Talk about a company immersed in controversy!  Vitrak Systems has had a long hard battle that sounds like a story fit for television!  From hostile corporate takeover to dramatic court battles, the creator of the company has emerged victorious.  Michael Power can get on with building his company and it looks like he is off to a great start!  Read their News Section to catch up on what’s happened or visit their web site to learn more.

Vitrak Systems had a web site designed and built many years ago, but with all the hullabaloo they had taken it off the web.  When they required hosting and maintenance for the site they chose Your Digital Coach.

From the look of it this is one high tech P.E.I. company that is going places (on foot I’d guess – ha!).

Amazing Personalized Glassware & Stone!

If you are looking for amazing personalized glassware or stone items then you should visit this web site! Kelly does incredible work with her sand blasting equipment, turning everyday glass and stone into personalized works of art.

Her tag line – “Gifts so nice you’ll want them for yourself” is so true!  I ordered one of her Illuminated House Plaques for my own house.  It looks very nice and makes it easy for anyone to find our house after dark.

You have to check out the samples of her work on her Glassware Gallery.  The intricacy of the detail is incredible!  She can take almost any image and sand blast it into the glass of your choice.

If you are a wine maker and want to create unique bottles to use for extra special gifts then have a look at Kelly’s gallery of Personalized Bottles!  They are so nice you may not want to give them away!

Kelegant Sand Carving Studios also has a unique way of remembering your favorite pet.  Kelly creates Pet Memorials in many styles that are a perfect way to “Celebrate the spirit of a loved one lost”.

Kelegant Sand Blasting Studios is also branching into home decor with illuminated and non-illuminated artwork and cut vinyl wall art.

So whether you are looking for a gift for someone special or looking for a way to promote your business, Kelegant Sand Carving Studios is sure to provide unique and attractive sand blasted works of art!

There are still a few pages that I am waiting for content for but the products are going into stores tomorrow so the site had to “go live now!” There will be more recipes added over the next few days and the rest of the content should be on the site in the next week or two.

This is a major site for me since it is the first big site I’ve done in coordination with Debbie Brady of Graphically Speaking – a great graphic designer that I met while still working for my previous employer. She is quite a task master, making sure that everything I do is done in keeping with her design! I think we both did quite well!

I am very proud of this site!

Web Site Statistics – A Case Study

Last month we looked at the web site statistics for two clients. We’ve tried a few inexpensive things since then to see how they would affect the visits to their sites. Well, things are looking up, but we have a long way to go.

Client #1
We didn’t really do all that we hoped to do last month to try to bring in more traffic. I did get his site listed on several web directories that cater to the types of products this client sells, but I had hoped he would have posted updates a little more frequently. Even so, traffic to his site is up by 15% and the number of pages visitors have looked at is up by almost 30%.

I think that regular updates to his site will definitely help to increase traffic, but I’m going to investigate a few other alternatives this month.  I’m sure that as we get closer to the Christmas season traffic will naturally increase as well.

Client #2
So far we’ve just scraped the surface of what we can do with this site.  We’ve been testing some AdWords advertising and have tweaked the keywords on his web pages.  The statistics are not dramatically improved but they do show that we are on the right track.

Visits to the site are actually down about 7% but the number of pages viewed is up by 30%.  So although we aren’t seeing an increase of traffic we are reaching a more focused audience.  They are interested in what the site has to offer and are spending time looking around.  We’re not sure if this increase is translating into conversions to customers, but it is encouraging.  We have to work on some tools to measure conversions.  Hmm….

It’s also encouraging to see that search phrases other than the company name are beginning to show up.  Finally, people that do not know about his company are beginning to visit his site.

We recently changed his Adwords keywords and we will be looking at the daily budget to see if it can be increased.  We’ll also be looking at on-line directories and the possibility of submitting some articles to on-line magazines to further increase visits to his site.

This exercise has been quite interesting to me so far.  I am learning many ways that I can help my clients to market their sites and their products with a little cost as possible.  I’m looking forward to finding new ways to accomplish this.

Stay tuned!

Scott

Web Site Stats – Visitors

I was reviewing some site statistics this morning in preparation for a new service I’ll be providing my clients and thought what a great topic for some blog posts!  Some folks don’t even bother looking at their web site statistics, while others may look but do not really understand what the numbers are telling them. Like most statistics there is a certain amount of interpretation that needs to be done to really understand what the numbers mean.

Web sites statistics are extremely valuable and are often overlooked.  Without knowing what is happening with traffic to your site you have know way of measuring the effectiveness of your web marketing strategies.  You may be spending money or time on something that is not helping to drive traffic to your site or increasing visitor to customer conversion rates.  You could be spending more money or time on strategies that do work.

I’ll talk about a couple of my client’s sites to show examples of what I’ve experienced so far.  There has been no internet marketing, to speak of, for either site so these are good “control” numbers.

Client #1
This client’s site is averaging about 1000 unique visitors per month.  That may not sound like much to some people but when you consider this business is in a regional “special interest” market (of probably less than 1000) its not so bad.

When we look at total visits, we see that folks are returning to his site on average about 4 times.  That means there is something about the site that makes them return. We have some good ideas of what it is that brings folks back, but I’m sure there is more that we can do.  We just have to take some time to come up with ideas.

He is happy with the site we’ve built.  He feels his business has increased because of the web site.  We probably could do better though.  I’ll talk to him about some inexpensive (read “free”) ways that he can work with his web site to increase traffic and his customer base.

Client #2
This client’s site is averaging about 2000 unique visitors per month.  His target audience is potentially much bigger so we have some work to do.  We will try some strategies over the next few months to see if we can increase the number of visitors.

Another issue he has is that visitors only come to the site twice each month, on average.  So there either isn’t anything of value there or they’ve found what they are looking for and he has made a sale.  I don’t think his conversion rate is that high though.  So we have more work to do in that area as well.

He would also like to increase sales of a product that he feels could be doing better.  It also happens to be the part of his web site that receives the fewest visitors.  The strategies that we work on will focus on that product.

I’ll be writing more on this topic when I get time, or the inspiration.   I’ll try to use these businesses in future articles so you’ll be able to see what has happened through the strategies we’ve implemented.

I think this is a fascinating topic area and one that I know I have more to learn.

Scott