When I first approach a new client about their online needs, one of the first questions I always ask is, "Are you getting a lot of new customers out of your existing website?" The answer I usually receive ranges from "Not a lot " through to "Customers? What customers?"

But when I follow this up with "How do you measure your online traffic?" the answer to this is nearly always the same - "I don’t know."

80% of all businesses we meet with receive no regular statistics about their website at all. Of the remaining 20%, half check their statistics every couple of months.

Can you imagine not paying attention to the returns of your investment in any other form of advertising? If you advertise in the local paper, or rent out a billboard on  the Westgate Freeway, you would want to see that outlay met with a serious influx of customers.

The reason businesses may not tend to be as diligent when it comes to tracking their website leads is that a website is built with an estimated lifespan of 2-3 years. Once the initial expense has been incurred, we may pay attention to the site for the first few months, but by year 2 our interest could very easily have waned.

So how do you find out if your website is really pulling its weight, and how can you fix it if it’s not?

1. Access your site’s free statistics today. Hell, do it now! And then do it at least once a month. If you don’t know how, call your hosting company and have them explain it to you. For Stockstreet Hosting customers, go to www.yourdomain.com.au/cpanel and enter your user name and password, then click on "Web/FTP stats". Webalizer is the best choice for stats.
2. Ask your customers. This may sound a bit obvious, but do you or your reception ask every new customer how they heard about your business? This can also be a good time to get feedback about the site, so that the next time it comes for a revamp, you’ll be one step ahead of your competition.
3. Use your site to measure other advertising. The first week you launch that new radio or magazine campaign, pay as much attention to your web statistics as you do to answering the telephone. Also, is your website advertised on every surface available to your business including your invoices? Remember, a website address is ten times easier to remember than a phone number.
4. Run a special online. Let’ face it, all the traffic in the world won’t make you a millionaire if the look and layout of your website can’t close the deal. But a big discount offered to "web customers only" has been known to make the average customer a lot more forgiving.

   And if these four don’t paint a very rosy picture, then…

5. Get your site optimised. If your site did not receive Search Engine Optimisation at the time of construction, your site has missed out on probably the most critical aspect of online marketing - allowing customers to find you via the major search engines. There are varying degrees of Search Engine Optimisation, the most important being site-specific measures. All Stockstreet website clients would have received this service at the time of construction (unlike many of the sites built by our competitors), while maintenance clients can apply to have this service applied to existing sites by contacting Stockstreet.