Unfortunately it’s very common to hear from a website owner that his website is not bringing in business only to find out that the site’s traffic and performance is not even being tracked.

How do you know how your website is doing if you don’t put the right tracking mechanisms in place?

Many people know about tracking traffic by using Google Analytics. It is a free service and easy to install. Google analytics does tell you a lot about your visitors, traffic sources, and content… but there’s more than you can do.

For example, have a unique email address on your website that you don’t use anywhere else. You can setup your email program to automatically file any messages sent to this address in a separate folder. This way you can track how many emails are coming from the site only. If you use the same address you use for everything else, it will be harder to track this with all of the email we get each day. The additional cost, if any, will be worth it.

You can do the same with your phone number. You don’t even need extra phone lines or any other kind of setup or equipment. Visit www.ifbyphone.com and see. You can have a unique phone number just for your website and track how many calls you received each month from it. You can even track how long the calls were so you can judge the level of interest.

These two tracking options are simple and inexpensive and will provide you with a better understanding of what your website is actually doing for you. These tracking mechanisms are even more important when you start marketing your site online or when you invest on other more traditional marketing efforts. Tracking each ad with its own email address and phone number will provide you with the same type of specific information you need to consider a marketing effort successful or not.

Before deciding you’re not pleased with what your website is doing, be fair and find out what is really going on.