If you aren't measuring anything, you're measuring nothing

When I first looked at our own online analytics, I was so swamped by the amount of information that I didn’t stay long. I didn’t get any real trends or make conclusions, and continued to make decisions based on hunches. Sound familiar?

There is so much noise in analytics. We decided to choose just two things to watch and only focus on those.

So, some steps:

• Make sure you are actually measuring

Is your analytics on, on your website? If you aren't sure, email us to find out - just hit reply!

• Choose 1-2 things to measure and start tracking those over time (I use a spreadsheet)

What you measure depends entirely on what your website is about, e.g. if you are selling something, maybe track the number of customers and total sales.

• Make sure that you exclude internal traffic

No use getting excited about a spike in activity meanwhile it was just Jo from the desk next to yours, fixing all the grammar site-wide!

And forget about past data - what’s in the past, is water under the bridge.
Just get started, and good luck!