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5 Tips for Launching Your First Email Marketing Campaign

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Tips for Launching Your First Email Marketing Campaign appeared first on HostGator Blog . Email marketing is far from dead . In terms of return on investment, it still holds up as a viable campaign element. The trick is to know how to use this resource to its best advantage.  Even in a world with so many options for electronic communication, email remains an affordable and effective way to connect with consumers. But the most important bit is to make sure your emails go to the right people – qualified leads and prospects.  If this is your first campaign, don’t feel overwhelmed. With a little help, you can create a plan that’s effective and brings the positive attention that you want. Here are some tips to get started.  What’s a Qualified List Anyway? The last thing you want to do is buy a list, blast out emails, and hope for the best. If you want reasonable results, that list must be qualified. What does that mean? A ”qualified” email list has email addresses of those who have expressed interest in the types of goods or services that your company sells. Those addresses may be individual consumers, buyers for other companies, department heads, or anyone else with the authority to make purchases. The tie that binds them together is they have indicated the desire to receive emails related to products they want.  How do you come up with a qualified list? One approach is to have consumers opt in to receive your emails. That often provides a list’s foundation.  Don’t overlook generating qualified recipients by using your social media accounts. A simple post that includes a link back to the opt-in page on your website allows interested parties to sign up. Combined, the list will be composed of recipients who are more likely to open and read the email than hit the delete key.  Now that you know who you’re emailing, it’s time to launch your first email campaign.  Here are the 5 tips for launching your first email campaign… 1. Create emails with a specific purpose or offer. Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hub/53/file-23119214-png/blog/images/email_list_growth_tactics-resized-600.png If you’re serious about mounting an effective campaign, the email text must focus on engaging the recipients in a specific way. Offer them something in exchange for reading the email. Make a compelling case for accepting the offer.  Some of the offerings you could make include:  Notice and ability to register for an upcoming event Signing up for an email newsletter Discounts on specific goods and services Announcements of new products Can you include more than one offering? Yes, but it isn’t always the best move. One of the offers might be lost in the shuffle. You would do well to stick with one purpose for that email and follow up with a second one that contains a different offer a few days later.  Remember that your content must not contain any element that hints of a scam . Be up front and clear from start to finish. You’ll get more readers that way.  2. Write an eye-catching subject line. Remember the old axiom that was at the core of Toastmasters International training? It works with email campaigns too. The “Three S” approach – stand up, speak up, and shut up – translates well into this type of campaign.  Use the subject line to make a point or ask a question. Follow with information the recipient can use in the first paragraph. Follow with content that backs up that information. Close with a way to learn more by clicking over to your website.  That’s it. Forget about flowery phrases or trying to impress readers with a wall of text. Keep it simple and to the point . More people will read the whole thing and be inspired to ask for more.  3. Choose images and videos directly related to the email topic. It’s fine to include images or embed video in your marketing emails. Just make sure they accomplish more than taking up space.  The images must directly relate to the email topic. Unless you’re selling a new pet product, kittens are not good choices. Use an image that shows the product or at least someone using it. That creates context.  The same is true with video. Make it short, sweet, and relevant. No one has time to watch a video as long as a TV show. Use the video to make a quick point and direct the reader to the product. Do it in less than three minutes. 4. Don’t hit “send” 500 times. In the beginning, your email list may contain ten people. Maybe less. At that level, it’s no big deal to put them all on BCC using your regular email address and service and send it out. Once you have hundreds, or even thousands of names on the list, the technical aspect of simply emailing them all get complicated. Your standard Gmail account will likely be exhibiting symptoms of stress thanks to Google’s new AI spam filters . Most web hosts help newbie email marketers take the next step in technical sophistication by offering email services like autoresponders, multiple email boxes for your domain, web mail, and other handy features for a marketer. A reputable service should fully abide by GDPR data privacy requirements . Most hands-on HostGator reviews explain how to set up email in a GDPR-compliant manner, as does the HG knowledge base . As your list grows, it will eventually become too unwieldy to manage even with a web host’s resources. At that point, it’s time to look into a full-fledged email marketing service like Constant Contact .       