Who's Visiting Your Website and Who's Buying Your Products? by J. Richard Kirkham
The Number One Problem for Internet Marketers is Not Sales It's Knowing where sales and visitors came from! "I've placed 100 classifieds and no sales!" "I've place 200 classifieds and only got one sale!" Now, if you ask those marketers where that sale came from they don't have a clue. Here's how to solve this dilemma, increase your traffic to your website or blog AND increase your sales...!
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Who's Visiting Your Website and Who's Buying Your Products?
The Number One Problem for Internet Marketers is Not Sales It's Knowing where sales and visitors came from! "I've placed 100 classifieds and no sales!" "I've place 200 classifieds and only got one sale!" Now, if you ask those marketers where that sale came from they don't have a clue. Here's how to solve this dilemma, increase your traffic to your website or blog AND increase your sales...!
What
is Tracking
Tracking,
when used in reference to internet sales and marketing, basically
means to follow the steps of your prospective buyer from just
before landing on your website to exiting your website or
purchasing your product.. Obviously even lengthier records can be
kept so over the years you know just whom to send that email about
that new product you represent and get the best possible results.
Sounds
Like a Pain. Why Should I Track My Hits and Sales?
For
the same reason every big, successful business does! There's only
24 hours in a day and so much money that can be used out of the
budget for advertising. So you'd better be able to find out what
is working and what isn't as soon as possible. I spent years
floating around the internet not tracking my sales. As soon as I
did I discovered some advertising methods and places to market I
simply didn't think were working. I also discovered marketing
methods that were supposed to be working that were a big waste of
time and money!
Where
Do I Get The Information About My Hits and Sales?
You
get them from a place called your cpanel in your website or blog.
If you don't
have a website and
are depending on just affiliate links or even free websites to
manage your business think twice on this. A website is just like
office space. Fortunately you can get a basic website for around
$5.00 a month now. You'll get several benefits available to you
when you get your own website including better site statistics and
greater linking ability to websites outside your domain.
Websites have a place called a cpanel. You log into it and
you can find all kinds of information and tools. I use the raw
stats along with a program I wrote. It gives me more information
than the graphs the statistics programs usually show including
tracking I use in emails. On one website I own the raw statistics
are located via a link right on the front page of the cpanel. On
another website I own I find my monthly raw stats by logging in to
my web host supplier, clicking on Monthly Views, clicking on View
Other Reports, then finding Raw Logs in there.
One website
has me download the raw stats. Another website has me open them in
a web browser. For that one I just click file and save.
Is
There An Easy Way to Tell From Where My Visitors Came?
Yes
there is. You can add a ? Then some type of alphanumerical
characters after that.
For example:
MyWebPage?art
(article) will work if your web page contains .htm or .html
Sometimes if the ending is .com or .net or whatever you may need
to place a / before the ?trackcode.
This won't work with
pages that already have a ? in them as part of the web page
address. In fact it could screw them up. So always test your pages
just in case. If you're test is successful you'll end up on your
web page with your tracking code at the end of your web page up in
the address bar of your browser.
I promise you if you
start doing that you're going to discover, just like I did, places
where your web page is being spidered by search engines and
getting a good search engine ranking that will surprise the heck
out of you!
There
Are Spies Amongst Us
Word
of caution though, be sure not to make your code apparent as to
what it means. When those strange places you discover place your
web page on a search engine the tacking code ?trackcode will be
with it. Also, don't, depend on your memory (wait, what was I
saying?). Keep a text file of all your codes and what they mean.
Check using your tracking software regularly.
Conclusion
Long
before the internet, the mail order business was the buzz. Most
big named retail outlets had a mail order business section as well
as their brick and mortar outlets.
Often the return
address and the sales letter, something reading much like our web
pages today, along with the order form would have a strange series
of alphanumeric characters. Sometimes they were refer to it as a
department to help there company look even larger. Oddly enough,
these codes found in the return address envelope, the sales letter
and the order form were the same.
Why reinvent the wheel?
When companies that were formed before you and I were even born
already showed us how to be successful in our own ventures
utilizing our resources to our greatest possible advantage -
through tracking?right
I now have, at least temporarily,
software I've written and use myself to organize raw statistics
WITHOUT losing any information. You may visit
http://newbieservices.com/InternetSoftware/GetWebStats.htm?trart
for more information and downloads.
About the Author
Dual
certified teacher, self-defense
instructor and 30
years sales veteran
Rick now has, at least
temporarily, software he's written and uses himself to organize
raw statistics WITHOUT losing any information. You may visit
http://newbieservices.com/InternetSoftware/GetWebStats.htm?trart
for more information and downloads.
Rick
offers his sales, business and computer services
http://newbieservices.com/
both online and in business and home. Be sure to join his Post Ads
and Marketing Advice Forum http://NewbieServices.com/Forum
"Here is a list of my services thus far
http://newbieservices.com/Services/
Recently, due to demand, I've added web site optimization and
design Feel free to contact me. My specialization as a dual
certified teacher is service oriented to new writers and marketers
or those experienced marketers who need a little help getting over
a hump." help@newbieservices.com
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