Time is of the essence for every small business owner I have worked with so here is a quick list of useful ways to increase your local traffic using social media (I will likely add to this shortly):
Blogs: Use Google, Google Blog Search, and Wordpress to search for local blogs and become involved as a user. You may find it appropriate to leave your number or contact information on the site, or at least be vocal about your involvement in the area and how your business is relevant. Try to establish a relationship with local power-bloggers, and they may even find it appropriate to blog about your business.
Begin your own blog: You can easily set up your own blog on blogspot.com or wordpress.com for free, or if you have a website, you can install your own Wordpress blog on your website for free as well. Start blogging about your industry and the local community - you can use it as a tool to notify your community/customers of events in the area that you are sponsoring or participating in.
Use Twitter: Twitter is a microblogging tool that you can use to follow other businesses and members of your community.You can use TwitterLocal.net to find the “Twitterers” in your area and find out what is buzzing in your area. I see networking opportunities, lunches, get-togethers, and news flashes in my area every day in my area.
Own your listings on Google Local, Yahoo! Local, MSN Maps, and Map Quest: Your customers are increasingly using these online tools instead of those heavy, dusty old phone books to find your business and if they can’t find your business, they are going to use the next business that matches their search.
I have always used Google Analytics to keep track of my web statistics (along with some brief free trials of other solutions) but after a rumor began making its way around SEOs that Google may be using Google Analytics along with other Google services to determine your page rank, I’ve been looking for a viable alternative, just for kicks. I probably wont give up Google analytics completely - I’m not one for conspiracy theories - but if a comparable, or better free solution is available, I want to know about it.
I’ve only been using Piwik for about 24 hours now, so I don’t have the data to give a useful opinion about the quality of their analytics, but I will say that I find it to have a cleaner, and yes, a more intuitive interface than Google Analytics. The interface is very similar to the WordPress Admin interface, to which I am becoming more and more partial.
How to Install Piwik
I had an extremely difficult time finding installation instructions for Piwik on the Piwik.org website, and ended up piecing the information I needed from blog comments around the web. The home page makes it sound so simple - “just download the zip file, upload the contents, and open your web browser” but I didn’t understand this:
What you need to know before installing Piwik:
I assumed that I would be including some JavaScript code to my header or at the end of the <body> tag in my HTML code, and then I would be tracking it on Piwik’s site. Instead, it is a PHP/MySQL script that you will want to install in a subdomain or folder under your main domain - ex. analytics.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com/analytics.
From there, you can manage as many websites as you want, and you own all of your traffic data for all of your websites, as opposed to storing that data with Google or another analytics company.
Installation:
Once that is understood, the limited directions on their website make sense: you just download the .zip download file available from their home page, unzip the contents, upload it to your subdomain or folder, and then navigate there with your browser.
You will need to set up a MySQL database before filling out the database information during setup, but other than that (if my memory serves me well), Piwik is ready for setup.
Limitations of Piwik
Edit: Piwik is still in beta, so issues like these are probably being addressed.
I will probably add to this later, or write a new post because, as I mentioned earlier, I have only been using Piwik for a day or so; but here are the limitations I see as a brand new user:
No way to track conversions. I’ll keep using GA for this.
Can’t identify users by IP address - GA doesn’t do this either, but ever since I my free Get Clicky trial ran out I’ve missed having the ability to NOT track my visits from my IP at home and at work.
Visitor location and network: appears to be limited to displaying the country the users are from. No city or regional maps and so far Piwik can’t identify any network providers, although GA and Get Clicky can.
Piwik Strengths
Great looking, intuitive interface
Widgetized - users can move and rearrange widgets on every page
Privacy - all analytics data is kept in your local database
Data display - you can choose to see the data in a pie chart, vertical bar graph, table, line graph, or tag cloud - according to your preference.
Customizable - it is stored on your local machine so if you know a little PHP you can modify the interface and reporting any way you want.
Lightweight - mainly because it is stored on your local server, so there are no requests for ga.js on Google servers (which brings up the point that it is a good idea for GA users to store ga.js locally)
More about Piwik after I’ve had a chance to use it for an extended period of time…
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