By Katherine Andes
I’m often surprised to find that many website owners don’t have an account with Google to get the free data about the traffic visiting their websites.
It is truly astounding the amount of information that Google provides — for free. The data includes: How many visitors came to your site, are they returning, are they new, which pages they’re visiting, on which pages they enter your site (it’s not always the home page), on which pages they leave, where in the world they live, which keywords did they type in the search boxes, from which websites they linked, did they arrive directly, and so much more.
At first, you can get quite dizzy looking at all the data. You won’t know just what to make of it.
But as you check your data daily, or even regularly, you will become familiar with how to use this powerful tool. On the day you run a radio or television ad, you will be able to see if you had more traffic to your site? Or the day you ran an email promotion or a direct mail drop. (You are putting your web address on all of your other advertising, right?)
You will see if a particular page is “converting” well. That means: Is the page doing its task? A page’s task could be for someone to pick up the phone and call, or to email, or to sign up for a newsletter, or to place an order, or even to click to another page.
When it comes to being able to track results, Internet marketing is far superior to other advertising media.
To access this free tool, go to Google Analytics. It’s easy to sign up. They will give you a piece of code to embed on all of your web pages. If you don’t update your website yourself, then have your webmaster set it up. If you have a lot of pages, you can start by simply embedding the code on your most strategic pages. The following day you will be able to start tracking the traffic on your website.
TIP OF THE WEEK: Track your website analytics daily so that you know exactly what needs improvement to attract more prospects and customers.
Katherine Andes is a consultant who specializes in online SEO writing and landing pages — especially in the home improvement market. You can contact her at kathy@andesandassociates.com or visit her website AndesAndAssociates.com.