This is step 1 in a multi-part series of steps you can take to improve the effectiveness, online visibility and ROI (return-on-investment) you get from your business website.
The key when making any changes to your website is to be able to measure the results. So the first step is to install Google Analytics on your website.
Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to measure the traffic coming into your website, including important metrics like: % of new visitors, most popular landing pages and geographic location of your website visitors. You can also measure other goals such as the number of people that have filled out a quote or lead form on your website.
To install Google Analytics go to www.google.com/analytics and login with your Google account. Next, add your website and paste the tracking code into the HTML of your website. If you don’t know how to do this contact your web developer for help.
Once you install the tracking code you can use the reports on www.google.com/analytics to view the traffic coming into your website.
If you’re wondering how your website compares to other types of businesses, here’s some examples of the number of monthly visitors some websites get:
Attorney website: 200-800 visitors per month
Attorney website w/ blog: 1,800 – 2,000 visitors per month
Attorney website w/ blog, SEO and Google Ads: 2,000-2,500 visitors per month
Contractor website: 200-500 visitors per month
Contractor website with SEO and Google Adwords: 1,000-2,000 visitors per month
Restaurant website: 500-1,000 visitors per month.
Restaurant website w/ SEO: 1,500 – 2,500 visitors per month.
Another great option for monitoring your website traffic is statcounter.com. Just like Google Analytics, you add tracking code to your website and then go to statcounter.com to analyze your traffic. The great thing about statcounter.com is that it makes it very easy to see all the details of your most recent visits and allows you to track paid visits (Google Adwords) and multiple clicks to your website that may be costing you money.
If you’ve had SEO performed on your website or use other services like Google Adwords it can greatly increase your website traffic. Google Analytics (and statcounter.com) can help you measure the results and make sure you’re getting the ROI you expect from these services.
Check your inbox next month for the next step in this series: “How YOU can perform SEO on your business website.”