Google Analytics allows you to track website statistics like page visits, amount of time spent on individual pages, how much your traffic has changed over different time periods, where your traffic is coming from and what times of day your site is busiest. It gives you tremendous insight into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and what kind of traffic your site is receiving. Google Analytics is extremely user-friendly and after utilizing its tools, you will be able to create better targeted advertisements and promotions and ultimately create a website with higher conversions.

The Google Analytics module for Miva Merchant is the most current version. It fully supports the new asynchrous tracking code and includes features like on-site search tracking and e-commerce conversion tracking.

The Google Analytics module has been tested and is completely functional with the new Miva Merchant PR7 Wombat. You can even track statistics across subdomains and cross-domain.  With an active Google AdWords account you can also integrate your Google AdWords tracking code with Miva Merchant 5.5.

Take advantage of this free module for your new or existing Miva Merchant store with WebNet Hosting today!

WebNet Hosting is a leading provider and Premier Partner Miva Host located in the Washington, DC metro area. Visit http://webnethosting.net for more details on their managed Miva Hosting plans and e-commerce solutions for your website.

For more information about Google Analytics, visit http://www.google.com/analytics/.

• Create a site search function so shoppers can easily find items or services with little effort.
• Put this search function on all pages of your site.
• Organize your site with easy to navigate categories.
• Look at your site from a shopper’s point of view and make sure that shopping from your store is simple.

2.  Give Your Products and Services Extremely Detailed Descriptions.

• Online shoppers cannot physically see your offerings so provide high quality images of each item for sale.
• Give your clients the option to zoom in on and rotate images so they get the full picture.
• If selling used items or goods with any sort of imperfections, make sure that these defects are clearly visible.
• Use videos to show your products or services whenever possible.  This will often trump your competition.
• Along with video, use audio whenever possible to describe your products or services.

3.  Guarantee Site Security.

• Ensure that your site is PCI and PA-DSS Compliant.  Remember that not all hosts or shopping carts are compliant.  Miva Merchant 5.5 will be fully compliant with the PA-DSS by the July 2010 deadline.
• Install valid SSL Certificates so that confidential information is properly encrypted.
• Create a “Contact Us” page.  Customers will trust you more if you provide a physical address and telephone number.

4.  Supply Customer Reviews and Testimonials.

• Put a review system in place on your site.  There are review modules for Miva Merchant 5.5 on the market.
• Positive reviews of your products and service are perhaps the most important tool in establishing a successful online business.
• If a client sees that their opinions matter to you then there is a greater chance that they will become a repeat customer.
• Taking your customers’ ideas and opinions into consideration can greatly aid you in your marketing campaigns.

5.  Increase Your Site’s Speed and Page Load Times.

• People shop online to save time. They will generally be turned off by a site with slow load times.
• Use a qualified and knowledgeable business web hosting provider that has fast servers and an uptime guarantee.
• Ensure that your hosting plan provides adequate bandwidth for the amount of traffic your site receives
• Make sure that your host is willing and able to grow with you as your business grows and generates more traffic.

6.  Perform Proper Market Research.

• Study in-depth what your competition is doing including their marketing, pricing and basically all aspects of your business.
• Institute price-matching programs to keep up with the pricing your competitors are offering.
• Conduct research to find your target demographic and market accordingly.

7.  Properly Promote Your Business.

• Make sure you are reaching your target audience by listing your site in respective directories.
• Utilize site statistics tools such as the free Google Analytics to develop proper marketing plans.
• Conduct smart Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns to get to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for targeted keywords including link building, directory marketing, social networking, article marketing, forum and blog posts and many other techniques.
• Properly use meta descriptions and tags to guarantee the correct indexing and ranking in the search engines.

8.  Clearly State Your Shipping and Return Policies.

• No one likes any kind of hidden fees so be upfront about these policies.
• Offer shipping discounts for the purchase of multiple items.
• Offer free shipping whenever possible for customers that spend a certain amount of money with you.
• Be frank about who is paying for shipping when it comes to returns.

9.  Make Plainly Visible What Methods You Accept For Payment.

• Put accepted methods of payment on your home page.
• For smaller merchants, services like PayPal and Google Checkout may be sufficient.
• In order to be widely successful, realistically you will need to be able to accept major credit cards.
• The more payment options you offer the better.

10.  Devote a Page to Sale and Discounted Items.

• An abundance of online shoppers will jump straight to the clearance section just like many customers do in brick and mortar establishments.  People are drawn to bargains.  Simple as that.  Especially in today’s economy.
• Highlight your discounted goods as much as you can.

Properly following these steps will help any e-commerce merchant be on their way to running a successful online business.  Good luck!

1.  Google Analytics is the premier site statistics tool.  And it’s free.  Using and understanding Google Analytics can help you improve your marketing campaigns and various business strategies.  By using Analytics you can discover what is working and what is not as well as demographic information about those visiting your site.  You can find out what time of day your site is receiving more traffic, what pages are the most popular, how long visitors are viewing each individual page, the bounce rate and much more.

2.  Google Reader consistently checks news sites and blogs for specific keywords and topics so you do not have to take the time to search these individual sites yourself.  This tool is a huge timesaver because you do not have to spend so much time digging through websites – Google does it for you.  You can even easily post the results to your blog or website.

3.  Google Alerts allows you to setup an email notification system to let you know whenever a new result for a specific keyword or keywords shows up in the Google search engine.  This tool lets you pick which type of content you would like to receive alerts for whether it be news, videos, web pages or blogs.  This way you can know whenever someone posts something on the Internet about your business, products or services.

The free tools provided by Google keep you and your business current and up to date with the trends in your industry and let you see what your competition is up to in real-time.  More importantly, these tools will save you a great deal of time and research.  With these tools you can become an Internet marketing master.

By examining the results determined by Google Analytics, you can gain priceless and vital insight about who is visiting your site.  Some of the details about your site’s traffic provided by Google Analytics include:

• Geographic Location
• Demographic Information (age, gender, etc.)
• Personal Buying Habits
• Time of Day When Your Site is Busy or Slow
• How Much Time Visitors Spent on Your Site
• Which Pages Visitors Viewed

After creating a free Google Analytics account, you can easily integrate it into your Miva Merchant 5.5 store.  All you will need to do is fill out some forms relating to your business.

By analyzing the traffic that is visiting your site, you can adjust and implement marketing campaigns accordingly or make the appropriate modifications to your site.

Google Analytics is an extremely valuable tool that you should start taking advantage of today if you are not already.  By studying your site’s traffic you can dramatically increase your bottom line by gaining more visitors to your website and writing better, more targeted copy for your ads.

Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/ to sign up today!

Watch this useful video to learn more about Google Analytics:

How to use the Google Analytics Interface