Measure This!

Did you know that there are nearly half a billion hostnames (Netcraft) populating the world wide web?  That number is likely to grow exponentially over the next 5 years as highly populated emerging markets, such as China, India and Brazil adopt a greater online business presence.

I’m often amazed how few entrepreneurs and small businesses utilize their website analytics to moniter the affects of their marketing activities.  For practically nothing, businesses can measure spikes in traffic; keyword usage; site referrals and many other useful data points to mold and massage a more results-oriented marketing and communications approach.

So, why don’t companies invest more time in monitoring their website and SEO data as a way of improving the bottomline?

According to Robert Wheeler, co-founder and partner, SEOMetrics.com, Google Analytics is only one piece of the analytical pie.   ”Many times executives don’t have easy access to data. The information is buried in Excel spreadsheets or in 3 or 4 different online services, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, SEOMoz, Twitter and more. It simply takes too long to get to the data they need that should guide business decisions.”

Wheeler says, executives and entrepreneurs are paralyzed by data-overload when they do get to look at the stats, and they don’t know which data is helping or hurting their revenue streams and bottomline.   ”Really, what it comes down to is if they understood the data, they could understand and align that to the business problem.  That’s why we developed SEOMetrics, to help make sense of SEO website data through one easy access point.”

SEOMetrics.com is a new service that provides real-time SEO data in an easy-to-use dashboard. A powerful reporting tool, SEOMetrics offers a window into key metrics to help users make informed business decisions.

Personally, I can’t wait to start beta-testing this new tool.  Stay tuned for my review in the coming months and give us your thoughts on website measurement.