The most difficult thing about writing these articles is covering all the great features in a certain word count. Today, I want to take a moment to examine 1 feature in your Google Analytics that you should spend some time reviewing.

Visitor Flow
This feature can be found under the standard reports area as an option under the audience section. This section offers a graphic representation of the flow of your customers through your website. By reviewing this section you can see where your users enter your site, what the drop off is from the entry page and where they go as they walk through the website.

The Visitor Flow allows you to review this visual by:

• All visits
• Search traffic
• Referral traffic
• Paid visits
• Non-Bounce visits

I could go on and on…

You can then break out the report by up to 5 Customized dimensions like:

• Visitors like city
• Traffic sources like keyword
• Content like event category
• System like web browser

This tool will allow you to spend time analyzing all your traffic visually and identify areas of weakness in your website.

Spend some time with your visitor flow as you get to know the new look of Google Analytics and start planning your web updates around how your customers walk through your website.

What Is The Stop Online Piracy Act?

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) began as an effort to stop people from copying and distributing online content that they do not own. The initiative has tremendous support from Hollywood, where rampant pirating of motion pictures has had a hugely negative impact on studio finances. The bill also has some backing from both the music and publishing industry. Illegal downloads and file sharing services regularly allow people to access content for free that they would otherwise have to pay for.

What’s the problem with stopping that practice? It sounds like a good idea on the surface. People who create content, whether that’s in print, film, or digital format, should have the ability to both protect their work and the ability to profit from their work.

Online piracy is a real problem – and it deserves a real solution.

SOPA/PIPA is not that solution. As the bills are written, SOPA/PIPA would give both the government and major corporations the power to shut down entire websites accused of copyright infringement with neither a trial nor a traditional court hearing. Rather than addressing the specific problem of online piracy, this overly broad act gives sweeping powers to the government and corporations, allowing them to control access of the internet without even a pretense of due process.

This is extremely problematic, especially when you consider that you never voted for the corporations who are now trying to wrest control of the internet out of your hands. Exercising your rights to free speech becomes much harder when you no longer have a way to make your voice heard. The culture of free and easy access to information that has defined the internet as we know it is in jeopardy.

What Does SOPA/PIPA Mean For My Business?

Today, SOPA’s potential impact has hindered your access to many of the internet’s most popular and useful websites. Yet the impact doesn’t stop there. To quote Cory Doctorow on the subject,

Big Content haven’t just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the “fun” Internet: they’ve declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she’s experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place — as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

As a business owner, you should know how SOPA/PIPA will affect you. If you use online information in any form (websites, blogs, social media) to stay informed about your industry, your market, or your customers, SOPA/PIPA will significantly restrict your options.

If you use your online presence to connect with your customer base, the passage of SOPA means that you’ll have to exercise a higher sense of prudence and vigilance involving anything you say or link to online to avoid upsetting the authority – an authority that is in no way obligated to provide you with clear standards, follow due process, or exercise its judgment equitably or fairly.

This is a terrifying prospect for all business owners. Our ability to thrive in a competitive market hinges on our ability to communicate clearly with all of our current and potential customers. SOPA threatens that ability, and by extension, our livelihoods.

That’s why the Internet looks different today. Let us hope the message gets through to Congress, so the changes we see today don’t become permanent.

Click here to find out what you can do.

It was a little more than 10 years ago that a national conversation started about “the digital divide,” the fact that not everyone had the same access to digital technology. The infrastructure simply wasn’t there. Regions of the country were woefully underserved, and socioeconomic status dictated how easily you could connect with the world online. With time, that gap has narrowed. Advances in technology have made it possible for nearly everyone to have reliable access to the web. The playing field may not be entirely level, but it’s a lot smoother than it used to be.

Yet the digital divide hasn’t gone away; it’s changed. We’re divided, not by technology, but by understanding. There is a fundamental disconnect in our culture where technology is involved. It’s not a gap in access; we have a breach in our understanding about the role digital technology has in our culture and in our businesses.

The Internal Divide
On one side of the new digital divide, we have leaders and executives who developed their businesses before the advent of social media and online marketing. They had to learn about and adopt new technologies. They had to spend time and resources figuring out things like how Facebook, text messages, and Twitter fit into existing corporate structures and protocols. Also on this side of the divide are new business owners who are not accustomed to early adoption. These are not the people who have grown up with digital technology, social media, and online marketing as part of their reality.

On the other side of the digital divide are the individuals who have digital technology integrated in their everyday lives. This segment is often referred to as “digital natives.” These are folks for whom technology is inherently positive. They need no transition period to adopt new technology: it is ubiquitous and unremarkable.

