With tight budgets these days I get asked regularly, “what can I do to improve my business online in 2009 even if I can’t expand my budget?”

I have found, many entrepreneurs and small business people are in the dark when it comes to gauging how successful they are with their web marketing. It’s not their fault. They wear a lot of hats on a day to day basis.

But here is something you can do for FREE that will have good implications for years to come. Google offers free traffic analyzation software. The sooner you get Google Analytics installed correctly on your web site, the sooner you will have a better handle on where your web business is headed.

If you install this software before 1/1/09 you can have statistics for the entire 2009 year. Because, it really takes gathering this information for a year before you can begin to compare and discover success or failure in your online efforts. For over ten years we have been supplying our clients with regular Search Engine Ranking Reports. In fact, of course, they ride along in our monthly newsletter to you ! What we are now beginning to see is the need for more decision making information than just “where does the website rank”. That is one part of the equation. But now that you have established a presence on the web, it’s time to improve ! That’s where analyzing same-month, year over year data can really come into play. A successful search engine optimization campaign should show an increasing amount of traffic from the search engines. So if you had 100 visitors from Google in January 2009 and when we get to January 2010, we find that you receive 125 visitors from Google a year later, that could be construed as a 25% increase in search engine traffic, year over year.

We would be happy to help you install Google Analytics, or consult your web developer. It is important that the tracking code be placed on every page of your site. And when you add new pages, that you include the code to them as well.

In concert with all of this, we are unveiling a new two-tiered Maintenance Package to our clients. Right now, our clients go into SEO maintenance after we have delivered three Ranking Reports. You pay a nominal amount and we continue to send you reports and are available for consulting on any web marketing matter, as well, as long as you tell us you have changed or added a web page, unlimited SEO work on those new and changed pages. This activity keeps your site fully optimized to capture the maximum possible traffic. Without this, your web site would slowly erode over the course of time until it was no longer optimized causing a loss of search engine rankings. Now, we will continue to offer this super, low priced retainer service. But additionally, we will offer a higher level of Maintenance to those clients wishing more. This level will consist of quarterly Analytics Review as well as annual Usability Review, designed to wring the most out of your Web Presence as is possible.

If you are interested in learning more about a more aggressive Maintenance package going forward into the new year, just drop us a line. But, even if you don’t, take a few moments to put traffic tracking into play before the first of the year, so you can have a full year of data to compare this time next year!

Chris Tucker

VIDEO: Google Analytics – Everything You Need to Know