A truism is that all marketing efforts are measurable. If you cannot quantify the results of your campaign, then the campaign is more likely classified as public relations, not marketing. And effective marketing is what truly affects your bottom-line.

For many businesses, their website is the prime marketing tool that not only generates leads and sales on its own, but also supports all other promotion efforts. So what is the best way to measure the results of your web-based initiatives?

In our experience, Google Analytics has proven to be the premier website statistical package. Google Analytics has all the tools you need to measure the performance of your website, including unique and repeat visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rate, average time on site, and percentage of new visits.

By monitoring these numbers on a daily (or at the very least, weekly) basis you can see what your customers are interested in, which types of content generate the most activity and which areas within your site are “sticky” (holding visitors’ attention the longest). Armed with this information you can help your website evolve into a more focused tool by giving your visitors (read: customers) the type of information they desire. This knowledge is also valuable when making day-to-day business decisions, such as product focus or how to adjust sales initiatives.

Integrating Google Analytics into your site is a simple task. It is as easy as signing up for an account and pasting the generated javascript code into each page of your site. That’s it–Google does the rest of the work for you. In fact, you can even choose to have select reports emailed to you eliminating the need to even log in to your account.

If you use AdWords or AdSense, these too can be tracked and reported upon so that you can determine your ROI for your ongoing marketing campaigns.

With up to 85 reports available at your fingertips, you are sure to find the information you need in order to make informative decisions regarding your website’s future offerings. What makes it even better is that this tool is available absolutely free of charge.