A lot of beginning web marketers will launch websites without any kind of tracking on them. This is okay in the very beginning stages of launching a website, but the moment you decide that the website is more than a hobby and is something you actually want to make money from, you should install tracking right away.

Why?

==> The Very Basics: How Is Your Website Doing?

If you don’t even track the rudimentary things, such as how much traffic your website is getting, how many people are coming back to your website after leaving and other basic metrics, you’ll have no idea how your website is doing at all.

If your website is starting to get serious traffic, that means an opportunity to make money. If you don’t have tracking installed, you won’t know when that happens.

In addition to the basics, there are a lot of other benefits of tracking some of the more advanced metrics.

==> Using Metrics to Rank Well in Search Engines

With the Panda update, Google has publically stated that they’re using visitor metrics much more heavily now in their ranking algorithms.

That means that pages where people stay longer will tend to rank higher. Pages where users click and then never come back to Google also rank higher, as that probably means they found the answer to their question on your site. Pages which users don’t bounce from and instead go to other pages on your site will rank higher.

These are just a fraction of the metrics Google is now considering in their ranking algorithm. If you want your website to rank, you need to be consistently monitoring things like return rate, bounce rate and exit rate to improve them over time.

==> Tracking Performance to Immediately Improve Cashflow

Some metrics may not immediately improve your bottom line. Improvements in other metrics, however, can immediately improve your cashflow.

For example, what’s your current visitor to email sign-up rate? What’s your email to conversion rate?

By tracking these two metrics, you can immediately add more cash to your bottom line. More importantly, any improvements you make to these metrics will last over time, paying off for months and years.

==> Improving the Non-Tangibles of Your Business

How useful are people finding your website? How many people feel like your site is resourceful enough that they come back? How many people post things from your site to their Facebook status?

These are metrics that won’t necessarily add to your bottom line right away. However, they’ll result in more links, more visitors and more community goodwill. In the long run, that’ll turn into more visitors and more cash.

These are some of the many reasons you should be tracking the performance of your website. Without good tracking, you’re essentially flying blind. By tracking and measuring your metrics, you’ll be able to refine and improve your website over time.