Lotus Interactive Welcomes You…

Lotus Interactive is a professional interactive agency focused on the promise of provided unmatched, world class solutions for its clients.

The Lotus, often used as an example of divine beauty, is described as “eye-opening” or the “awaking of mind”. With the rise of the sun each morning, its unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul and represents purity of the mind as it rises above the muddy waters below. One could suggest the Lotus is the perfect icon of “promise” in today’s clouded landscape of uncertainty. In keeping with those ideas, Lotus Interactive represents new ideas with the promise of success for its clients in this dynamic, fast changing marketplace.

7 New Features in Your Google Analytics Account

Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts

Using an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine, Analytics Intelligence monitors data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Significant changes in data trends and insights you may not have noticed are surfaced directly in your account. You can also create your own Custom Alerts that monitor your selection of dimensions and metrics that can be sent by email or displayed in the Intelligence reports.

Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals

You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. Set up your first Engagement goal in minutes.

Expanded Mobile Reporting

Google Analytics has expanded support for mobile websites and tracking for iPhone and Android mobile applications tracking. Adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites enables you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones. For mobile application developers, access the SDK and technical implementation details here. You’ll also be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section.

Unique Visitors Metric

Include the Unique Visitors metric in your Custom Report or Advanced Segments to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) visit your website. You can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics.

Advanced Analysis Features

Dive deeper into your data with Pivoting, Secondary Dimensions, and Advanced Table Filtering. These combined features enable you to perform in-depth, on the fly data analysis within your account.

Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates

Share the URL link for an Advanced Segment or Custom Report with anyone who has an Analytics account. Sharing the link will automatically import the pre-formatted template into the person’s account. Also available now is the ability to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports by profile.

Multiple Custom Variables

Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. Start learning more about them now.

How To Get Backlinks with Linkwheels — Easy, Free, Permament Links

What is a linkwheel, and how can I create my own? It is one of the easiest ways to get free backlinks that are permanent, easy to create and niche-specific.

Linkwheel Definition

A linkwheel is the newest SEO backlink building method that involves creating multiple blog posts on multiple different sites and interlinking them in a wheel. You create the content, you create the site, giving you complete control of the niche of the site (no more blog comments on unrelated blogs).

Linkwheels are the new trend in SEO and use the power of Web 2.0 and distributed systems on different servers to help interlink properties and increase SERPs extremely quickly.

An Example Linkwheel

So for a typical linkwheel you will have 1 hub, and 12 spokes on the wheel. Each of the spokes links to each other, and all the spokes link to the hub. Using Web 2.0 sites, you can easily create your spokes, with your linkwheel following this pattern. In this pattern, your hub site is the site you want to promote:

Site 1 – Blogger: links to Site 2 WordPress and to Your Hub Site
Site 2 – WordPress: links to Site 3 Squidoo and to Your Hub Site
Site 3 – Squidoo: links to Site 4 WetPaint and to your Hub Site … etc.
Site 12 – EzineArticles: lines to Site 1 and to your Hub Site

Your linkwheel would complete itself by the final site linking back to the first site, but never do you have a single site linking back to the same site it has already linked to. You want to avoid building reciprocal links as this is a sign of association/friendship etc. between two sites.

For a complete example take a look at one of our case studies that shows you how we’re delivering 60 organic visitors per day for a $5/per click keyword for a client. (Over $300 in free traffic everyday)

Why Is a Linkwheel So Effective?

The reason a linkwheel is so effective is it takes into account how Google’s search algorithm is built. It’s designed to promote sites like The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal to the top of the search rankings. The reason NYT ranks so well in Google is because there are so many blogs and sites linking to their articles, and all these links tell Google that the site is an authority on the web, hence rank them higher.

This same principle is applied using linkwheels. Each linkwheel spoke is an individual site, and with all of these sites linking to each other, each spoke gains 1 link of authority, and then all of these sites link back to your hub, giving your hub 12 links from other authority sites. So if you build a bigger linkwheel, you can have 116 links back to your hub site, making your search engine rankings climb even faster.

A Big List of Sites for Linkwheels

So if you’re looking to build your own linkwheel, it’s really a simple process. You want to select the number of spokes in your linkwheel, and then select your Web 2.0 sites.

