keywords and demographics. Its really worked for me, and I have personally found that its much cheaper than Google Adwords too.

So there we have it - hopefully this guide helped all the budding online community builders out there to improve and optimize! And if you don’t have your own social network yet, I suggest you create one about one of your passions (I personally recommend using ning.com). Its great fun - and could make you some great money on the side, and some great friends/contacts!

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Basically, unless your web visitor is clicking your Twitter link from the Twitter.com website, it won’t show up as a direct Twitter referrer in your analytics (it will simply appear as direct/bookmark traffic). Therefore if the user is visiting from a desktop application like TweetDeck, or a mobile phone app like TwitterFon, it will come in wrongly as direct/bookmark traffic instead. And unfortunately a pretty high proportion of all Twitter traffic comes from mobile or regular Twitter apps, and not from the Twitter.com website.

Luckily there are several great ways to track your success better and address some of these tracking issues. So, lets take a look at some great ways to track and measure your success (or current failure) on Twitter…

- Use Tracking Codes! Put tracking codes in the URLs that you use in Twitter. This is fairly easy if you use Google Analytics campaign builder- yes, I know its a pain to do so, but trust me, it will help you see the true impact of your Twitter usage, including its impact on your site goals like sales or signups. And to make it even easier, you can use this great Google Analytics Twitter hack to take out the annoying manual part of doing this.

- Use a better URL shortener! Instead of using the default Twitter URL shortener, you can use a better one like bit.ly or ow.ly - these include built in tracking codes so you can monitor clicks, and who is Twittering about the URL that you put in your link. And they show up in your analytics as their own referrer (instead of as direct traffic), no matter whether the clicker uses a Twitter application, or Twitter.com, so you can measure your Twitter usage better!

- Measure your influence! There is also a great free tool that actually gives you even better Twitter analysis - its called Twitalyzer, and lets you measure your influence, not just measuring clicks. It uses a system to calculate things like your reach, genorousity and clout in the would of Twitter. Definitely worth a look!

- Track your re-tweets! The more people who are retweeting your messages the better - so use a tool like ReTweetRank to measure the amount of retweets about you per day, and try and grow your ranking on there. You can also use it to compare your retweet rating against your competitors or peers - and beat them!

- Follow your follower levels! Use TwitterCounter to measure and grow the amount of new people following you per day, and average growth per day. You can also find the number of users who are unfollowing you per day - if your unfollowers increase, change your Tweeting habits until the unfollowers stop.

- Put your ear to the ground!  It’s really important to listen to who is talking about you to get true insight (good and bad) - TweetBeep measures the amount of times your Twitter name or product or brand is mentioned, and what is being said, and automatically emails you anytime this happens. Very useful - and remember to always reply to these people talking about you!

- Customize Omniture if you have it! Lastly, if you are lucky enough to be using Omniture Site Catalyst, you can customize the tool to automatically track top Twitter clicks, clickers, followers, and keywords mentioned about you.

So there we have it - some great tools that help you understand and track your Twitter success better. What other Twitter tracking tools do you use?

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