5. Use the email format that works best for your audience. Source: https://ucarecdn.com/900cb335-6b86-4a87-a06e-54975362273f~7/nth/5/ HTML is pretty. It works a lot of the time. It may work for you. Then again, it may not.  Think about your target audience. Are they more likely to open the email on a phone or a laptop? Will the HTML slow down the load time and motivate the reader to close and delete the email? Will it add anything of value to the email itself?  Only you can answer those questions, and a lot depends on the quality of the underlying code . As you decide, be aware that poorly-executed HTML increases the odds that readers will delete the email before finishing it. That also means they won’t forward it to their associates.  The bottom line… Expect to be horrified by the perceived complexity when you first dig into the idea of email marketing. It can be overwhelming but only if you’re a rank newbie and try to implement every tool and strategy at once.  Start simple. Create a landing page , drive traffic to it, collect email addresses, and send the list emails periodically. Lots of online marketers have been very successful doing nothing more than this. Later you can figure out autoresponder sequences, list segmentation, and conversion techniques. For now, take the first step. Choose one of those email marketing services we mentioned up there and take action.  Many have a free level or trial period. Ultimately, the only thing standing between you and your first email marketing campaign is inaction. Change that by taking action now. Good luck!    Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Email: Still the Best Tool for Growing Your Business

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Hosting

The post Email: Still the Best Tool for Growing Your Business appeared first on HostGator Blog . It’s tempting to focus on social media instead of email for marketing when you’re starting a business. Social media is cool and fun, and email seems kind of stale by comparison. It’s also a lot easier to set up social media accounts than it is to build and manage an email list. But email still rules in terms of return on marketing investment, so if you want to grow your business, email needs to be part of your marketing mix. Why Does Email Marketing Still Work? One reason email rules is because it reaches virtually everyone. Sure, there are plenty of people on social media, but not everyone uses the same platforms, and some folks don’t use social media at all. But do you know anyone who doesn’t use email? Do you ever go more than 24 hours without checking your email? Probably not—and email is email, no matter which operating system or email service provider you use. What about Gen Z? Do teenagers even use email anymore? According to a study by OptinMonster , 75% of teenagers consider email part of their daily lives. The study also found that overall, 99% of people check their email every day. Fifty-eight percent check it first thing in the morning, a much higher number than the 14% who check social media first. And it’s not just that people check their email. People engage with marketing emails at a much higher rate than they do social media posts, according to the study. The average open rate for marketing emails is more than 22% and the click-through rate is 3.7%. The average engagement rate for posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is less than 0.6%. Why does email get so much more engagement? In part, recipients are more likely to see email than social posts. An email sits in the inbox until it’s opened or dismissed. But a post may not even show up in someone’s feed, and if it does, it competes with a steady stream of other posts, comments, and links to other media. Broad reach and high engagement contribute to email’s high ROI — $38 for each dollar spent on email marketing , according to the Direct Marketing Association. Over the past ten years, email has outperformed every other marketing channel, from search and social to affiliate programs and display ads. 7 Steps to Making Email Work for Your Business Okay, so you’re convinced that email is a worthwhile part of your small business marketing program. How do you begin? Here are the basic steps. 1. Choose your email marketing software Building and growing a list is not a DIY affair. You’ll want to choose a service like Constant Contact to manage list opt-ins, segment your list, create campaigns, and measure their effectiveness. You can sign up for a free trial to test the features before you choose a subscription plan. 2. Get people to join your list Make your list worth joining. Your opt-in forms should offer something your target audience wants, whether that’s a coupon code, a free gift, a free report to help them solve a problem, or something else appealing. It’s also a good idea to let people know how often you email. People sometimes avoid joining lists because they’re worried about getting emails every day. Your offer can overcome that objection. For example, “Get 10% off your first purchase. Sign up for our weekly email list.” 3. Take care of your list Not every customer who joins your list will be interested in the same offers, products, or services. That’s why it’s important to segment your list. Rather than send one-size-fits-all messages to every list member, you can create separate messages for each segment, to deliver what they’re looking for. Segmentation is important for personalizing offers, which we’ll get to in a bit. Constant Contact lets you refine your list segments by automatically grouping your list based on the links they click in your emails, so your information is always evolving and up to date. Make opting out easy. One-click opt out is the gold standard. It keeps your list members from getting frustrated and reporting your messages as spam, which can reduce your delivery rates. 