When I meet with potential clients one of the topics is always their website. They either love it and want to show it off or they hate it and want help.

But when I ask how much traffic they get to their site; the answer is almost always “I don’t know.”

I’m always surprised by that.

Companies work really hard to create beautiful websites and they never bother to see if anyone is looking at them. Or maybe they just assume they have lots of traffic. Either way you need to know.

That’s where Google Analytics comes in.

If you have a website, it should be connected to Google Analytics.

This is a powerful tool that allows you to see how many people are visiting your website, what pages they are looking at, how long they are staying on your site, and how they found it.

This information, if used correctly, can literally change your business. For example, we have clients that run Facebook ads which direct a lot of quality leads to their website. We can see that when the ads run the number of people visiting the site increases significantly.

The goal of using Google Analytics is that over time you want to see the traffic to your site increase. If you don’t monitor the site on a regular basis you don’t know if you have any visitors at all! Why put all the effort into a great site if no one is going to see it.

Remember, creating a great website is only the first step for this important marketing tool. It’s a long play that requires updating and monitoring on a regular basis.

If you need help developing a website that will generate leads and grow your business contact me at mhuwar@thebrandaccelerator.com.

About the Author: Meg Huwar is a small business marketing expert and Principal of Brand Accelerator. She and her team work with companies who want to market their business but don’t have the time, experience or staff to do it themselves. Meg can be reached at mhuwar@thebrandaccelerator.com or 412-848-8822.