Do you know what is happening with your website? How many people visit? What they like looking at? What is not doing so well and what is?

So many sole traders and small businesses have a wonderful looking website but have no idea if it is working for them or against them. Have a great website without being able to track it is like having a Ferrari and not being able to drive it.

Here are some tips to help you get started with tracking website visits and what you should look out for:

• Ask your website developer/designer if you have website statistics set up?
• If not then
  • Set up a Google Account (using your current email address as your login and choose a password)
  • In here you will find your Google Analytics Tracking Code – if you send your login details to your website person then they can find this for you
  • Ask your website person to add the Google Analytics tracking code to every page of your website
  • After a week or so, login and go to Analytics to start seeing some statistics

What does it all mean?

• Visits are the total number of “visits” you have had to your site.
• Unique visits mean how many unique people have visited your site. E.g. 4 people could visit your site 20 times altogether. This means you have 4 unique visitors and 20 visits
• Content will show you what pages are the most popular
• Traffic Sources – this will show you where people are coming from
  • Direct link means they have typed in your URL direct into the browser
  • Search Engines means they searched for your name or a keyword and your website came up and they clicked on it
  • Referral sites- are other websites that refer or mention your website link

What should be happening?

Ideally you want to set some goals for your website; I would recommend something along the lines of:

• Increase of 200 unique visits per month
• Increase of Search Engine traffic source percentage from 15% to 40% by 3 months
• See what pages are popular and make sure there is a link to enquiries/contact us
• See what pages are not popular and change them

If you are having troubles with your website statistics or website developer, feel free to contact northridge creations to see how they can help.

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About the Author

Amanda Rose has been providing small businesses with practical and useful advice on marketing for over 12 years through mentoring, consulting, seminars and workshops. Amanda owns northridge creations, which specialises in practical and resourceful marketing action plans for small businesses.