Experts advise us to “measure twice, cut once” when it comes to home improvement projects. But how many times have you been in the middle of project only to discover your measurement came up short? The same thing can happen to a small business that is building a website. You can measure how many people visit your site but does that help you drive more sales? Here are three tools you can use to more precisely define metrics for your website and measure your small business’s end goal.

Start with Your Goal

Before measuring your website, first decide what you want prospective customers to do. For example, is your goal to obtain a lead, watch a video of your new product, or to sign-up for your newsletter? Next, establish the right tracking tool to see if that’s what actually happens when they visit. Google Analytics has several free tools to help. Ask your website developer to add it to your site or take advantage of the tutorials from Google and do it yourself.

Here are some of these tools:

• Goal Page – Use this to measure how often your visitors take a specific action, like signing up for your newsletter. You can select from several goal categories including revenue, acquisition, inquiry, or engagement. Google gives you templates to get you started; each can be customized for your business’s goal. Once established, you will be able to track how often visitors reach your end goal.
• Goal Flow Report – What happens if visitors aren’t reaching the goal you had in mind? The answer might be to look at the path they must take to reach the end goal. For example, they might start on your home page, click on a link about your new product, and then fill out a form for more information. The Goal Flow Report helps you determine where in the process you lose them so you can address it. Maybe you need to simplify the information form or provide a phone number for them to speak directly with you.
• Virtual Pageviews – Say you want to educate your visitor by providing a video that shows them how people use your product to help solve a problem. You could have them fill out a lead form before viewing it but some customers might be reluctant to do that. Instead you could configure a link for the video that, when clicked on, would register as a “virtual” page view in Google Analytics.

A visit to your website starts potential customers down the road but you don’t know if they actually reach your end goal. Take advantage of metrics from these tracking tools and you’re more likely to identify what’s working on your website and what’s not. That helps you make better decisions and focus your efforts on growing your small business.