One of the frustrations with marketing is that it’s hard to track. You don’t know if someone picked your restaurant because of a phone book listing, a direct mail piece or the recommendation of a friend. You can always ask, but it gets a little tedious to ask everyone.
That’s one of the benefits of a website: It’s trackable. You’ll never know how many people saw your billboard or how many people actually looked at your postcard before chucking it in the trash, but even the most basic web stats service will tell you how many people visited your website.
More robust stat services (like Google Analytics) will tell you loads more information, like where your visitors live, what search terms brought them to your site, what other sites are linking to you and more.
All that information is power. You can quickly see if your investment in your website is paying off or not. You’ll know if you need to tweak your efforts, pull the plug or sit back in smile. More than any other marketing method, websites can be held accountable.
