Evaluate Your Marketing Efforts
It would be an awful shame to implement all the available online business marketing strategies without knowing if it had any real effect. After all, you’ve spent money on web hosting, a domain name, several different promotional marketing campaigns, and you’ve put in approximately 1,224 hours of hard work!
Was it worth it?
Here’s how to find out!
Answer Important Marketing Questions
Sign in and access your web or blog host’s site statistics. Website statistics make up a detailed report of all a website’s or blog’s activity, and it lists recorded hits (page loads and image loads), visits, referring URLs, and more.
In essence, this report answers some rather important marketing questions:
• Who came to my website or blog?
• Where did they come from?
• How long did they stay on my website or blog?
• What did they do there?
Recent Hits
The Recent Hits report displays the webpages and image files that were most recently accessed by your visitors. It will display the date that an item was accessed (loaded into a web browser), the IP address (Internet computer address) of the visitor who loaded an item, and the name of the actual item that was loaded.
Look up these statistics when you want to see how quickly your marketing ideas are taking effect. For example, if you advertise a special webpage on your website in an e-zine, check this report to see how many hits that special webpage received. A high number indicates that your advertisement sits well with viewers, and that the e-zine in which you advertised in is a profitable marketing channel. Keep it up!
Unique Visitors Report
This report details the exact number of visitors who come to your website by date. Each individual person who clicks onto your website is a unique visitor. You’ll want to see the numbers increase every day, but if they don’t, then it’s time to step up your marketing techniques.
Total Hits
The Total Hits report tallies up the whole collection of hits per day, per hour, and per week, and its good for seeing how well your “1-Hour-Sales” are taking effect. Ideally, you should see a high number of hits during these types of promotions.
Page Hits
The Page Hits report displays the number of hits per file each week. Listed in ascending order, each file is ordered by demand, and the most popular requested file is listed first. If you ever wondered what part of your website is a favorite, you’ll find the answer here. Take advantage of a popular area by using it to announce important news or to run special promotions.
Recent Referrers
The Recent Referrers report displays the most recent URLs (website addresses) that sent a visitor to your website. Each URL is the result of a link pointing to your website. Use this report to see if visitors are coming from a recent advertisement in either an e-zine or website. If you don’t see the website that you recently paid to advertise on, consider competitive marketing elsewhere.
Total Referrers
This report displays the URLs (website addresses) that sent a visitor to your website per day and week. Each URL is the result of a link pointing to your newly created website. Use this report to see if visitors are coming from all those websites you’re advertising on. If you don’t see the websites that you paid to advertise on, consider marketing elsewhere.
External Resources:
1. White Paper Marketing; More Sales Leads, Less Effort
2. How Smart Companies Get People Talking
3. Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization
