Home
>
Web Development
>
Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand?

Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand?

What happened on your website yesterday? What about last week or last month? How about in the past hour? How many visitors come to your website as a result of using a search engine? How long do people stay on your website for on average? Which pages do your visitors go to?

If you don't know the answer to some or all of these questions you are effectively operating a website blind.

This is like riding a bike blindfolded and expecting to arrive at the right destination. It's impossible and the likelihood is that you will crash, wreck the bike, lose pride and get left behind.

If you don't know what's happening with your website or how people are using it and how they are finding it how can you hope to ever improve the site? Sure - you can rely on second-guessing or asking the opinion of a handful of people but that's hardly going to give you accurate information on which to base a decision is it?

"Mike - I know what you're saying. It's true that I need to track what's happening but I don't have the X"

X = Money?
X = Time?
X = Knowledge of where to start?
X = Need, as I already do this?

If you answered "Money" - this would seem to be a valid reason but you can get your hands on the basic information about how your site is performing for nothing (ask your developer or web hosting company for starters and they'll be able to point you in the right direction or check out the resources below)

If you answered "Time" - I'm sorry but if that's the case why do you even have a website if you don't have the time to measure how it's performing? Would you behave the same way with your business? Thought not..

If you answered "Knowledge of where to start" then this is fair enough. To get started try these resources that will help you:

If you answered "I don't have the need, as I already do this" - congratulations - you get a week's free pass to the Smug Club. But seriously though - you might already get all the statistics about how your website is performing but do you spend time viewing them, interpreting them and most importantly - USING them? When was the last time you used the statistics about your website's performance to implement a change on your site and then track the results on subsequent statistics to see what effect it had? It's all gone quiet in the Smug corner...

Feeling uncomfortable with all these questions yet? You should be. If you're not happy with your website you need to dig a little deeper and ask what it is exactly that you're not happy with. Did you set definite, time-linked and realistic expectations for the website's performance prior to starting out? If you're not getting the leads or sales you had hoped for you need to work out why this is the case - scratching your head won't do it. Tracking the performance of your site and viewing detailed statistics on how people use it won't give you definitive answers either - but it will propel you several miles in the right direction.

You are the doctor and your website is the patient - you need to connect it to an ECG and start monitoring and recording everything. How else can you work out how to make the patient better? Or maybe you have the perfect patient who doesn't actually have anything wrong with them?

Mike Cheney
http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/websitetracking.htm

About The Author

You can get free access to lots more articles that will help you to improve your website's performance plus a Free Bonus Special Report "How To Turn Your Website Into A Customer Magnet" worth a value of ?47 ($85) here: http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/websitetracking.htm

eco-friendly cleaning service Buffalo Grove ..

In The News:

A phone phishing attack compromised Harvard's alumni and donor database, marking the second security incident at the university in recent months.

AutoFlight's zero-carbon floating vertiport uses solar power to charge eVTOL aircraft while supporting emergency response, tourism, and marine energy maintenance.

A new phone return scam targets recent buyers with fake carrier calls. Learn how criminals steal devices and steps to protect yourself from this fraud.

New Anthropic research reveals how AI reward hacking leads to dangerous behaviors, including models giving harmful advice like drinking bleach to users seeking help.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Holiday email scams, including non-delivery fraud and gift card schemes, spike in November and December, costing victims hundreds of millions, the FBI says.

Holiday visits offer the perfect opportunity to help older parents with technology updates, scam protection and basic troubleshooting skills for safer digital experiences.

Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.

Researchers exploited WhatsApp's API vulnerability to scrape 3.5 billion phone numbers. Learn how this massive data breach happened and protect yourself.

Travel companies share passenger data with third parties during holidays, but travelers can protect themselves by removing data from broker sites and using aliases.

Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.

Researchers discover phishing scam using invisible characters to evade email security, with protection tips including password managers and two-factor authentication.

iPhone and Android users can reduce battery drain and data usage by restricting Background App Refresh to Wi-Fi connections instead of mobile networks.

Scammers nearly stole an Apple account by exploiting the support system with authentic-looking tickets and phone calls, users can protect themselves with safety steps.

FoloToy restored sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a weeklong suspension following safety group findings of risky and inappropriate responses to children.

Threat intelligence firm Synthient uncovers one of the largest password exposures ever, prompting immediate security recommendations.

Viral video shared by Elon Musk shows Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots performing tasks from cooking to construction, garnering over 58.5 million views on social media.

Chinese hackers used Anthropic's Claude AI to launch autonomous cyberattacks on 30 organizations worldwide, marking a major shift in cybersecurity threats.

Apple's new Sleep Score feature gives you a rating for your nightly rest quality. Learn how to set it up on your Apple Watch and iPhone today.

Essential phone settings to enable before losing your device, including Find My network, location services and security features for iPhone and Android.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Cybersecurity research shows weak passwords remain a major threat, with simple patterns and number sequences putting millions of accounts at risk.

New Android malware BankBot YNRK silences phones, steals banking data and drains crypto wallets automatically. Learn how this advanced threat works.

FDA approves first human trial for Paradromics' brain-computer interface that could restore speech for paralyzed patients through neural technology.

New phishing platform QRR targets Microsoft 365 users across 1,000 domains in 90 countries. Learn how to spot fake login pages and protect your accounts.

Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand?

Web Development