If you want to increase your website traffic you need to be able to measure it.  If you don’t have numbers then you have no idea whether your efforts are making things better or worse.  If you have accurate and timely information then you will know which areas to focus on and exactly how much traffic you receive from your website promotion activities.

Google Analytics will get you the information you need to succeed.

Google Analytics will show you how many visitors your site has and where they come from.  It breaks the sources into three categories:

• Search engines
• Referrals
• Direct traffic

Search engines shows how traffic is coming from search engines like Google and Bing.  It further shows you the keywords or search terms that people entered to find you, which is exactly what you need to help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Referrals tells you how many visitors are coming in from other sites.  This lets you know how effective your blog, email and social marketing efforts are.

Direct traffic is where someone typed in the address of your website rather than click a link from another page.  This traffic could be coming from non-internet advertising that you are doing.  If you have print or radio advertising that includes you web address or if people are referred via word of mouth then this shows up as direct traffic.

The Breakdown You Need

Google Analytics breaks down referral and search traffic to as much detail as possible.  It shows the address of every page where someone clicked a link to go to your site.  If you have put links from your blog, social media profile, or other website then you will exactly how much traffic each generates.  You will also see traffic from other people’s web pages who have referenced your site.

You will also see every single search term that visitors type to get to your site.  It shows both paid and organic search traffic.

As you work to promote your site through every possible channel you can think of you can monitor your results.  Is your blog driving traffic to your site?  Is your SEO effective?  Are other sites linking to you?  You can see what works and what doesn’t and continually improve your strategy in the lean startup way.