Set Up Tracking Tools

Set up tracking tools on your site as soon as possible.

You won't achieve your online goals unless you know exactly what is happening on your site.

Set up tracking software such as Google Analytics so you know where your traffic is coming from, what they are doing on your site, and how long they are staying.

Here's a few things to look for:

Visitors - This stat shows you how many visitors were on your site in a given time frame. Visitors can include both humans and search engine spiders depending on the type of stats program you have.  Don't be discouraged when you realize nobody is visiting your site.  Use this information as motivation to promote your site or start buying traffic.

Page Views - Look at the total page views to gauge general traffic. If people are coming to your homepage and then leaving, you will need to change the design of your homepage.  You need to figure out how to get people to explore your site instead of just looking at your homepage and then leaving.  Look at the individual page view statistics to figure out where visitors spend most of their time.

Visit Length - Your goal is to get people to spend some time on your site.  If someone goes to four pages within 15 seconds, then you know they were just clicking through pages very quickly and then they left.  If people only spend a second or two on your homepage before leaving, then you will want to try a different headline to grab their attention.

Referring Urls - This is the most crucial stat for website promotion activities. You work really hard to get visitors to your site and this stat tells you where they came from. If you look at these stats and see that your visitors are coming from Yahoo, Google, a random links page, direct url, etc... then you can make decisions based on this report. Your tracking software will tell you what keywords people were searching for when they clicked into your site from the search engines.  Visit the random links page to see who it is (send a thank you) and what description/location they are using for the site link. You will also know that your off line promotion activities and word of mouth marketing are working if people are typing the url directly into their browsers.

Entry Pages - The front page is usually the top entry page, but always glance at this stat to see if a search engine is sending people to a random page within your site.  Make sure the page has a link to the front page or at least the basic navigation links to the rest of the site. Your goal is to create keyword rich content pages so you will have many top entry pages instead of just one big doorway on your front page. Open as many doors as possible to your site by creating as many quality pages as possible.  If you buy traffic into landing pages, this stat will confirm that the traffic you are buying is actually showing up.

Visitor Location - Remind yourself of the power of the internet by looking at this stat to see how many visitors are visiting your site from around the world. This stat is geared more toward global efforts, but there usually is an added recognition of the power of your eBranchOffice when you get your first visits or email from India, Australia, the UK, etc...

The most important thing to remember is to set up your tracking software as soon as possible. 

The next most important thing is to look at the reports and modify your site and efforts accordingly.

If you have any questions, ask them in the forum

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