Here is a good set of Web 2.0 sites to choose from:

Blogsome.com
Blogger.com
Squidoo.com
Wetpaint.com
WordPress.org
EzineArticles.com
VOX.com
Quizilla.com
Weebly.com
LiveJournal.com
HubPages.com
Onsugar.com
Prlog.org
Devhub.com
Yolasite.com
Terapad.com
Beep.com
Webnode.com
Viviti.com

We utilize the above sites in our linkwheels in addition to 52 other Web 2.0 sites, giving each linkwheel we create the maximum power and yielding you the best results for your online marketing efforts.

For more information on our services and how we can help you build linkwheels in scale and deliver hundreds of high-quality backlinks to your properties, visit our pricing page to get started.

Google Analytics launches asynchronous tracking

Google Analytics now provides a new Asynchronous Tracking Code snippet as an alternate way to track your website!

Think of the asynchronous tracking code snippet as a script that uses a “separate lane” to handle part of the processing of your webpage. As the number of cars (or in this case, scripts on your webpage) increases, the asynchronous tracker uses this lane to reduce webpage load time. Websites that use many scripts or rely on rich media content will especially benefit from this new method, but even lightweight sites will see improvements.

The new tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection and accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

The asynchronous tracking code is now in Beta and available to all Google Analytics users. Using the new tracking code is optional: your existing Google Analytics code will continue to work as-is. But if you want to improve your webpage load times and fine-tune the accuracy of your Analytics data, then we think you’ll love this new option.

Learn more about this new tracking code on our Analytics Help Center and get started onGoogle Code.

Tips to integrate social media into your day-to-day media monitoring – PART 4

Making your plan – the 5 steps to success

1. Research

Free web-based listening tools are a good place to start if you’re just becoming acquainted with the social media world, but a more sophisticated approach to managing and reporting on the conversations will be needed once dialogue takes off and becomes more numerous.

There are reputable web-based applications that understand corporate communications, PR and marketing and will consolidate and present all the news coverage and consumer generated coverage data for you.

2. Strategize

With any outreach effort, understanding what moves, motivates and irks your target audience is critical. Listening helps do this.

Communications outreach planning – including social media engagement planning – also has to contribute to meeting a company’s bottom line objectives. If your company is not already using its website to engage stakeholders, the initial strategy can start small.

» Set up a Twitter account – follow individuals or companies with successful social media engagement to see what they are doing.

» Read the blogs of your thought leaders – figure out who is influential in your space and read what they’re saying. They will be a great resource for coming up with new content ideas for your own materials when you begin to engage.

3. Organize

Most of your company’s effort to move from a mass communication model to a social engagement model is cultural. The whole company has to get behind how social media contributions will be managed and organized.

Web strategist and social media guru, Jeremiah Owyang, advocates a hub and spoke model, where representatives from all areas of the business mobilize to manage social media interactions (the ‘hub’) together3. This cross-functional team shares resources and cross-functional communication (the ‘spokes’) with those at the edge of the organization (the ‘tire’).

Regardless of the social media engagement model you choose, anyone participating in social media activities – particularly those who will be posting responses – must be clear on their guidelines for interaction.

4. Prepare

If your company doesn’t already have employee guidelines for its online activities, it should be a priority. Good models of social media policies include IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines and the Red Cross’ Social Media Handbook.

5. Jump in

The key to getting started is with an understanding you don’t have to be everywhere at once. Here are five simple ways to ease into the vast social media setting:

1. Start tweeting. Set up filters for posts relevant to your company, products, or your competitors, and start engaging in the conversation. Consider re-tweeting any of the interesting articles and facts that you are finding from your thought leaders and influencers, and add in anything else that you think people might find of interest.

2. Read two or three relevant blogs on a regular basis, and leave your own comments on interesting posts. By commenting regularly, you will establish a profile for yourself with both influential bloggers, and their followers.

3. Make your company’s website more ‘social’. Ensure there are sharing options on the relevant pages of your site. Create a comments section below news releases or posted news items and make your media room more social and interactive.

4. Start your own blog. As you’re getting started, develop an editorial calendar and a list of ‘bloggable’ ideas. Planning is important when you are getting started and short for ideas, as a blog is only successful if it contains information that others find relevant and interesting. Successful blogging tips are easy to find online.

