Navigating metrics of small business websites, email marketing and web ads

In order to realize the benefits of your website, email, social media and search engine marketing campaigns, you’ll need to keep track of the number of visitors, what brought them to you and their actions. Tracking your web metrics will help you make the most of your advertising money and time, and help you decide what’s working, what you should change and what should be scrapped.

The goal of metrics measurement is to make sure your advertising efforts are reaching the right people and converting viewers into customers. In order to make this happen, you need to apply search engine optimization to your website and ads and keep track of your email marketing list and effectiveness.

Rates and rankings

Some functions of your marketing campaign are easily measured. If you’re sending out newsletters or another email marketing campaign, you can track your bounce rate (the number sent to wrong or invalid addresses) by recording returned messages. Your social media presence is also easily tracked, although it may require a weekly or more frequent presence on the site to judge the number of “fans” or “likes” of your page and track the flow and discussions surrounding your posted content.

For more complex metrics, a professional service may help determine the success of your website and web-based advertisements. If you’re investing in banner or rollover ads, find a designing and hosting company that offers to follow the click-through rate (the percentage of viewers that clicked on your ad) of your campaign.

When selecting a website design and hosting service, look into businesses that will help you with search engine optimization. MarketJuice by Deluxe, in addition to site building, hosting and design, offers plans that will get you started with the right keywords selection and placement. By keeping on top of your keyword rankings, you can better judge the ease with which potential customers will find you and the likelihood that your site will appear with the proper search engine query.

Knowing your site’s position in search results is possibly the most important metric to track for the success of your web presence. If you subscribe to a service like MarketJuice, you can be provided with the tools to check out each of your key phrases and words, from the broadest short tail keywords to the most specific long tail phrases.

See for yourself

To get an idea of how well your existing site is attracting attention from search engine users, enter the primary phrase from your title tag into Google or a comparable major engine. The title, otherwise known as the title or meta tag, appears on the top bar of your internet browser. The New York Times title tag, for example, is “The New York Times – Breaking News, World News and Multimedia,” and if you enter “New York breaking news” in a search query, the site will undoubtedly be close to the top of the list.

If entering your title doesn’t show your site reasonably close to the top of the results page, you may need help with your SEO. Likewise, if your title doesn’t appear to contain the appropriate keywords – or any relevant search terms at all – your site is missing a good deal of traffic. Even if you hired a web designer to create and update your page, you may not be receiving SEO service, and in the absence of metrics reports and keyword ranking details, you won’t be able to determine the success of your website in bringing in business.

Solutions to a low Google ranking include pay-per-click advertisements and sponsored result services. If your page isn’t receiving attention despite well-placed appropriate keywords, paid ads can bring in business – but be sure to track the results of these efforts as well. The right marketing service can help you determine the conversion rate of viewers into customers.

Examine your website and determine how many results you can measure yourself and what experts can help you determine. You may find a little money spent on SEO and tracking metrics saves you time and frustration in the long run.

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