4. Connect with customers in their inbox Your messages will get more opens, click-throughs, and conversions if they deliver what your list members want. You can personalize offers to segments and even individual customers based on their past purchases, seasonal needs, and the links they’ve clicked on in your previous emails. For example, send preview-sale emails in March to your customers who buy new swimsuits every spring. Or send your premium dog food customers monthly offers for the newest treats and toys. Customers who clicked on your bespoke bags in your last campaign can get a follow up offer on those items later in the week. You can add graphics and videos to your emails to keep readers’ eyes on the page and to showcase your products. Be sure to test your multimedia messages before you send them to make sure they’ll look good in your customers’ inboxes. 5. Test your campaigns Use your email marketing service’s A/B testing tools to see which subject lines, content, and offers get the best responses from your list members. Use that information to make your next campaigns more effective. 6. Monitor your metrics Watch your email service dashboard for each campaign to see how many opens, clicks, and unsubscribes it gets. You’ll also see the peak days and times for email opens so you can time your future campaigns more precisely. Link your email service to your Google Analytics dashboard so you can track visitors who arrive from your email links, what types of devices they use to visit, and where they go on your site, and whether they convert. 7. Refine and repeat Email marketing is a process that should get easier and more effective over time. Use your data from past campaigns, your dashboards, and feedback from your customers to continuously improve your messaging—and your ROI. Ready to grow your business? Get started with Constant Contact today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Improve SEO

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Improve SEO appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your website can only do its job if people can find it.  SEO (search engine optimization) —a collection of tactics website owners can use to increase your ranking in the search engine results—is one of the best ways to make sure your audience can find you.  But on-page SEO is challenging. And many website owners struggle with the question of how to improve SEO for their websites.  The search engines are fairly tight-lipped about how the algorithms that determine how search engine rankings work . But between the information they have shared and an analysis by SEO experts of what the ranking web pages have in common, we have a pretty good understanding of how to improve Google search results. Improving SEO involves a mix of things you can do on your own website and offsite strategies.  How to Improve SEO on Your Website On-site SEO is mostly about two main things: making sure Google can tell what your website is about, and ensuring the site has a good user experience for users. To do that, there are eight main steps you should take.   1. Review your website analytics. If you already have a website, then your first step is to review your website analytics to better understand how people find and interact with your website now. If you haven’t set up Google Analytics for your website, do that now! You won’t have any data to review to start, but you can come back to this step once you do.  In Google Analytics, you’ll learn how much traffic you’re getting now, and what share of it is coming from Google (labeled “Organic Search”). The Acquisition section gives you an easy snapshot of how often people are finding you through Google now. In addition, you can find a list of any keywords you rank for now and what your average ranking is. Click on Acquisition, Search Console, and then Queries.  This gives you a good understanding of where you are now in terms of your SEO strategy. That’s helpful in setting goals for where you want to be, and working out a plan to get there. And any relevant keywords you rank for now (even if you’re not on page one) are a good place to start your optimization efforts, since you already have a headstart.  2. Identify your keywords. Keyword research is the cornerstone of SEO. Before you can do any of the other steps involved in SEO, you need to know what keywords to target. Sit down and write every word or phrase you can think of that’s relevant to your business and products. Once that’s done, use keyword tools to figure out how valuable the terms on your list are, and build out your list further.  