Most of us agree that in 2010, if you have a business card you also should have a website. Just like your business card and other marketing materials, your website works for you when it helps your business grow.
So, the real question is: What is your website doing for your business?
This is one of the first questions I ask my clients. Not because I’m trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I want to hear the answer. Most people get that “deer in the headlights” look when I ask this question. To be fair, it’s not a question we’re used to hearing, and if that’s you, you are not alone!
Return on investment (ROI) is notoriously complicated to track for traditional advertising mediums like newspapers, TV and Radio, etc. Sure, you’ll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don’t know is how many people saw or heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.
Business owners all know we need to advertise – it’s a necessary cost of doing business – so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a catchy jingle) and we hope for the best.
Your website can be more powerful and effective than traditional advertising … the secret is web analytics! So, how can you use your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?
Here are a few things analytics tracks for you:
Where your traffic is coming from by:
- The referring website and page
- The search engine and keyword(s) used
Your visitors by location and more
Visitor behavior and actions by:
- How long they spend on your website
- How many pages they view per visit
- What percentage of visitors view only one page before leaving
- And more …
You need analytics. If you’re planning on any web marketing (and you should be), whether through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Plus, you’ll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions are aimed at bringing in.
Using the information gathered from your website can also give you a sense of which advertisements provide a good ROI and which do not. For example: by setting up Google Analytics to do so, you can track the actions of your visitors referred from a specific website on which you advertise. What do they do when they get to your website? This will help you determine where best to place your ad dollars online.
Conclusion
Your website is more than a brochure. It’s an interactive tool for your users. The only way to find out how they’re using it (or not using it) is to set up web analytics properly. Tucker Hosting has the experience and knowledge to help small businesses put this powerful tool to work.
The age of blind advertising – of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best – is dead. The best way to improve your website’s effectiveness at building your business is to understand and use the information you gather through web analytics. If you’re not tracking this key information and adjusting your efforts based on it, then you’re missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your marketing dollars. Contact Tucker Hosting today to begin getting more from your website through analytics.
Tucker Hosting will install Google Analytics for FREE, for the first ten businesses that simply register here:
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Please Note: Tucker Hosting will need access to your website’s FTP or Hosting account to add the necessary analytics code. This free services is good for upto 10 static HTML pages, if your website is dynamic and built using PHP or ASP we should be able to install the necessary analytics code so that it works on all your pages.
Here is a video from Google:
