On Friday, I did a solo camping trip to Long’s Peak Campground.

On Saturday, I went to Red Rocks to see Sound Tribe Sector 9, one of my all-time favorite bands.

On Sunday, I went to a moving service at Columbine Unity here in Boulder.

About 3 years ago I built a site and business called Homebrew School (HBS). It is a partnership with my brother (homebrewer) and myself (marketer). I’ve used it as a way to test and experiment with online business, internet marketing and web development techniques. However, it’s been a very part-time gig so many things go overlooked.

About 2 weeks ago, I jotted down some notes on action items I wanted to take regarding analytics and optimization. Here is a collection of the actions I’ve taken since setting this plan in motion. I’m going to do it as a screencast. Enjoy!

Analytics and Optimization Supporting Elements

Action Step 1 Notes:
Google Website Optimizer is a great tool for split testing: www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Action Step 2 Notes:
For my AR link updates, I did 301 Redirects in my .htaccess file after generating the links using Google’s URL Builder. I use ListMail Pro for my email marketing – it’s a single payment software license that I then installed on my server (php/mysql based software). Does a great job for my purposes with HBS.

Action Step 3 Notes:
Goal setting in Google Analytics is essential but make sure you are keeping a watchful eye, especially right after you create one to make sure it is tracking properly.

Action Step 4 Notes:
I use the Get Social WordPress Plugin for my social sharing links that float on the left hand side of the page. There is also an analytics plugin that integrates with this as well.

Action Step 5 Notes:
I use Facebook Pages Insight section to determine my change in fans and I use TwitterCounter.com to analyze changes in Twitter performance.

For rank checking, I had to use 2 tools to update b/c my main tool was not pulling correct data from Bing. I generally use SEOBook’s Rank Checker plugin for Firefox – you can load and check many keywords at a time and the report is downloadable. However, since Bing ranking was not accurate, my backup, quick and dirty tool is Mike Wong’s Rank Checker. I can only do one keyword at a time there, thus my limiting my report to just a dozen keywords.

In Google Analytics, I use a fair bit of search and filters to drill down to the data I am looking for.

Here is a direct look at my dashboard:

I actually completed this is Apple Numbers but transferred it over to Google Docs so you could take a look.

Future Action Steps:
Here are some further action steps I’d like to take in the next month.

1. analyze demographic info from Facebook to craft more targeted messages
2. increase my optin conversion rate to 20%
3. add an entry level product to my product mix
4. increase social media participation by 25% (measured against # of posts and tweets from past)
5. Restart my adwords campaign

That’s a hefty list considering everything else I need to focus on, but it’s a good example of continuous improvement using analytics and optimization to make decisions and take action.

Definitions. Make sure you have clearly defined metrics and goals that your organization understands…and understands how to measure and meet them.

Data. Obviously we need consistent and accurate data and data gathering procedures. It’s imperative that the organization is able to collect and organize the data it needs and that its accuracy is verifiable.

Daily monitoring. Put your goals and metrics in place and watch them daily. Gather, preferably, first thing in the morning, to review the previous day’s performance, compare historical results and match against your goals. Take away action steps when necessary to make sure you are on pace to meet or exceed your goals.

Diagnostic metrics. Have metrics in place that will clearly alert you to problems and improvements. These metrics, when viewed, should be self-explanatory and quickly reveal what needs to be changed (or what change was worthwhile).

Dashboards. Having a singular document for your team to review showing metrics, goals and historical data is key to rapid analysis. One simply doesn’t have time to view and analyze everything, so put the essential data on the dashboard, review it and take action. I’ve seen this in place at a previous employer and it was incredibly successful. The executive team and other key players would convene each day at 8:30am without fail to review a one-page “Daily Operations Report” measuring top key performance indicators(KPIs).

Democracy. By having your team review and be asked for feedback on performance and how to continue to improve conversions, you empower and motivate the team to be accountable and creative towards conversion problem solving.

Dedicated party. It is important that someone owns the responsibility for improving conversions. This is most effectively done by delegating ownership to different dedicated parties and have them responsible for the metrics and goals within their area of business. Accountants, designers, marketing managers, customer support (and more) can all be dedicated parties to help improve conversions for the organization. It goes back to establishing a democracy around your analysis procedures – empowered team members will provide the best suggestions.

Decisions. The top item on the agenda for all of this analysis is to make decisions that will positively impact your conversions. Always keep this at the forefront of your analysis. What decision can we make from this information that will improve performance?

Demonstrable impact. When analyzing and making decisions, be sure that whatever modifications you intend to implement will be easily measured to show the change on your conversions. Without a definite way to view the changes, you are wasting time and resources…and could be hurting your conversions without knowing.

Design. In everything you do, consider the design. This can be applied to how you layout your dashboard, your information architecture, graphic appeal, the analysis program itself and everything in between. Design needs to be functional for the consumer – and the consumer, in this case, is both your customer and your staff so make good design a high priority.

Determination. Stay consistent and focused. A good analysis program takes time to build. And improving conversions can take time, too.

Many of my clients create private access multimedia training sites and we’ve tried out numerous video solutions including jwplayer, brightcove, bitsontherun and others.

To me, Easy Video Player has been the most effective and useful solution thus far.

Some of the main features that are must haves include:

• Intergration with Amazon S3 accounts
• Download / Share the Video buttons
• Ease of Cross-Device playback
• Post-viewing calls to action

There are tons of additional features that are incredibly useful, but the ones above are the essentials for 90+% of the projects I work on.

I see people use YouTube and other online video hosting solutions for professional marketing videos, but don’t agree at all with this practice. If you are going to publish a YouTube video, keep it on YouTube – create a more professional version for your website.

Check out Easy Video Player if you are looking to take video to the next level on your site.