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Part I
Does your website produce customers?

I'm going to put it out in the open.  I'm going to say the words that typically make small business owners glaze over: Website Analytics, Conversion Metrics, The Long Tail.  If they mean anything to you, your small business is way ahead of the game.  If not, you have some learning to do.

Chances are most small businesses don't even know about the Search Engine Strategies Conference (SES) and you've likely survived thus far wihtout knowing.  And while you can continue this way you chances are also likely you can immediately think of some competitor who's much larger and better known than you... you even konw their website pretty well.  The reality is the only thing separating their website from yours is their knowledge knowledge of converting website visitors into customers.  And this is part of what SES teaches website maintainers how to do.

At the Search Engine Strategies Keynote today, Avinash Kaushik gave a wonderful intervention on how to make metrics work for your small business.  And if you're assuming this means getting traffic to your website you're missing the big picture.  It's about getting visitors and converting them into customers!  And that's why you need to embrace these important terms.  They're known well by your competition.

• Website Analytics.  This is the heart of it all.  If you don't know how website visitors arrive at your site there's nothing to analyze, but it's much much more.  It's knowing which pages they traverse, how long they spend on each page, and where they leave off before not buying anything.
• Conversion Metrics.  With the knowledge provided by Website Analytics you can now design your site to lead visitors to some goal.  And with a goal present it can be determined how many website visitors actually purchase something or sign-up for a newsletter.
• The Long Tail. A term worthy of it's own book (in fact there is!), thus an analogy from David Meerman Scott: Remember when there were three big television stations and you thought there was more programming than you needed?  But then came along cable TV with dozens more channels.  So the idea is not trying to compete with the moguls but rather enable those seeking your niche services to find you.

It's for these reasons Web-Kong has become known for insisting it's clients make website design secondary to its content.  And this is the presice reason we have discontinued our Basic Website Hosting offerings in lieu of Managed Website Presenses.  Your website should be more than just a brochure for your small busines, it's a marketing tool available for world wide distribution.

While getting a signed copy of Avinash's book, Website Analytics, I asked him what's the one thing small business websites should do to ramp up their website.  In Part II of this artcile I'll reveal this information. 

Seach Engines Strategies is being held in New York City, March 23-25, 2010.