A Must for Authors-Tracking Visitors on your Website or Blog

Do you have tracking on your web site? If not, you might want to consider doing so. Many traffic services are free. www.statcounter.com, www.google.com/analytics, www.freestats.com are just a few to mention. A web tracker shows you how people found your site, how they explore it, what country or state they are from and exactly how many people came to your site.

Tracking who goes on your site and how many

people visit over the course of the day, week, month can tell you whether or not the strategies you are using for advertising or promotion are working. It doesn’t necessarily say if these people are buying unless you can track that through Amazon, an online store on your site or other device. I always think any traffic is better than none.

For example, I did a Facebook invite last month because I was holding a contest. The day I sent an invite out, my traffic drastically increased. I could visually see that on the graph Google supplies. I always know that a newsletter has some affect. Each time I have a spike in traffic when I send one out. I also have tracking on my newsletter which informs me how many people actually opened my newsletter, forwarded it on to someone else and clicked on any of the links.

On Facebook, if you have a page, you have tracking included called Insights. It tells you how many people are talking about your page, how many people you are reaching through friends of fans, the number of people who have created a story about your page, and how many unique people have seen any content regarding your page. You can export that data onto your computer for further research.

Promotion has drastically changed for authors over the years. I think it’s critical that each dollar you spend is effective. Using a tracking device on your site sure helps on narrowing down what works and what doesn’t.

Carol Webb
Bella Media Management
www.bellamediamanagement.com