HomeUse a Web Site Tracker to Fine Tune Your Marketing Strategy
In this section, you will learn what a Web site tracker is and how it can benefit your business by giving you the information you need to make good decisions regarding your Internet marketing dollars.
There are many different types of tools for keyword tracking and analyzing visitor traffic. Remember that we are discussing Web site statistics trackers below and not Sales/Booking Trackers.
Off Server Trackers (located on a different server than your Web site)
- Google Analytics (Free)
- Extreme Tracker (Offers both Free and Paid Versions)
- Web Trends Live (Paid)
- Super Stats (Paid)
Server Side Trackers (typically located on the same server as your Web site)
- Webalizer (Cost Dependent on Hosting Companies Pricing)
- Urchin (Dependent on Hosting Companies Pricing)
It is a GOOD IDEA to gather and review your Web site statistics on a monthly basis. This way you can keep track of trends and visitor counts from the previous months and years. If your trends are showing more visitors, that’s a good thing. But if you are losing visitor traffic, it may be time to update your site and its Search Engine Friendly features. Information gleaned from a Web site tracker can help you make smart marketing decisions.
First, you want to know how many Unique Visitors are coming to your site each month and what other Web sites are referring customers to your site.
Secondly, if you are paying directories or listing services to advertise for you, you will want to use your referrers’ tracking as a benchmark. If these companies do not send much traffic through to your site, a phone call is in order to find out why. Sometimes these companies have their own statistics. You may find your page on their site is getting much more traffic than those customers who actually click through to your site. With this information, you can decide to keep those directory listings that are working for you or drop those that are not working for you.
Third, if you have made your site Search Engine Friendly, then you need to watch the Search Terms (keywords) people are using to find your site and use this information to tweak your meta tags and Web site content, if necessary. If a term isn’t working well for driving traffic, change it. If it is, you know your tags and content are doing their job.
Finally, if you are serious about taking your Tracking Information to the next level, consider purchasing a Sales / Booking Tracking System, such as Intell-a-Keeper to add on to your Statistics Tracker.
With a Sales / Booking Tracking System you will know FOR SURE where your bookings are coming from and not just your Web site traffic.