Google’s free Keyword Planner provides data on the average number of searches a keyword has, and how competitive it is. It also provides suggestions for long-tail keywords relevant to your website that you can use to build out your list. To get new ideas, start by plugging either your URL or a starter list of your main keywords into the tool. You can export the list of long-tail keywords they suggest to better organize it based on relevance, popularity, and competitiveness. Using these keywords throughout your website or a blog post will help tremendously when trying to drive organic traffic.  Google’s tool may give you enough information, but many businesses that have an SEO strategy go further and use paid SEO tools that provide more detailed keyword information. With these, you can learn what keywords your competitors rank for, and get more analysis on the value of a keyword based on factors like the search engine results page (SERP) features, level of competitiveness, and the number of clicks the top results are likely to get. 3. Optimize every page on your site for SEO. Once you know what keywords to target, it’s time to get to work on your website. For each page and blog post of your website, determine the most relevant keyword from your list you want to rank for. To optimize the page for the selected keyword, look for natural ways to include it in these parts of the page: The URL – Always edit your URL so it’s relevant to the content of the page and uses your primary keyword.  The heading tags – Using headings and subheadings (in the HTML, these look like , , etc.) break up your page copy for readability and provide more opportunities to naturally get your keywords onto the page. The image names and alt tags – Before you load an image to a page, give it a name that includes your keyword. Then add an alt tag that includes it as well.  The title tag – Write a short title for each page (50-60 characters) that uses your primary keyword.  The meta description – The meta description is what shows up underneath your link on the SERP. Like your title tag, they don’t directly affect rankings, but they can increase your click-through rate (CTR). Write a meta description for each page that describes what’s on the page in under 160 characters, includes your keyword, and has a call to action that encourages people to click.  The page copy – Look for opportunities to use your keyword in the words on the page where it makes sense naturally. Google wants to deliver relevant results for every search. All of this helps signal to Google what the page is about so they know what keywords it makes sense for it to show up for.  4. Create relevant content. Creating and publishing content on your website accomplishes a few important things for SEO: Fresh website content signals to Google that your website is current and active—they don’t want to show outdated results. It gives you a chance to create more pages optimized for more of the keywords on your list. It gives your visitors a reason to stick around, and time on site is a metric that signals to Google that people like what they see when they visit your site. When you publish valuable content on your site, it gives other websites more of a reason to link back to you. Creating high-quality content that’s relevant to your audience is therefore an important part of good SEO. Use your keyword research to help guide your content strategy. Knowing what topics people are searching for tells you what your audience is interested in.  Before you write a piece of content, do some research to learn what’s on the SERP for it. Seeing what’s ranking there now shows you what Google likes for that keyword and what you need to beat. In addition, if there are rich results on the SERP for a term, you want to know so you can optimize your content to claim them.  5. Update your old content. This is a step many people skip, but a regular content audit can be really valuable for improving your SEO. Make a point of returning to your old content to update it periodically. Google likes content that’s fresh and up to date, so changing outdated information can go a long way to making sure the search engine (and your visitors) still see an old piece of content as valuable.  6. Use internal linking. An internal link is any link on a page that goes to another page on the same website. Google’s algorithm factors a link’s anchor text into its analysis of what a page is about. The anchor text is the words that are hyperlinked, the part that usually shows up in blue with an underline.  For internal links, you get to choose the anchor text. That gives you another opportunity to use your primary keyword and signal to Google what keywords to associate with your page. 7. Make your website mobile friendly. While Google keeps a lot of the details about its algorithm under wraps, one of the things they’ve been upfront in telling people is that mobile matters . For the sake of both SEO and your visitors—many of whom will be visiting your website on a mobile device— make your website mobile friendly .  8. Improve your site speed. Speed is another ranking factor Google has told people about outright . They know people care about how fast a website loads, so Google does, too. Taking steps to improve your site speed will both improve the user experience of your website, and improve Google search results for your site.  How to Improve Google Search Results Using Off-page SEO Many of the steps involved in on-site optimization require a lot of work, but the harder part of SEO happens offsite. In order to determine a web page’s value, Google pays attention to how often other websites link to it, called backlinks . A link is seen as an endorsement of what’s on the page. When a lot of websites with authority link to a particular page, it suggests that whatever’s on it is useful.  