DIY Tip: Track Your Conversions

If you're still using the basic statistics software provided with your website hosting - it's time to get real. The online landscape is becoming increasingly competitive and today's webmasters should be using a detailed statistics package to learn how visitors are finding and using their website.

Of course there are a whole range of different stats you need to be tracking, but I wanted to talk about one of the most important - conversion tracking.

What is it?
Conversion tracking simply measures every time a user performs a desired action on your website - whether that's a sale, a signup or a download. It allows you to uncover which clicks are most likely to generate new customers, so you can spend your money most effectively.

Conversion tracking becomes especially important if you're promoting your business with PPC programs such as Google AdWords. It allows you to narrow down your results to a keyword level, to show which exact search terms are generating the best ROI. Once you know which terms are converting the most customers, you can increase your bids on these words to further improve your ROI.

How does it work?
Conversion tracking is easy to implement, you simply install a small snippet of code on specific pages to indicate a transaction has taken place. For example, this could be your order thank you page, or a newsletter signup confirmation page.

When this code is loaded on your site, your statistics program records a transaction has taken place. If you're using Google Analytics, this conversion tracking can also link to your Google AdWords account to be viewed as part of your account statistics.

How do I get started?
To get started, you will need to implement a quality statistics program on your website. The free programs we recommend are:

• Hitslink Web Statistics
• Google Analytics

Both these programs require you to install some code on the pages you want to track and provide an easy way to measure conversions.

Posted by Matthew Elshaw at 2:21 AM GMT