Thursday, June 08, 2006

Tracking Your Business To Success

Recently I asked if you were tracking your ads and 2/3's of
my subscribers stated they didn't - most said it was because
they didn't know how.


Because "not knowing how" seemed to be the biggest reason, I
won't bore you with all the reasons tracking is important. Just
know that it is.

Now before we get started I am going to admit that I am Not a
tracking guru. Like most of my readers, I do everything myself
and don't have time to set up tracking links for everything.
Also, since I don't have the time to set up a lot of tracking
links, I haven't installed a tracking program on my host nor do
I pay a service to track my stats. So until I start paying
someone to help me with my business, I use the stats provided by
my hosting service and 1 free service that also provides some
traffic. (I do have the ability to create tracking links through
my autoresponder and have access to a professional tracking
service but very seldom use them.)

With that said, here are 3 ways to get information to help
you track what's going on with your business:

  1. Use the information provided by your hosting service.

    Gathering statistical information for your business is another
    reason to have your own domain name and using a hosting
    service. The information provided is easily accessed, can tell
    you some very valuable information and doesn't create any
    additional work. (This is assuming your hosting service
    provides statistical information and most do. If yours doesn't
    you should find one that does.)

    Using the stats provided by your host you should be able to
    see things like what pages are visited most frequently, what
    country your visitors are coming from, what type of browser
    they're using, how many unique visitors you're getting, the
    most popular keywords used to find your site the page, what
    robots and spiders are visiting your site, the links used to
    access your site and how many times an eBook has been
    downloaded..

    Looking at my June stats today, June 7, I can tell you that
    I've received 45 hits from Downloadfreegifts. This doesn't
    tell me how many have signed up but it does tell me how many
    have visited my signup page. (That's why I told you how I
    track where my sign ups are coming from.) I also know how many
    have visited the newsletter page with the poll so I know how
    many look at the poll as compared to how many who vote - Big
    difference! I can also see what people are downloading from my
    site. (Good for finding out if people are stealing your
    products.)

  2. Use a free tracking service.

    Free tracking services usually only provide you with a
    redirection URL (good for hiding affiliate links) and the
    number of hits to your link. This is not very much information
    but it can still be useful.

    Using these services is very easy since all you have to do is
    sign up, enter the url you want to track and a short
    description so you can remember what your tracking, copy the
    url they create and start using that url in all your ads.

    I've signed up for 2 of these free services:

    trackthatad.com
    and linkbrander.com.

    I haven't really used trackthatad but do
    use linkbrander since I also get additional traffic for using
    their links. (Also, trackthatad has some annoying pop-ups for
    their tutorials that appear on just about every page.)

  3. Use the tracking links provided by your autoresponder
    service.

    Many autoresponder services have the capability to create
    tracking links. Again, all you have to do is enter the url you
    want tracked and a brief description so you'll remember what
    you're tracking. They create a link and that's the 1 you use.

Now here's 1 easy way to track your ads in ezines...

When you enter the url you want to track in the tracking service
you're using add - ?ezinename

to the end of your url (ezinename is the name of the ezine where
you're placing the ad.)

Example:

http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm?marketingtips

Do this for every ezine you're using. Place the appropriate
link for the ezine in the ad you submit.

After the ads have run you can check how many hits came to
each link and you'll know which ads worked the best. You'll want
to do this for several weeks and be modifying your ads until you
find one that works. After you've found one that works keep
using it. You may find that different ads work better in
different ezines.

You do not need to be a tracking expert or pay a lot of money
to start tracking your ads. You don't have to upload scripts or
put page counters on your web pages. With all the free services
that are now available you can get some basic stats to start
tracking your ads - today.

To Your Success,
Susan

PS If you're looking for an inexpensive, reliable hosting
service that provides some good website stats here are the 2 I
use:

RealMarketing.com and PushButtonPublishing.com


I highly recommend PushButtonPublishing.com because they also provide my autoresponder (with tracking capability) and a good tracking service in addition to many other services that I use all the time.