Building backlinks is challenging because you can’t control the decisions other people make about what they put on their websites. But there are a few strategies you can use to encourage other websites to link to yours.  1. Promote your content. Publishing great content is only worth the work if you get people to read it. Make promotion part of your content strategy. Share your pieces on social media. Send them to your email list. Highlight industry influencers in your content and let them know when it’s up. Consider paid promotion like pay-per-click (PPC) or social ads if you need that extra boost.  2. Sign up for relevant directories. This is one of the easiest ways to build links, but it’s important not to abuse. Add your business information to sites like Yelp and Google’s My Business. Research industry organizations that have member directories, and consider joining local organizations like your Chamber of Commerce that have one.  Only sign up for directories that are legitimate and relevant to your business. A lot of links from low-quality directories will look spammy and could hurt rather than help you.  3. Guest post. A guest post on a blog in your industry is a good way to bring awareness of your brand to a new audience and gain a backlink to your site at the same time. Identify blogs that cover topics relevant to your business that accept guest posts, and start pitching. It takes time, but it can pay off in both links and new traffic.  4. Become an expert source. Whatever your business does, you’re an expert on it. When a blogger or journalist is writing a topic that relates to your expertise, providing a quote or interview will often result in a link back to your site. You can hire a PR consultant to help you find these kinds of opportunities, or sign up for email alerts from Help a Reporter Out to find opportunities yourself.  5. Develop industry awards. People (and businesses) love getting awards. The recognition feels good and is something they’re likely to talk about on their own website. Handing out awards for your industry is therefore a good strategy for earning more links. It’s one employed by successful internet businesses like TripAdvisor: Figure out what categories to include in your awards. Research businesses doing good work in each of them, or open them up to nominations. When you’ve decided on nominees and winners, alert them to the award. Create a badge they can share on their website to encourage them to post about it with a link back to the awards page on the website.  6. Create a relevant certification program. This requires a lot of work, but is a good way to position your business as an ultimate expert on what you do as well as a strong link building strategy. Anyone who completes your certification program will want to let others know they’ve done so. As with awards, create a badge people can add to their websites to show they’re certified.  7. Do broken link building. Some SEO tools will help you find links around the web with your target keywords in the anchor text that no longer work. These are a link-building opportunity. If you track down the website owner, you can alert them that there’s a broken link on their website that needs fixing, and propose the content you have on the topic as a replacement. Because you’re helping them fix a problem they have at the same time that you’re asking something of them, it increases your chances of getting your desired response.  Improve SEO with Less Work SEO is difficult and time consuming. You know you want better SEO results, but reading over a list like this may have you feeling hopeless. How will you find the time for all this? While there’s no good shortcut to getting better Google search results—someone has to do the work—that someone doesn’t have to be you.  You can hire the skilled SEO professionals at HostGator. We know how to implement all these SEO strategies and more to get your website to start showing up for your target keywords. It saves you time and work, and will also net better results since they come to the job with more knowledge and experience.  Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Best WordPress Email Plugins

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Best WordPress Email Plugins appeared first on HostGator Blog . It’s 2019, and email still rules when it comes to marketing. No other channel can match email’s 4400% return on investment , which means email campaigns earn an average of $44 for every dollar spent. And email marketing is more accessible than ever for businesses and blogs of all sizes.  When people can give you their email addresses right on your site, it makes a lot of marketing functions easier. These include building your list , targeting your email marketing to different segments of your list, and growing your business. All these things are possible with the right WordPress email plugin. The Best Email Plugins on WordPress Right Now Let’s look at some of the most popular options to see how they can help your business or blog. 1. MailPoet MailPoet lets your site visitors sign up for your newsletters, set up automated welcome emails to new list members, build newsletters right in your WordPress dashboard, and automatically notify your list when you publish new posts. Not sure how to design your newsletters? MailPoet has dozens of templates you can use. You can also set up automatic updates on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence to keep your list members engaged and drive traffic to your site.  