Track or Perish

Who me? Track?

Now I realize some turn a blind eye towards tracking results on their site. Either preferring to look the other way or perhaps asking Stevie Wonder to watch over it for them. Because apparently their attitude is if they've got money coming in, well, how bad can it be?

Dunno. And if you don't want to maximize the cash flow from your site I suppose that's between you and Stevie.

But if you're not tracking what's working on your site, you're flying blind. Maybe even leaving serious money on the table. Because how can you improve if you have nothing to compare to?

Sorry for the heavy dose of reality. But remember this. You can have more traffic than Google but if it doesn't convert what good is it?

Take for example that hot site that streams a hilarious cartoon poking fun at John Kerry and George W Bush. It was created by two brothers who happened to be on Jay Leno the other night.

They revealed to Jay they had had 20 million hits to their site.

The brothers also confessed their plan to accept donations to support their work generated all of, you ready for this, $1000!

You read that right. 20 million hits converted into all of $1000 in cold?hard?cash.

How much traffic did they waste? My guess? Tons. So as you can see traffic isn't always the answer.

Now before I trip the Digression Alarm Buzzer, by tracking I mean monitoring various conversion rates for key pages on your site. In order of importance here's what you want to track.

=====> Sales Pages

Since sales letters are where the rubber meets the road for sure you want stats for them. How many unique visitors hit such pages every day? Of those how many convert? Divide the second number by the first and you've got your conversion rate. Pretty simple right? Depending on your price point, anything less than 1% is probably unsatisfactory.

Watching the day to day conversion fluctuation isn't necessarily the best use of your time. But monitoring that on a week to week basis might be. As any downward trend might indicate problems ahead.

=====> Affiliate Product Review Pages

Assuming you sell affiliate products, either as an add on or your primary profit producer, again you want to see which ones best convert to sales.

Those that are your best sellers, like your top 10 to be completely uncreative, you might feature prominently on your home page. Spend time optimizing their pages. Link t o them from other internal pages of your site to get each some PR and link rep to help it rank higher.

Products that don't convert as well you can let ride, demote in terms of emphasis on your site or eliminate altogether.

=====> Special Pages

That might be your ezine sign up page. Maybe the auto responder course you offer in exchange for an email address page. Or any sort of activity that can lead to sale - THAT you want to track. For instance the page on my site that falls into this category is the quiz page that shows in the sig file below.

I like to see how many unique visitors stop by. I know how many took it. Again I calculate the percent of conversion. I continually try to make it as inviting as possible so as many as possible take it.

=====> Content Pages

No need for anything fancy here. You may just want to see which are the most popular pages on your site.

Why? Perhaps you can get clues for future products. Or two, you could always slip in a mention plus a link to your sales letter from the popularity contest winners. Might as well bring it up and suggest visitors stop by, no?

Now you can track a number of ways. There are some commercial programs that are quite robust.

But I use a $45 cgi script - Prolinkz. [http://prolinkz.com] And don't worry it's super simple to install.

So as not to be accused of flogging a product let me simply say all you do is stick a 1 by 1 pixel on the page you want track, set up a unique tracking code for that page and Prolinkz does the rest. No muss. No fuss.

Anyway, continuous improvement is the way to better than average success. Online or off. Tracking is how you get there. And if you don't track? you risk perishing. Because how can you improve what you don't measure?

John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his just updated eBook "Traffic From Google in 35 Days". Find out more here: http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml/ Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml/ and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".

shuttle to Midway Beardstown .. Lockport Chicago limo O’Hare

In The News:

The FBI has issued a warning that scammers are impersonating doctors, police and banks using spoofed numbers as "smishing" texts surge nationwide.

Communities with unreliable internet service stand to gain after Amazon's Project Kuiper launched its first full batch of satellites into orbit April 28.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says unsubscribing from spam might actually backfire. Learn when to avoid it and stop junk effectively.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about how the first nonstop beating heart transplant, called zero ischemic time, at Taiwan hospital changes surgery.

Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson: FBI warns of "time-traveling" hackers.

Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about a soft, vine-like robot called SPROUT that aids safe survivor rescues in collapsed buildings.

Health insurance giant Blue Shield of California confirmed it had been sharing private health data of 4.7 million users with Google for three years without even realizing it.

Delta and JetZero’s blended wing body aircraft marks a meaningful step toward a cleaner, quieter and more efficient future for air travel.

Recent reports show many common passwords can be cracked in literally seconds. Kurt the CyberGuy explains how to strengthen your passwords.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Iron, a robot that stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 154 pounds, combines advanced artificial intelligence with human-like movement and exceptional vision.

Hertz, the rental car giant, recently confirmed that customer information was exposed through a cyberattack on one of its software vendors.

There are a number of features with AirPods you may or may not know about to take your listening experience to the next level. Kurt the CyberGuy explains.

These 35 Chrome extensions have privacy and security concerns. Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says to delete them now.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says 329,000 mph fusion rocket promises to be fast, disruptive and enable deep-space missions.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says a new autonomous AI is a game changer that also raises privacy risks. Is your data safe?

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says robots and drones are revolutionizing fruit farming with faster picking and smarter handling.

Landmark Admin revises May 2024 cyberattack scope to show twice as many people were affected. Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson gives tips to help stay safe from an insurance data breach.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about how Yamaha’s hydrogen outboard motor could revolutionize boating with zero emissions.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals how to memorialize or remove a deceased loved one’s Facebook account and protect their digital legacy from misuse or scams.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says an Apple Watch saved psychiatrist Amanda Faulkner by detecting deadly leukemia early.

Scammers and fraudsters are increasingly targeting the most vulnerable, especially nursing homes and the personal data of their residents. Kurt the CyberGuy has safety tips.

Infected USB flash drives can spread malware among multiple organizations in ways that can easily bypass traditional security systems.

With a fully automated warehouse system and AI-powered robots, Ocado's Hive picks, packs and delivers grocery store orders in just a few minutes.

Track or Perish

Web Site Promotion