Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand


Mike Cheney

What happened on your website yesterday What about last week or last month How about in the past hour How many visitors come to your website as a result of using a search engine How long do people stay on your website for on average Which pages do your visitors go to

If you dont know the answer to some or all of these questions you are effectively operating a website blind.

This is like riding a bike blindfolded and expecting to arrive at the right destination. Its impossible and the likelihood is that you will crash, wreck the bike, lose pride and get left behind.

If you dont know whats happening with your website or how people are using it and how they are finding it how can you hope to ever improve the site Sure - you can rely on second-guessing or asking the opinion of a handful of people but thats hardly going to give you accurate information on which to base a decision is it

"Mike - I know what youre saying. Its true that I need to track whats happening but I dont have the X"

X = Money
X = Time
X = Knowledge of where to start
X = Need, as I already do this

If you answered "Money" - this would seem to be a valid reason but you can get your hands on the basic information about how your site is performing for nothing ask your developer or web hosting company for starters and theyll be able to point you in the right direction or check out the resources below

If you answered "Time" - Im sorry but if thats the case why do you even have a website if you dont have the time to measure how its performing Would you behave the same way with your business Thought not..

If you answered "Knowledge of where to start" then this is fair enough. To get started try these resources that will help you:

If you answered "I dont have the need, as I already do this" - congratulations - you get a weeks free pass to the Smug Club. But seriously though - you might already get all the statistics about how your website is performing but do you spend time viewing them, interpreting them and most importantly - USING them When was the last time you used the statistics about your websites performance to implement a change on your site and then track the results on subsequent statistics to see what effect it had Its all gone quiet in the Smug corner...

Feeling uncomfortable with all these questions yet You should be. If youre not happy with your website you need to dig a little deeper and ask what it is exactly that youre not happy with. Did you set definite, time-linked and realistic expectations for the websites performance prior to starting out If youre not getting the leads or sales you had hoped for you need to work out why this is the case - scratching your head wont do it. Tracking the performance of your site and viewing detailed statistics on how people use it wont give you definitive answers either - but it will propel you several miles in the right direction.

You are the doctor and your website is the patient - you need to connect it to an ECG and start monitoring and recording everything. How else can you work out how to make the patient better Or maybe you have the perfect patient who doesnt actually have anything wrong with them

Mike Cheney
www.magnet4web.com





About The Author

You can get free access to lots more articles that will help you to improve your websites performance plus a Free Bonus Special Report "How To Turn Your Website Into A Customer Magnet" worth a value of £47 $85 here: http://www.magnet4web.com/website_services/page=freeguide

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