First You Need to Know Where You Are…
![[Where is your Web site?]](http://www.theistudio.com/images/directions.jpg)
Before you can make any educated decisions about what your next step is going to be with your Web program, you simply have to know what is going on — or not going on.
If you go on a road trip, you have to know where you are at so that you can then create directions to where you want to end up. Same applies to your Web program.
How can you make a decision about anything (what actions to take and what money to spend) without the data to give you the guidance and information you need to do so from a reality based POV? The answer is you can’t. Sadly many site owners do so every day.
They make decisions on the fly or based on what they “think” is happening, what some guru said on their site or Blog (that many times doesn’t even apply to their program) or what some friend said they need to check out or try.
Why are these poor decision making processes taking place? Several reasons. Primarily folks are overwhelmed and frustrated with technology so they are always looking for the path of least resistance. If they don’t have to do the necessary due diligence, which generally requires learning enough about a topic to do so effectively, that’s the direction they head.
Unfortunately, to succeed online you almost have to take proportionally the opposite approach and go into uncharted territories to discover new systems, tactics and methodologies that will work for your unique program. The path of lest resistance is rarely the path to success.
Secondly; laziness. So many want the results without the effort or expense. So they jump on any tool, resource or service that caters to what they don’t know about or want to deal with. Many times just throwing good money after bad.
What every Web site owner needs to do is to make a commitment to review their Web site statistical data at least once each month. If you are not comfortable and familiar with this data, you won’t be able to notice trends or changes.
Look at unique visitors, top entry pages, top exit pages, terms and referrers that site visitors found you by. These 4 criteria alone will tell you what is working, what isn’t and what to add more of. You really shouldn’t make any changes to your site until you understand these variables and their implications. Then, use them to guide you in the growth and nurturing of your program.
Link Popularity, Keywords and Saturation are also three criteria to give you a view into the level of exposure you are getting from search engines. Use the free tools at the link below to give yourself the “big picture”:
Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools
You have to know where you are to determine how to get where you want to be…
At your service,
Judith
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