A few of MailPoet’s newsletter templates You can segment your list in MailPoet for targeted updates and promotions. If you have subscribers in the EU, you’re covered—MailPoet is GDPR compliant. Deliverability is a plus for MailPoet, too. The team tracks every message sent to optimize your deliverability and open rates. The premium version integrates with WooCommerce for opt-in at checkout, automated personalized recommendations, and easy product promotions. The optional sending service lets you send out as many emails as you wish each day, which can be helpful if your hosting plan caps your daily email traffic.  Pricing: MailPoet Premium plus sending service is free for accounts with under 1,000 subscribers. For larger lists, monthly rates start at $13. For MailPoet Premium alone, site licenses start at $149. 2. Newsletter Newsletter is another all-in-one email marketing plugin that’s consistently popular with WordPress users. Like MailPoet, Newsletter lets you build your list, manage it, and create newsletters in your dashboard. Drag-and-drop tools make it easy to create a good-looking newsletter using media from your site. You can customize Newsletter’s themes for your email campaigns, too.  Newsletter’s drag-and-drop composer tool The free add-ons for Newsletter give you useful extras, like premium content settings that only unlock for subscribers and an automatically generated archive page with a list of all your newsletters.  Pricing: Free. For automation and reporting add-ons and integrations with platforms like Facebook, WooCommerce, and Google Analytics, Newsletter Premium subscriptions start at $65 per year for a 3-site license.  3. SendInBlue SendInBlue goes above and beyond. The Paris-based WordPress plugin gives you GDPR-compliant email building and personalization tools, along with list management, real-time reports on your campaigns, and marketing automation tools. You can choose from more than 70 responsive templates, and then preview your messages to see how they’ll appear on different devices and with different email clients before you hit send.  A sample SendInBlue drag-and-drop email template With a SendInBlue account and a paid plan, you can also build landing pages for your website and manage your marketing, live customer service chat, and Facebook ads all in one place. Advanced segmentation tools let you get granular with your targeting. For example, “contacts who are less than 45 years who clicked links in my last 3 campaigns.” Pricing: SendInBlue’s free plan lets you send up to 300 emails each day and build an unlimited contact list. Paid plans with additional features start at US$25 per month. 4. SendPress With SendPress, you get a lot of features in the free version, including a simple newsletter editor in the WordPress dashboard, customizable templates, email tracking and reporting, unlimited subscribers, unlimited newsletters, customizable opt-in widgets and forms, and scheduled sending tools.  SendPress email editor With a personal paid SendPress plan, you can also get advanced reports with subscriber-level detail, automated post updates for your subscribers, tools for managing bounced messages, and tools for custom HTML-based templates and form fields. With a standard plan, SendPress users get easy spam testing tools to raise deliverability rates. They also get Autocron service from SendPress’ servers to check your newsletter delivery speed and help you get your messages out faster.   Pricing: Free for basic features. Paid plans start at $39 per year for a personal, one-site license. Plans that include all pro modules and services start at $99 per year for one site. 5. Sumo Sumo combines email subscription pop-ups, GDPR-compliant email marketing tools, and e-commerce integrations to help you reduce cart abandonment, increase your typical order value, and convert more customers. Sumo’s free tools include customizable, automated welcome emails for each new subscriber. You can create one-time email blasts as well as pre-scheduled email drip campaigns to create more touchpoints with your list members.  Sumo’s share button tools let your visitors raise your WooCommerce store’s visibility on social media. And Sumo offers free customer support, including one-on-one help when you’re just getting started.  Sumo pop-up form builder Pricing: Sumo’s free plan covers an unlimited number of email subscribers and up to 10,000 emails each month. Sumo’s pro plan ($39 per month) adds A/B testing tools, advanced site visitor targeting, e-commerce design templates, and advanced analytics.  Not Sure Which WordPress Email Plugin to Choose? You can try them all out for free. That way you can decide which interface you like best and which tools you’d prefer to work with. (For security and site management best practices, be sure to uninstall the plugins you decide not to use.) Ready to step up your email marketing game? Start with super-fast WordPress Hosting that includes advanced security tools, free site migration, and a free SSL certificate to protect the information your visitors share with you. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Filter Spam Bots in Google Analytics [Step by Step Guide]