5. Listen every day and stay involved. All it takes is 15 minutes a day.

6. Measure

Measuring your communication activities is critical, yet challenging. Measuring ROI with social media engagement can also be a tricky proposition, with no set standard yet developed.

To get started, begin by identifying what’s important to your business:

» Qualitative metrics – Conversations, corporate reputation or customer satisfaction

» Quantitative metrics – Online buzz, web traffic, or search engine ranking

With the information in your hands, you can plan and develop or adjust strategies based on what ‘real people’ need and want.

Only then will you have harvested the true power of social media.

Tips to integrate social media into your day-to-day media monitoring – PART 3

Making your case

Strategic planning that includes monitoring social media and traditional channels alike is an investment, but one that will ultimately drive your company’s costs down, while at the same time providing peace of mind that you are staying on top of all conversations surrounding your brand.

By demonstrating how you and your competitors’ brands are being discussed online, you’ll build your case for investing in a listening and engagement media strategy. You might discover no one is talking about you yet. That may not be a bad thing – it means that the power is in your hands to get a conversation started.

In a January 2009 AdMedia Partners survey of marketers worldwide, 77% expected to increase their social media marketing, with only 11% predicting a decrease. Social media marketing was the highest ranked increase of any marketing spending, including search and mobile marketing.

Make a plan and make it happen

Once you get buy-in for a social media strategy, the place to begin is the same place you begin for traditional communication strategies – planning.

Tips to integrate social media into your day-to-day media monitoring – PART 2

When you listen, you learn:

» Your brand is out there and people are talking about it

» Your competitor is already in the game, or if not, people are talking about them too

» Some of your employees are already representing you online, and you didn’t know it » There is a whole new world of opportunity for engaging with and responding to your customers

Listening tools

Listening is something good communicators, PR experts and marketers always do before proposing a course of action. Traditionally, strategies start with interviews, focus groups, a review of customer-focused literature, a SWOT analysis or other research that gets a pulse on their company’s reputation.

Listening in on the social media universe is no different.

You can make a low-risk and low-investment start by using free web-based tools to tap into who’s discussing your brand and why. Using a combination of free and paid tools can become overwhelming due to the volume of data and the numerous locations in which it’s being stored. The end result (media monitoring data points spread across multiple platforms and Excel spreadsheets) should help provide justification as to why moving to a fully integrated listening platform is such a worthwhile investment in the longer term.

Why listen?

» There is always someone talking about you somewhere

» Online conversations happen in real-time, and so should your responses

» To get a pulse on your company’s current online reputation and presence

» To help you know how and how much you need to get involved in monitoring social media

» Not knowing is not an option

Tips to integrate social media into your day-to-day media monitoring – PART 1

67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes.

Marketing Executives Networking Group, Nov 2008

It is critical for your company to be plugged into the conversations taking place about your brand.

Stumbling accidentally onto a conversation about your company can make your blood run cold. If the conversation is positive, you heave a sigh of relief. If it isn’t, you can spiral into full-on panic mode.

Listening is something good communicators, PR experts and marketers always do before proposing a course of action. Traditionally, strategies start with interviews, focus groups, a review of customer-focused literature, a SWOT analysis or other research that gets a pulse on their company’s reputation.

Listening in on the social media universe is no different.

You can make a low-risk and low-investment start by using free web-based tools to tap into who’s discussing your brand and why. Using a combination of free and paid tools can become overwhelming due to the volume of data and the numerous locations in which it’s being stored. The end result (media monitoring data points spread across multiple platforms and Excel spreadsheets) should help provide justification as to why moving to a fully integrated listening platform is such a worthwhile investment in the longer term.

Social networking sites are growing exponentially

With Web 2.0 here to stay, many companies – small and large – are still coming to grips with how to take the first critical steps towards active participation in the world of consumer-driven media.

The prospect of implementing a social media strategy for your company may seem daunting, but it’s not as difficult as you think. In fact, taking your place in the Web 2.0 universe can be as simple as … listening.

Web 2.0 is not a concept anymore; it’s reality. A power shift has taken place. Traditional print and television media no longer have exclusive control over how and when your message is delivered. Consumer communities using web-based social media tools are talking about your brand reputation. The evidence speaks for itself – very loudly.

