Also, a few weeks back we had our water supply guy here filling up our well and we talked about his father’s business. Well, I didn’t give up chance to say, “Does your father have a website? I can design one for him.” Well, conversation went from there and I ended up giving him several of my business cards.

My husband is also owner of a small business; a tow truck and storage business. Well, other day we had a fellow here delivering gravel for our driveway and, as he is always on road, I asked him if he sees accidents and such. So, my husband gave him some of his cards and it has paid off already. Yesterday this dump truck drive called to tell my husband about an accident that he had just seen.

And, don’t forget your existing clients. Do they know everything that you offer? I have a wonderful steady administrative client that I told a few times about some of websites I am designing. Well, he was impressed and now we are in talks to design his website. He didn’t know I did website design until I told him. And, this may be true for you as well. Your clients won’t know everything that you can do for them unless you tell them. They may not need any of your secondary services right away, or at all, but they may know someone who does.

My administrative client, which I mentioned above, has now given my name to some of his customers who need help with their office tasks and web design needs.

As I said before, there is a time and a place for shamelessly self-promoting yourself and your business. Be careful not to sound arrogant and don’t be pushy. But, as a small business owner, you are best person to tell others about what you offer and you should take advantage of situations that will allow you to do so.

How many visitors take desired action? During same time period that you tracked total number of visitors to your site, you should also track number of visitors that take action that you desire. For instance, if your primary goal on your site is to get visitors to fill out a contact form, how many forms did you collect in allotted period? This number, coupled with your traffic data, forms basis of your site conversion rate. For example, if you had 1000 visitors over a one-month period, and 10 of them sent in a form, your site conversion rate is 1% (10/1000). It is important to draw a distinction between your site conversion rate and your regular sales conversion rates (unless your site is selling online). Not all people who send in a form, for example, will become customers. However, your site conversion rate is a very useful piece of data to have, as you can use it to measure success (or failure) of changes that are made to site.

Three Quick Tips for Improvement: 1. If your traffic levels are too low to draw any meaningful data, consider launching some traffic-building initiatives, such as search engine optimization, affiliate programs, or pay-per-click advertising. 2. Be sure to make it easy for your visitor to take desired action from any page of your site. For example, if you want them to fill out a contact form, make certain that there is a prominent button inviting them to do this on each page. 3. Check your sales copy to be sure it also invites visitors to take desired action. Too often, companies use offline brochure copy on their site without taking into account unique opportunities that online arena affords.

Conclusion: While launching a website can be a big step for any business, it is equally important that performance of site can be measured objectively. Understanding goals of your site and establishing a benchmark from which future success can be gauged is critical to your site's long-term success.