Day after day we see clients wasting their internet marketing money.  It's a shame.  At least some clients have the wisdom to make sure their websites have an analytics tool, but in many cases they dont' know how to interpret the data.  

A client we recently began working with was spending a large amount of money on search marketing, but wasn't getting the sales conversions.  Fortunately the client was smart enough about adding an analytics package to the website.  One great thing about the internet is that everything can be measured...and as they say, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it."  A close inspection of her web analytics revealed very high bounce rates for almost all the keywords people were using to find the company.  The company was spending internet marketing money and getting very little, if anything, for it.  The keywords were all relevant, but not converting.  Why you ask?

In this case, the website is the problem.  A comparison of competitors' websites revealed this one was sub-standard.  Additionally, appearance and the messaging that came from the content were weak - and this created a lack of credibility for the company in the minds of the site visitors.  Long story short, our client was investing money to generate traffic to a site that failed to attract and convert those visitors...a real waste of precious financial resources.

The morale of the story is - invest in good web design, have a strong web analytics package and measure the effectiveness of your search marketing efforts.