Social networking sites are growing exponentially. Facebook has more than 300 million active users globally, with each user having an average of 130 friends1 . Earlier this year, YouTube reached 147 million users in the U.S., and the average number of videos viewed per person reached 1012. Microblogging sites like Twitter have anywhere from 3.5 million to 17 million users, depending on which site you look at, and nobody’s even counting how many blogs exist globally anymore, but there are well over 100 million. To add to all of that, there are countless discussion forums, where people are offering opinions on just about anything they read, see or hear.

Combine all of this with traditional media – the daily newspaper, network television, and radio – and you have a dizzying number of channels where conversations impacting your brand reputation are almost certainly taking place.

As your company’s PR professional, you’re responsible for keeping the proverbial ‘ear to the ground’ on what’s being said about you. Given today’s reality, are you covering all your bases? Are you ready if today’s simple ‘tweet’ becomes tomorrow’s news headline? If not, what’s stopping you?

When an 800 Number May Work Against You

If your company provides services throughout a major metropolitan area, or even in multiple areas, you may think you’re improving the odds of attracting new business by offering a toll-free 800 number on your web site.

However, a recent test by the Engine Ready team actually proved the opposite.

Using our call tracking software, our team designed a test that would alternately serve up their client’s 800 number and local number on specific landing pages to determine which phone number generated more inbound calls.

We setup an A/B split test by creating different campaigns that geo-targeted specific cities. Half of the traffic was directed to the landing page with an 800 number; the other half was taken to an identical page displaying the local phone number.

Table 1 shows conversion rates for the landing pages displaying our client’s 800 phone number versus their local number:

Conversion Rates by Phone Number

Table 2 shows the percentage of phone calls received from the landing pages testing the display of our client’s 800 phone number versus their local number:

 

Calls Received by Phone Number

 

Based on this limited test, our team observed that a local number on landing pages converted more visitors to call at over twice the rate of the identical landing pages displaying the 800 phone number.

Due to the nature of this client’s business, they do not have an online form as a conversion option, so the only action that can be classified as a conversion is a phone call. Based on this, we were not able to determine what impact, if any, would accrue to online conversions.

The takeaway here is that if you sell services in more than one area, you’ll definitely want to setup an A/B test of phone numbers within geo-targeted campaigns.

You may want to even consider performing a 3-way test: A page displaying the 800 number against an identical page displaying the local number against yet another identical page displaying both numbers.

If you don’t have a call tracking solution to measure the calls, you can learn more about Engine Ready’s Call Analytics software at: http://www.engineready.com/products/callanalytics.html.

What’s you bounce rates?

If you have any connection with web analytics then, I am sure, you have heard about the bounce rates. A lot of analysts and a few web analytics tools are obsessed with the bounce rates. High bounce rate is considered bad. If you are one of those who is obsessed with the bounce rate or think that all that bounces is bad then this blog post is for you.

I do believe that bounce rate is a great starting metrics when you are trying to optimize your site but be careful and make sure that you are measuring the true bounce rate. Below are the three factors that lead to the misreporting of the bounce rates

1. Links to external sites – Many sites have links to the external sites such as sponsors, micro sites etc. Considering those external links as exits will count visits as bounces even though the visitors are doing exactly what you want them to do (e.g. click on those links that you provided them).
2. Online Ads – If you serve ads on your site you are providing links to external sites. Visitors who land on your site, see an ad that grabs their attention are going to click on it (isn’t that what you want so that you can command higher rates for the ads?). It is not really a bounce because visitors are taking the action that you want them to take. See the screenshot from Techcruch which is full of ads and I bet this page (and other article pages) has a very high bounce rate.
3. Destination Pages – Pages that provide the information that the visitors are looking for is what I call destination pages. Usually you will see the visitors arriving from bookmark or search to the internal pages on your site that provide the visitors with the information that the visitors are looking for. Since those pages serve the visitors’ need you are likely to see high bounce rates on those pages. Those bounce are not bad. Some might argue that you should try to drive visitors into the other sections of the site but I can bet that in most of the cases you won’t see significant drop in bounce rate no matter how hard you try.

Are you considering these factors when analyzing the bounce rates on your site?