A counter records the number of visitors to a website and displays the current total on the website itself. In the main counters are no longer used as they do not provide the information that website owners need and require.

Tracking software is now the standard on the web. A tracker can provide site owners with detailed statistics such as those discussed above as well as date, time, and page viewed. A tracker will essentially show you the path each visitor takes through your website.

How to use tracking reports to guide future development and achieve your business goals Tracking reports will indicate the path visitors are taking through your site. Which pages they arrive at first and which pages they use to leave. This will point you directly to the most popular pages on your site and those pages that require work. You can then make informed decisions regarding future developments based on solid statistical data. For your website to continue to be a solution to your business problems you need to regularly review your tracking data and then sit down with your web developer. He will be able to help you develop a strategy for improving those sections of your site that your tracking data suggests need work. This way you are not haphazardly updating and maintaining your website rather you will be utilizing a systematic approach based on solid data that will bring real results.

For example a website for a hardware store has a section dedicated to their latest catalogue as a major part of the site and their strategic solution. Having their catalogue online is designed to distribute their catalogue to a much higher number of homes and thus expand their market share without a massive increase in printing and distribution costs.

After completing regular reviews of the tracking data, which their web developer supplies them with, the hardware store owners discover that the catalogue section simply is not getting the traffic it needs despite the website attracting an acceptable level of traffic over all.

The owners take their problem to their web developer and he presents them with a strategy to ensure their catalogue section as a central part of their strategic business solution gets the traffic it needs.

This could involve displaying the front page of the latest catalogue on the home page which acts as a hyperlink to the catalogue section of the site. Also they could make use of an opt-in email list. This would entail placing a simple form on the home page where visitors to who wish to be notified each time the website is updated can submit their email address allowing the store owners to contact them via a mass email each time the latest catalogue goes up on their website. Resulting in highly targeted traffic being driven directly to the catalogue and solving the problem that was discovered through the use of traffic analysis.

If you do not know how hard your website really is working to solve your most pressing business issues it is time you found out. Your online presence should continually help you to:

• Make more sales
• Cut costs
• Increase cash flow and improve cash flow management
• Gain an edge over the competition and increasing market share as a result
• Reduce stress and hassle, and
• Look good to clients, prospects, and the competition

For any strategic solution to work it must constantly adapt to changes that can occur almost daily within the dynamic business world. If your solution does not adapt it may soon cease to function.