[thrive_testimonial name=”Multiple attributions, including Peter Drucker and Edwards Deming” company=”” image=””]What gets measured gets done.[/thrive_testimonial]
In the last post, we talked about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals:
- Specific (simple, sensible, significant)
- Measurable (meaningful, motivating)
- Achievable (agreed, attainable)
- Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based)
- Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive)
That quote above has often been stated another way: “If you can measure it, you can manage it.”
Measuring traffic is super easy. I will show you how to measure your traffic in a minute.
The real point here is that you need to know your progress. Or that you are actually making progress. Sometimes, in life and business, it's hard to know where you stand.
Well, with traffic and the tools you have at your disposal to measure it, you won't be in that predicament.
Set this up once and monitor it. Once configured, you won't have to make any adjustments. You'll just have to see what's working and what isn't.
And that's easy.
While it's out of scope for this exercise (it would take too long to explain, for one), there are plenty of places to learn more about this.
Enter Google Analytics.
There are two steps to setting up GA on your site:
- Go to the link above and sign in (if you're signed into gmail you're already signed in). Then add a property. Once you do all the sub-steps in your Google Analytics account for your website, including verification, you will get a bit of code. You will use that in the next step.
- Go to your website. Insert that code in every page of your site.
Obviously, I've oversimplified this. But it should only take you 30 minutes (or less) to do the above, especially if your website is WordPress.
There are a variety of WP plugins you can install on your site to make this GA code insertion super easy – as each inserts the code in the appropriate place on every page and post on the fly. You won't have to go into every page and post to insert the code.
I am using the free version of MonsterInsights plugin for Google Analytics.
By the way, some themes allow you to post code in your <head> section. This will work as well.
The drawback (and it's minor) is that you won't be able to see your stats in your WordPress dashboard – you'll have to go to the Google Analytics website.
With a plugin, in most cases, you'll be able to see rudimentary data about your site stats, including traffic.
Remember, you're shooting for 34 visits a day.
I suggest you log your data into a spreadsheet each day. At first, just log the raw traffic. Don't be concerned with “new” versus “existing” users or any other stats. Just log the “visits.”
One.Simple.Goal.
That's it.
Here are some resources you can use to learn how to set up and use Google Analytics:
- MonsterInsights
- Google Analytics: Take a Data Driven Approach to Growth
- Google Analytics Certification Exam: Get Certified in 2 Days
- Growth Hacking with Digital Marketing
- Google Analytics Academy
- The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics
Stay tuned. Tip #2 will be published on Thursday.
[thrive_text_block color=”red” headline=”Growth Hacking #1 – getting your first 1,000 website visitors Mastermind Meetup”] If you live or work in the San Francisco Bay Area, join me at a live Mastermind Meetup on June 12, 2017.[/thrive_text_block]