Why Don’t Smart Business People Take Advantage of the Tools Available to Them?
When it comes to brick and mortar aspects of business’s most owners, CEO’s, managers and other people in positions of responsibility take full advantage of available systems that help them understand the dynamics of their companies. For example every company has some sort of accounting system that provides keen insight into the flow of money and ultimately the bottom line on profit. However when it comes to their web sites this concept is totally abandoned by many companies with some that are quite surprising.
All companies, large and small use various tools that are designed to help them better understand the effectiveness and return they are getting on the equipment they buy, personnel they employ and money they spend to increase business. Practically all of these tools cost money, and they are generally considered indispensable by anyone with any sort of stake in the profitability of the company. No company would hire a new employee if they had absolutely no way of figuring out what that person did and if they helped the bottom line in any way. However, everyday companies shell out significant money on their web sites, and then fail to utilize powerful reporting tools that will tell you how that site is performing.
Google offers absolutely free of charge reporting systems that will provide detailed information about your site every single day for you with a few clicks of the mouse. For example do you know how many people come to your site, take one look and then instantly go away? You would probably be shocked at that number despite the bundle you recently dropped to have your site “redone”. Assumptions are not how you would handle your accounting books, and they are not what you should go on when it comes to the performance of your web site.
We took a look at our old friend the ASI Top 40 Supplier list just because I can’t help picking on big companies. I then looked at the top 10 companies by gross sales to see what they were up to relative to knowing how their web sites are performing.
Broder Bros. Company - Nope
Polyconcept North America - Nada
Norwood - YES wonderfull!
Ennis - YES! Gold star for these guys
SanMar - YES! Excellent
Bic Graphic USA - YES! Outstanding
Bodek and Rhodes - Nothin
Ash City - Zippo
3M Promotional - YES! Hoorah
Staton Corporate Casual - Goose egg
So the moral of the story here is size, and money have absolutely nothing to do with getting the most out of your web site investment. Without some sort of tracking software you have no idea how many visitors just don’t like what they see never mind where they go. The tracking software that Google offers for free (that’s right free) will provide you with detailed information on the number of people that come to your site, how they got there, how long they stayed, what they viewed and when they left. All that’s needed is for you to create a Google Analytics account, and then copy and place a very small bit of code onto each page on your web site. Once that is done you can log into your account from anywhere and immediately start learning the strengths and weaknesses of your web site.
