Unless you’re selling products online, it can be hard to track how your website is doing. If the goal of your website is to bring in business, how do you track if it’s doing the job? As a web developer I ask that question a lot and to my surprise most people say their website is not doing much. When I hear this, I dig in more and it turns our there are no tracking mechanisms in place! So before you jump to the conclusion that your site is not pulling its weight, make sure you have these quick tracking mechanisms set up on your website.

1. Unique Email Address. Set up a unique email address for your website. At mb/i we use solutions@marissaberger.com for our site, thegoldmine@marissaberger.com for our blog, and so on. This way we can easily identify the lead source when we get email inquiries. Don’t just use “info@” for everything you do online. Determine which sources are important for you to identify and give them unique email addresses. They can all forward to your main address for ease of use.

2. Unique Phone Number. Same as above. It is easier now to own multiple phone numbers (i.e. with Google Voice, Vonage, etc.). Same principle applies. Identify what’s important for you to track and put those numbers (and the appropriate voicemail messages) in place.

3. Unique URLs. If you have a Content Management System (CMS) on your site, you can create new pages and give them unique URLs. Then, when you do any kind of marketing, online or offline, you can use these unique URLs and later track their traffic. For example, we sent out a postcard that talked about our CMS services. That postcard had the unique URL of http://www.marissaberger.com/cms. In addition to direct phone calls from the postcard, we can also track the traffic to this unique landing page. This traffic would tell us if recipients actually went to our site after receiving the postcard… whether they called or not. Without this feature, the postcards could be going into a black hole.

4. Forms. If applicable for your audience, capture visitors’ information when giving out downloadable items or complimentary services. Give each form a different source name so you can track which items/services are more popular.

5. Google Analytics. Everyone wants metrics on their site, but the reality is that few site owners/managers look at them. Google Analytics is a great free service which gives you a lot of data on how your site is being used. You can make educated marketing decisions based on this data. If you want more information on how to interpret the reports, ask your web developer.

So, give your website a chance. Put tracking mechanisms in place and learn about your online audience.

What other quick and easy tracking mechanisms have you implemented?