How do you know you are getting targeted traffic? Website analytics.  Many small business owners really have no clue about what sort of traffic they are getting or even how to figure out what the numbers mean.  This post is meant to be a quick introduction to website analytics.

Most web hosting packages you will come with some sort of statistics. There are also programs or services you can purchase.  Probably the best free option right now is Google Analytics.   When looking at a web analytics program/service, you need to be able to answer the following questions:

* Who has been to your website?
* What were they looking for?
* Where did they come from?
* How long did they look at your content?
* Were they locals?

To answer some of these questions, you will need to understand the terms used in web analytics.  For a good list of terms used in analyics, please see Wikipedia .  Below are two terms that I try to point out to folks because they very important.

Visitor / Unique Visitor / Unique User – The uniquely identified client generating requests on the web server or viewing pages within a defined time period. A Unique Visitor counts once within the timescale. A visitor can make multiple visits. Identification is made to the visitor’s computer, not the person, usually via cookie and/or IP+User Agent. Thus the same person visiting from two different computers will count as two Unique Visitors.

Bounce Rate – The percentage of visits where the visitor enters and exits at the same page without visiting any other pages on the site in between.

The last point I want to make about web analytics is time.   Time will show trends and this is very valuable when understanding your traffic.  If your website is new, or you recently updated portions of the site, you will need to give it some time to see how that will effect your traffic. The more data points you get, the better informed you will be.

I want to encourage all small business owners to take a few minutes and take a look at your traffic. Can you figure out what is going on with your site?  It is not that hard, once you understand the basics.

Additional Articles:
Below are some excellent articles, written by fellow local search marketers about how analytics can help with your local search marketing campaigns.

• The Most Important Analytics In Local Search
• Using Analytics For Local Search Optimization
• Tracking Local search Traffic with Analytics

The quick answer is “yeah, but….”

A small business needs to be involved with social marketing. Being able to connect with customers and more importantly potential local customers is what it is all about.  Social marketing is growing at a tremendous pace right now and with anything online, if it is hot, you want to be a part of it.

I recently came across a couple of related articles that are worth reading:  How SMBs Can Optimize their Social Networking Time (2 part article) and Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn by Carrie Hilland and Social Media Marketing for Small Business.  Both provides some good ideas on small business and social marketing

Ok, back to the “yeah , but…” Social marketing/networking biggest problem is TIME. It takes time to read blogs, write tweets, get friends, reply to emails, etc. Time is the one thing we the small business owners do not have enough of; trust me I am speaking from experience.  I find myself spending tons of time on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. trying to keeping up with things rather than getting my work done. It is addicting!

I really do not think it is realistic for the typical small business owner to be doing a lot of social online marketing. You really cannot keep up with it all. Your best bet is to hire a professional web marketer to monitor/maintain your online social network.  Now if that is now an option, I would:

• Get an account on each of the major social sites and try them out. Each one has its own unique or signature feature.
• Talk to your current customers and see what they use.
• Decide what is your reason for social marketing- plug specials, converse with customers, simply provide updates, learn more about your field, teach others about your field, etc.
• Once you find one that works for you, use and use it daily. Don’t have to spend hours on it, just set aside some time each day.

Customer are the key to any business and relating and conversing with customers is how you keep them.…Sorry I need to go…. someone just sent me a tweet, I got a new Facebook friend,  got to update my flickr page, need to stumbleUpon an article, check my rss feeds, read some emails, and I got to finish my blog post on social marketing!

What I found was that the major search engines have a mobile version of their site but after that there is huge drop off in quality mobile search engines or directories. There are some out there but I had to search hard for them and I could not see many folks accessing them.  So my question is, should small business worry about mobile search?

Mobile search is growing but it’s not quite there yet. A recent press release from comScore: Mobile Internet Becoming A Daily Activity For Many showed that the daily mobile internet user population has more than doubled in one year! Accessing news and information was the top activity and then accessing social network or blogs was second.  So folks are using their mobile phones more, but the question is should you get a .mobi website?  In general I would say no. Now I will qualify my answer saying that some industries such as restaurants, hotels, movie theaters etc that really cater to those on the go should invest in mobile search.

Another great article I found recently, Getting Closer to Mobile Local Search’s Day by Mike Boland provides a nice overview of where mobile search is today and some forcasts for the future. Some points Mike makes:

• Mobile web users will grow to 95 million by 2013
• Changing device standards are bringing mobile search into the mainstream
• Smart phones are settling around $200, making the mobile Web a mass market opportunity for the first time

Again mobile search is growing but has not yet reached the level many have been expecting for some time.  With the growth of smart phones with full html browsers it does not seem necessary right now for the majority of small businesses to create a .mobi website or spend hours submitting the mobile search engines. If you optimize your website for local search and get listed in the major search engines, you should be just fine for right now in the emerging mobile search.

Clearly, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. I have a good friend who left his high-profile advertising job to start a company and a mere six months later returned to the agency. As he joked, “Nobody told me I was going to have to take out my own trash.”

I think the same thing is true for those trying to market their business online… “No one told me I had to work for it.”

Too many small business think that they can build a website and they are set to go. This is the furthest from the truth. A website is an extension of you business, an investment. It is a dynamic, growing entity. There is so much more to online marketing then having a website.  I have been to a number of small business seminars and all they say to get a website but nothing about what happens after that…

So how should you market your website or business online? There is not one set way to do it. Each business is unique, so it is marketing strategy. Can you do it yourself? You can do some but you will probably need to employ a professional to understand and take advantages of the many nuances of online marketing. Also you need to take a long term approach. It will not happen overnight.

Local search marketing, video marketing, social marketing are all components that your business can take advantage of to increase its visibility online.  Online marketing is very important and can provide huge returns if done properly and one goes in with the correct attitude.

Do you have what it takes to market a business online?