Running online business does resembles its off line counterpart.

You need to monitor the performance of your back office operations.

In off line business, that includes monitoring financial management and reporting, monitoring your team performance, and even monitoring whether your coffee machine is in good shape and well-stocked :)

In online business, that includes monitoring your website performance, server performance, and tracking your website visitors and popularity.

Why you need to track your website performance

First of all, it is a good habit – you need to know your website’s current state in order to spot a potential problem or two in the future and receive a report on it.

Secondly, it is important to test campaigns to find your best practices. In term of website traffic monitoring, for example, you implement a new online certification, such as BizRate, for your online retail store. You may want to know the effectiveness of BizRate’s badge placement on your website. You can test the campain by monitoring the visitors traffic – is it increasing?

Tools to track your online business performance

There are tools available on the Internet, mostly for free.

I normally use Google Analytics, to monitor my website traffic and all information related to it – the length of visit, visitors’ origin, etc.

Recently, I came across an exceptional free tool that I use to monitor this blog, mon.itor.us. What differentiates mon.itor.us to Google Analytics is on the campaign test reporting. With mon.itor.us, I can track every test I make – this enable me to compare campaigns. Moreover, it’s easy to learn, navigate and use, even for a beginner techie like me.

Not a techie? I don’t consider myself a good one, either. I would suggest you to hire a techie to do the monitoring.

Any experience in using website performance tools? Please share your tips on website performance by commenting on this blog post :)

Ivan Widjaya
Monitoring my online business

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