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Filter Spam Bots in Google Analytics [Step by Step Guide] appeared first on HostGator Blog . You know how valuable Google Analytics is and you’re ready to take all the insights it can offer to improve your website’s performance. But as you pull up the Acquisition data to see how people are finding your website, you notice some strange entries.  Chances are, this means that you’ve become a victim of spam bots. What Is Google Analytics Referral Spam? Spammers will do anything to drive more traffic to their websites. One of the tactics they’ve employed to this effect is finding ways to show up in Google Analytics, hoping that website owners will click on a site to see why it’s sending traffic their way. Google Analytics referral spam used to be much more common, but Google works hard to keep those spammy sites from showing up in your data. Nonetheless, many websites will still see some results in their Google Analytics data produced by spam bots. If you care about getting accurate data about your website’s performance—and you should, because it’s the only way to understand what’s working—then you need to filter spam bots in Google Analytics.  Here’s a handy guide on how to do just that.   How to Filter Spam Bots from Your Google Analytics Results There are two main types of filters you should set up to capture most referral spam from bots. For both, you have the same first few steps.  Getting Started 1. Keep an unfiltered view. When you make any technical change, you always want to have a backup. In Google Analytics, that means keeping an unfiltered view . This provides you with data you can use for comparison with the filtered results you get, to make sure they’re working. And it provides you with a view you can revert back to if one of your filters doesn’t work right. To do this, go to the Admin section in Google Analytics by clicking on the Gear icon in the bottom left corner. Click on View Settings in the third column.  Click on Copy View, then name your view Unfiltered , or something similar.   2. Click on Filters under the View column. With that done, go back to main Admin page by either clicking the back icon or the gear icon again. Click Filters in the View section (Note: this is different than All Filters in the Account section). 3. Click +Add Filter.  Click the red “+add filter” button. Then move onto the next section for the specific filters to create.  2 Google Analytics Filters to Set Up Valid Hostname Filter A valid hostname filter is the best way to filter out ghost spam. These are the spam bots that manage to ping your Google Analytics without ever actually visiting your website. Ghost spammers use automated scripts to send traffic to random websites, usually using a fake host. By telling Google Analytics how to recognize a valid host, this type of filter cuts the ghost spam from your analytics view.   1. Find your hostnames in Google Analytics.  A valid hostname is anywhere that you’ve legitimately set up Google Analytics tracking. That includes your website, most obviously, but also services like marketing tools you use and payment gateways. You can find a hostname report in Google Analytics in the Audience section by selecting Technology , then Network . Select Hostname as your Primary Dimension . Set your date range to go back at least a year. Scan the list to identify your valid hostnames. You should be able to recognize these as your own domain name, and any tools you use and knowingly allowed access to your Google Analytics tracking. Anything you don’t recognize or don’t manage yourself is probably spam.  If there’s an entry you’re not sure about, do some Googling. For example, Google Web Light isn’t something I manage directly, but it’s a service Google provides to load speedier pages on mobile devices with slow connections. That makes it legit.  2. Create a filter listing your hostnames. Back over in our Add Filter screen (scroll back up to the Getting Started section if you need a reminder), name the filter something like “Valid Hostnames.” Select Custom under Filter Types , Include in the list of bullets below that, and Hostname from the dropdown menu.  Under Filter Pattern, list all your valid hostnames in this format: yourdomain.com|hostname2|hostname3|hostname4  You want to fit all of your valid hostnames into one filter here—you can’t create more than one filter that includes hostnames.  3. Test your filter.  Before you click save, take a few seconds to test the filter out and make sure you configured it right. You can use the Verify Filter option right there on the page to run a basic test and see how the filter would affect your data for the past 7 days. Note that, if your website doesn’t currently get that many spam hits, 7 days might not be enough of a sample set to show a difference. Once you’re confident your filter is accurate, click Save .  Crawler Spam Filter The other main category of spam bots that show up in Google Analytics is crawler spam . These are bots that actually do visit your site. They leave a correct hostname, so won’t get caught in your valid hostname filter. Instead, you need to exclude these from your analytics.  