The experiential difference between the groups is critical. On one side, we have older entrepreneurs struggling to integrate technology; on the other side, we have a generation that needs no integration, a community that doesn’t see why this conversation is even necessary. Bring that disconnect into your corporate culture and something as simple as letting your team know that you’ll be fifteen minutes late to a meeting due to a mass transit delay becomes a legalistic minefield: is notifying via text message appropriate, or does this situation require a time-consuming phone call? There are two immediately obvious answers to that question—and your answer will reveal which side of the digital divide you’re on.

Bridging the Gap with Your Team
Bringing your entire team onto the same side of the digital divide yields many benefits, including enhanced organizational efficiency, better communication, and improved corporate culture. Start the process with employee education and smart policies. Then, create an ongoing process of implementation and evaluation. Open the discussion.

Have your team discuss, regularly and in depth, changes in technology and social media. This can be done as part of regular staff meetings or trainings. It’s essential that everyone in your organization operates on the same basis of understanding. While some team members may be early adopters or super users, you can expect all employees to have or gain a certain level of understanding. Providing ongoing education can bring those members of your team who aren’t familiar with technology up to speed. The members of your staff who are comfortable with technology still need education and clarification surrounding effective and appropriate use of technology in the workplace.

Foster an open atmosphere where discussion and questions are welcome. Designate a person (or team) to handle questions and concerns that come up between staff meetings or trainings: you don’t want these inquiries to default to your IT person or department.

Integrate Technology in HR Policies
Now, more than ever, businesses are integrating social media and technology components into their HR policies and procedures. This is an ideal point to encourage the appropriate use of technology, and educate new staff about collective expectations and individual responsibilities.

Be the Change You Want to See in Your Organization
Lead your team across the digital divide. Employees look to their leadership for examples of how they are to conduct themselves in the workplace. If you want your employees to communicate with you via text message, you need to send text messages yourself. Walk the walk. Tweet the tweets. Model the behavior you expect (and want) to see.

The External Divide
The divide goes deeper than a gap in understanding between employees and employer or manager. Entrepreneurs and smaller organizations are struggling to use technology effectively to connect with their customers, build brand equity, and compete more successfully against companies that have harnessed the expertise found only on the digital-native side of the divide.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what market you serve: many of your customers are on the cutting edge of the digital divide. Here, the view of relationships and online connections is inherently expansive. Customers are socialized to expect easy, immediate access to the companies and brands they do business with. This is not a population that tolerates frustration well: if they can’t connect with your organization, they’ll find another company that’s more receptive to their overtures.

Companies that want to thrive in these competitive economic environments cannot allow this digital divide to separate them from growth and profitable opportunities. Integrating the two sides of the divide requires communication and leadership. The companies that are the most agile and adept at connecting with their customers online understand the perspective on both sides of the digital divide—and they bridge the gap with a coherent, comprehensive strategy.

Bridging the Gap with Customers
The companies that have the most meaningful, well-integrated, and brand-consistent communications with their customers are the companies that are the most successful. For this reason, it’s essential to join your customers online.

Discover How Your Customers Connect with You
Your website analytics contain a wealth of valuable information. Examining the analytics will reveal what tools your customers are using to connect with your brand. This includes the type of computer or mobile device being used to view your website, internet browser choices, screen sizes, and more. Analyzing this data will help you make smart, strategic decisions about your digital presence.

Talk to Your Customers
People love to give their opinions. Online survey programs and focus groups can be used to solicit information directly from your customers about their digital communication style and preferences. Talk to your customers about the ways they’d like to connect with you. There is a deep and pervasive hunger for relationships in our culture. If you open a door for conversation, your customers will talk to you. Make sure you’re willing to listen to what they have to say.

Commit to Crossing the Divide
It’s one thing to say you’re going to cross the digital divide and communicate more effectively with your customers. It’s another thing to actually do it. Commit your organization to meaningful change. Be aware that it takes time and resources to plan and implement a digital strategy. Identifying and assessing new tools and platforms as they evolve is an ongoing process. Determining where and how your customers like to be reached isn’t a one-time deal. Allocate resources appropriately, implement your plans, and be willing to evaluate and adapt as needed to better serve your customers.

Change is scary. Worse than that, change can be time-consuming. When you’re an entrepreneur or leader of a smaller organization, it becomes critical to adopt cost-effective strategies first. Those that find themselves on the far side of the digital divide must begin the process of crossing the gap by finding those tools and technologies that deliver the most immediate results. Whether that means learning to effectively harness the power of social media, embracing the fundamentals of appropriate web design, or learning to text message, it comes down to one simple question: what technology will allow you to reach your customers with the information they want to hear in the way they want to hear it? When you can answer that question, you’ve begun the process of bridging the digital divide.

Originally published NY Enterprise Report November 2011