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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - Issue 238
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| Thought for the week: "Stupid risks make life worth living." Homer Simpson |
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In this week's issue:
The importance of tracking your website statistics
In last week's issue of EnterQuest we gave you some hints and tips on how to improve your website content and begin your forays into Internet marketing. Now let's turn our attention to tracking those all-important hits your website receives.
Tracking website statistics is an important task for any business owner, and it shouldn't be neglected - you need to know who's looking at your site, what links they're clicking on and whether their visit has resulted in a sale, follow-up call or enquiry about what you can offer them. Stats like this should also give you an indication of what you should be spending on advertising. When you've got this information, you can look at improving your website. After all, you can't improve what you don't measure.
First, take a look at what's available in terms of packages. There's a host of free and paid-for Internet stats packages out there, but make sure you read up on them and select the right one for your needs and budget. Some are more suited to e-commerce; others are great for pay-per-click campaigns. If you want a basic web visitor counter, something like Free Counters might be enough. But if you want more bells and whistles such as graphs and keyword comparisons, look at packages such as Google Analytics or StatCounter, which should be capable of giving you the following stats:
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Visitor value. This is an important stat for you to keep track of. It measures how much each unique visitor that comes to your site is worth to you. If 9 out of 100 people buy your product, and your profit per sale is £100, each visitor is worth £9, because 100 visitors equals £900 in sales.
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Opt-in rate. Your opt-in rate is the percentage of people that sign up (in other words, give you their e-mail address) when they visit your site. So if 100 people visit your site and 5 give you permission to send them information by giving you their e-mail address, your opt-in rate is 5%.
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Traffic stats. These could consist of any number of metrics and come in any number of permutations, but don't neglect the important ones like how many daily unique visitors your website receives, or knowing what times of day receive the most hits.
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Average visitor time. If a visitor spends a couple of seconds looking at one of your webpages, it probably doesn't hold their attention. If they spend a few minutes looking at a page, you can assume that it has their attention. They find it interesting. So if you know how much time your visitors spend on a webpage, you know to what degree they find it interesting. Visitor time web stats can also tell you where visitors jump off your site, so you can get an indication of the areas you need to improve on.
Each one of these points should help you answer questions about your site's performance. But take care not to overlook one in favour of another. Let's take this example: just because most people appear to click through from a high-performing search engine, this doesn't mean you should rush straight into the pay-per-click arena. Look at your visitor value. If your visitor value is £1, can you really afford to pay £1.20 per click to drive new visitors to your site?
Preparing for the Christmas shutdown
This tip, adapted from an article in EnterQuest's sister publication BETTER business magazine, provides you with a list of handy dos and don'ts to help you avoid the last-minute rush and panic of a Christmas shutdown.
Do:
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Check the last posting dates before Christmas. On the busiest day, one week before Christmas, the Post Office reckons it handles 150 million items - double the usual quota. For last posting dates for the UK, Channel Islands and other countries check the Royal Mail website.
Don't:
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Forget to check important dates, as you might need to bring them forward or set them back. This is especially important if you expect to be working with a printer or designer for a Christmas or New Year promotion, or if you want a magazine or trade publication published on time. The designs for cards, flyers, calendars and so on should all be finalised and with the printer before the end of November, if not sooner.
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Assume your employees know that you are shutting down for the festive season. Whether staff have to work over Bank Holidays depends entirely on their contracts of employment. Ideally, this should be a written contract and therefore be clear to yourself and your employees.
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To receive regular tips, articles and how-to guides to help you run your business more effectively you can subscribe to BETTER business magazine. |
Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK and elsewhere around the world.
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Welder. Self-employed welders can exploit domestic niches in ironmongery, blacksmithing and arts and crafts. They could also offer their services in a business-to-business context, working for industrial and public sector customers.
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All-in-one cards. Earlier this year, Barclays introduced a three-in-one card that encompasses the Oyster card (the London travel card), a credit card, and a cash card that can be used to pay for purchases under £10. This trend is one that the EnterQuest team have been reporting on throughout the year.
Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.
Do you know the meaning of the word 'ameliorate'?
a) to make better or improve
b) a worsening situation
c) to hide or mask a problem
d) to boost profits
Answer at the end of the Bulletin.
The following topical business issues have been recently reported in the media. Did your radar pick them up?
1) The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has teamed up with environmental charity Friends of the Earth (FoE) to persuade people to do what this Christmas?
a) spend the festive season at home
b) recycle their Christmas cards
c) buy gifts from their local high street
d) make their own Christmas presents
2) Plans to allow which group of people to work more flexibly were announced in the Queen's Speech last week?
a) parents
b) teenagers
c) over-50s
d) former armed forces personnel
3) Small firms aren't doing enough to promote what aspect of their business, according to a new report?
a) their opening times
b) cancellation rights
c) customer care policies
d) their website
Answers at the end of the Bulletin.
LoveMyIdea.com
LoveMyIdea.com is a new resource for people to discuss and share their ideas in a secure online community. It's free to use and has been put together to provide feedback from like-minded people and experts on business ideas, inventions or even just random thoughts.
Companies Act change
The final implementation date for the Companies Act 2006 has been changed. Originally scheduled for October 2008, the date has been put back a whole year to October 2009, to give the Companies House IT system time to cope with the new measures and changes the Act brings. For more information read the press release from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).
PowerPoint 2007 tutorial
As with most Microsoft Office 2007 products, PowerPoint has undergone a radical overhaul. Like Excel, Word and Access 2007, it now has the 'ribbon' function which replaces the menus and toolbars at the top of the application. This handy Microsoft tutorial will help you get to grips with the features and tricks of PowerPoint 2007, so you can start using it to create slick presentations.
Survey design tool
SurveyMonkey is an online tool that enables you to design your own online polls. The free basic version allows you 100 responses to 10 questions per survey and you can pick from 15 survey themes.
Rather than doing 'business as usual' this book teaches the reader about 'funky business' - using new thinking and new developments to approach business differently. It includes chapters with titles like Funky Times, the Forces of Funk and Feeling Funky. Check out:
Just one word answer
The answer is a).
Ameliorate means to make better or improve.
The inventor was convinced her new design would ameliorate problems that the group had encountered with the prototype. |
How's your business radar? The answers
1) The answer is c). The joint campaign aims to persuade people to buy Christmas presents on their local high street rather than out of town stores.
2) The answer is a) The Queen's Speech included an announcement that flexible working rights are to be extended to parents of older children (currently those who have disabled children or children under six can demand to work flexibly).
3) The answer is d). Software giant Microsoft said small enterprises need to promote their websites if they want to drive customers to them. |
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Good luck
The EnterQuest Team
This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought where appropriate. |