1. Find the crawler spam in your analytics. To start, identify the crawler spam that shows up in your analytics now. In the Acquisition menu, choose All Traffic , then Referrals . Change your date range to include at least a year. Now browse the list of websites to look for any that appear to be spammy.  Some will look immediately suspicious. For example, display-your-ads-hereti.info jumps out in the list above as probably spam. But for anything you’re not sure about, do a Google search for “what is ” and you can usually get your answer for whether or not it’s spam. If the list here is long, it’s probably not worth your time to try and filter out every single spam bot, but if there are a main few sending a lot of fake traffic to your site, make note of them to include in your filter.   2. Look up common crawler spam lists. In addition to the spam examples you find in your own analytics, you can find pre-created filters that list many of the most common offenders on sites around the web (such as here and here ). These will cover many of the spam bots that may not have hit your website yet, but could.  3. Create a filter (or multiple filters) listing the crawler spam. Back in our Add Filter screen, name your filter something like “Referral Spam.” Choose Custom as your Filter type, click on the Exclude button, and select Campaign Source in the dropdown menu.  For the pre-created filters you find, you can simply copy-and-paste them into your Google Analytics. For any you manually create, use the same format you did for your hostname filter: Spamname|spamname2|spamname3 Since you have a limited number of characters you can use for each filter, you’ll likely be creating several different filters in this step. Be sure to give them each a unique name. 4. Test your filter. For each filter you create, take a minute to test it. If you’re satisfied it’s accurate, click Save . Filtering Spam Bots on a WordPress Site Setting up filters within Google Analytics can feel pretty complicated. But if you have Google Analytics set up for your WordPress website, you have an easier solution you can take advantage of: plugins.  There are a number of WordPress plugins devoted to blocking referral spam, including: Block Referrer Spam SpamReferrerBlock WP Block Referrer Spam Stop Referrer Spam You can block a significant amount of spam from your analytics simply by choosing one of these plugins, installing it to your WordPress site, and activating it.  If you’re not on WordPress now, but liking the idea of a simpler process for filtering spam bots, the first step to setting up a WordPress site is investing in WordPress hosting . Many aspects of designing, managing, and maintaining a website are easier with WordPress, so for website owners without extensive tech skills, it’s worth considering.  Google Analytics Spam Bots FAQs Those are the main steps you need to know to filter spam bots in your Google Analytics. But if you still have questions about Google Analytics spam bots, here are answers to some of the most common questions people wonder about.  1. How do I detect spam in Google Analytics? First things first, don’t click on the link! If you visit the website itself, the spammers are getting what they want from their shady tactics.  Instead, either do a search for the website in quotation marks, e.g. “99-reasons-for-seo.com” or a search like “what is 99-reaons-for-seo.com.” That will ensure Google doesn’t take you to the spammer’s website—the thing we’re trying to avoid here—and instead you’ll see results from other websites about it. If the website’s a known source for analytics spam, someone’s probably written about it.  2. Why does filtering spam from my Google Analytics results matter? Website analytics are a rich source of information about what your audience responds to. They can show you what your website gets right now, and reveal areas for improvement. And they’re your best way to track the success of your online marketing activities so you know what tactics are worth the investment. Referral spam clouds the accuracy of your analytics. It puts you at risk of misinterpreting the data you have, because the data itself isn’t accurate. You don’t want to spend time and money on tactics that aren’t working because a spam bot makes you think a particular page is more popular than it truly is with your audience. By cleaning up your data, spam bot filters ensure your analytics deliver insights that are more accurate and useful.  3. Can I clean past Google Analytics data? These filters will mean you get cleaner data moving forward, but they won’t be applied retroactively. Your historical data will still include inaccuracies caused by spam bots. But, seeing the comparison between your analytics before and after applying the filters can help you make an educated guess about how much of your traffic was due to bots. You can take that into account when analyzing the data you have to help you get closer to an accurate picture.    Gain Clarity by Skipping the Spam Google Analytics is one of the most valuable tools available to every website owner. While you can’t completely avoid spammers online (they have an obnoxious skill for being everywhere), you can control the influence they have on your website data. Applying the right filters and plugins to your website analytics will rob spammers of their power, and give you back the accuracy you need to build a stronger website for your audience.  Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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