So you finally got around to starting your website or blog, and you’re on your way to Web stardom. Hopefully, you’ve included some great content that your visitors will find valuable and want to keep coming back for. If you’re smart, you’ve also tried to include content that will attract new visitors. Now, how do you measure the results of all your hard work?

Answer: with Web analytics software. Web analytics software allows you to view information about your website visitors and the way they use your website. With Web analytics, you can find out:

• How many visitors your website gets
• How people find your website
• Which of your online marketing efforts has been the most effective
• Which visitors signed up for your newsletter or bought something
• Which pages on your website get the most traffic
• Where your visitors are located
• What your visitors use your search box for

And much, much more.

Once you have all this data, you can use it to create new content, come up with new product ideas, refocus your marketing campaign, and target new customers. The more you know about who is (and isn’t) using your site and how they are using it, the better you can communicate with them. And more communication is your ticket to more sales.

Most of the Web analytics solutions available today will provide you with similar types of information about your visitors and website usage. Some purveyors are Google, Omniture, and Coremetrics. At ETR, we use Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) because it’s powerful, easy, and free.

You don’t have to download a thing. (You go online to get your stats.) And setup can take less than 10 minutes if you’re fairly comfortable with managing your website. If you’re not, your webmaster can help you with an install in no time at all (and it will be worth it!).

Once you’ve completed setup, you’ll be able to go online and get up-to-date statistics about your website anytime. Additionally, you can save time by setting up reports that are automatically e-mailed to you as often as you’d like. Here’s what a sample report from one of our sites.

Regardless of the Web analytics solution you choose, get something going today. Tracking website usage is critical to measuring results, understanding your website visitors, and growing your business.

[Ed. Note: Rick Maggio is ETR's newest Search Engine Marketing Specialist. The Internet is full of useful tools that can save you time... and make you money. But sometimes they can seem more complicated than they are. Setting up an Internet business doesn't have to be difficult or time-consuming. Learn more about how easy it can be here.]

If you’ve got a search box on your website (and you should), you have the opportunity to make your business even stronger than it already is. Granted, the statistics you can pull from your search box aren’t particularly exciting. In fact, in a casual survey of a few of my colleagues, exactly zero found search statistics to be even slightly interesting. But here’s why they, and you, should care: Visitors to your website use your search tool because they cannot otherwise find what they are looking for!

With that in mind, here are three ways you can add value to your website by using the "boring search data" from your site’s internal search box:

1. Perform a search for your most popular search terms and see what, if anything, shows up.

Your website search box may not be as "smart" as you once thought. For instance, let’s say your visitors regularly search for "tax tips." But when you type that into your search box, the results are all about sales tax. This is your chance to make sure the top results give your visitors the information they seek.

2. Add homepage promotions and/or links in your navigation that relate to the top search terms.

Giving users direct access to their searched-for content allows you to point them exactly where they should be to find what they are looking for. For our example, you could include a link on your homepage that says "Tax Tips" and leads to articles and sales letters about getting your taxes in order.

3. Create content and/or promotions around the most-searched topics.

Search data will help you better understand your customers – and may give you ideas for new products and content to offer. Maybe you don’t have any articles about tax tips. If that’s your visitors’ top search term, now’s your chance to create new articles and programs that fill that need.

[Ed. Note: Rick Maggio is ETR's newest Search Engine Marketing Specialist. For step-by-step instructions on starting your own Internet business, get ETR's Magic Button program. Click here to learn more.]