Is Your Website Making You Money?

month. In a warehouse back in the day, I mean, you're talking, it used to cost like $10,000 for a website, and people just didn't have the money for it. But now it is it's a little more affordable, a lot more affordable if you know what you're doing. And there's a lot more tools like WordPress and Wix and Squarespace. I mean, there's just, there's just no reason why you don't have a website. That's what it comes down to is there's zero reason for you not to have a website.

And there is no reason for you not to be able to track how much money your website is actually making. When it comes to what your website is doing for you. A lot of people think that right away, you're referring or I will be referring to right now to an E commerce site, something like a, a WooCommerce or Shopify shop. And this particular episode has nothing to do with E

commerce. Like I'm not even going to discuss e commerce because I don't want you to think that that's the only way you can track or return on investment for your website. There's other ways to track. And we're going to be discussing the top three ways you can actually track your return of investment.

So yeah, let's get started. So the first way that you can keep track of what's going on in your website is probably the most important tool you add to your website, no matter what platform you use, if it's raw HTML code, or if it's a WordPress site, or if it's a Wix site, whatever it is, you want Google Analytics on that site. I can't stress this enough how important Google Analytics is, I mean, you're literally taking a tool that was invented by the guys that basically run the internet. I

mean, you Google everything. So to take a tool that they made, because they know the stresses, and they know, the choke points on analyzing your data, and they built a tool. That's pretty much the industry standard at this point, especially since Facebook just announced. I don't know how long ago, but we noticed it the other day, that their Facebook analytics dashboard says that

it's going away. So Google Analytics is going to become if it's not already, the basically one of the only platforms that you will need in order to monitor your website. You know, and I'm not talking about the fact that there, I mean, there are so many other platforms out there. But this is for the typical business owner, who, you know, has no business coding or setting these tools up. This is probably the easiest and most effective way. And it's free to track the basics of your

website. I mean, this is what the path to growth podcast is really for, is for business owners. And using these tools. There's no reason why you can't do this yourself. Because a lot of people can't afford an agency right now. And Google Analytics is probably the easiest tool to set up right now. Especially with like I said, With Wix and all these other guys, they have, basically, you will pretty much create a Google account. If you don't already have one who doesn't have a Gmail, your

credit Google account. And Google is going to give you a code, not not lines of code, like you know, HTML or anything, they're going to give you maybe, you know, five or six numbers with a G in front of it. And you're going to copy that and you're going to paste it into a field within Squarespace or Wix. WordPress nowadays has stuff like that. That's it. That's it. I mean, it's not rocket science. It's not like you have to be a

software engineer. In order to do this, I mean, there's there's obviously more capabilities you could do if you want to dig deeper into more analytics and more More data. But the basics for a basic business owner to set up analyzation of your website in basic form is through Google Analytics. Now, what can you really do with Google Analytics? I mean, why would you want to do that? So one of them.

One of the primary goals, I should say, no pun intended is goals, one of the primary features that you can report on his goals. So pretty much you tell Google, when this happens on my website, my business makes x amount of dollars. So basically, if I'm going on your website, say for instance, sure a, say for instance, your restaurant, right, I go on your website, I get to the homepage.

And if you have a good slider setup, the first thing you're going to see is something that says, Oh, we just got a brand new hamburger. We are, you know, a brand new platter that we want to introduce. And we offer it with our delivery, click here to order now, when somebody clicks that button, order now, you can literally tell Google, if they click this button, this order now button. And say that order now button is attached to a phone call into your restaurant, let's just take online ordering

out of the question. They click it, they call you very simple. You can tell Google, if they click this, my business could make on average, I don't know 50 bucks. Now, every time someone clicks that button, Google's gonna report it as this is your goal. Now that's a very, you know, 30,000 foot view of what that button does. I mean, you can get 20 people to click that button and not actually call you. They'll see it and they'll be like, Oh, wait, I didn't mean to do that. That's just an

example. There's just a very basic example of what I mean by you can tell Google when something happens on your website, my business makes X amount of money. That's what a goal is on Google. And it doesn't just happen for your website. As far as a direct, you know, someone typed in your URL, you can have an ad out there.

Okay? Whether it's a Google ad or a Facebook ad, it can even be a Pinterest pin, someone can click the Pinterest pin, go to your website, click the order now button, because you have a beautiful picture of your hamburger as a Pinterest then. And now Google Analytics is going to tell you, Pinterest sold the hamburger. And now you're going to say Oh, wow. Okay, so this is what's going on

with those Pinterest pins. And now, you're gonna double down on Pinterest, because you know, for a fact that one person converted, that's already enough to say, okay, something's working here. This is now how you're going to analyze your website. This is how you're going to now get into the rhythm of every morning, you know, you you're sipping your coffee, or your tea, if you're Gandalf, the grey, you're going to be looking

at these reports. And you're going to, you're going to now become an analyzer without even realizing it. And you don't have to, you don't have to learn this stuff. To a degree where you're like a scientist, you just learn the basics. It's just like business, you know, what you're, you know, you know, what your p&l looks like, you know what your profit is, you know, what your expenses are. Google Analytics is no different. For the basics. I don't want to be little Google Analytics, you

know, as a marketer. Google Analytics can be very, very, very powerful, and you have to know what you're doing. But as a business owner for just basic, basic information that's free, that's effective. That's just the basics. You need to set up Google Analytics. digging a little deeper into the capabilities of Google Analytics, there's something called Multi Channel funnels. Okay. So to help explain this, just imagine you're sitting on the couch. Right? And you're scrolling through Facebook. And

you see shoes, right? You see, I don't know DSW puts out an ad for shoes. And you go, Oh, my God, these are beautiful. Let me click it. You click on the shoes, right? All of a sudden, you're trying to check out of your cart. And one of your kids calls you inside or your husband says babe, I need you for a minute. And you put the phone down. You come back an hour later, after you know I don't know maybe the laundry was done.

Maybe some maybe you're doing something in the house, you come back and you don't finish what you were doing. Since they know that your brand showed them an ad. That person that just that just went to dsw.com through the ad is now going to say huh um You know, I didn't finish shopping. Let me let me go on their website. So now the traffic source went from Facebook, to now it's gonna go to either Google, either they're going to do a Google search for DSW, or they're gonna go

directly to your website. Okay? When this goal happens, there's cookies that are that are tracking you. And, you know, I know everyone's ears are perking up like, oh, that's supposed to be going away and not supposed to be tracking people anymore. But there are still going to be cookies around, there's going to be other ways that Google and Facebook and all these guys are going to somehow track you where you are. And you're probably going to allow it because you

want personalization. The majority that people think privacy with these internet guys is bad. But you know, they're not forcing you to check into Starbucks and post about your, your caramel macchiato, you're the one doing that. So privacy is a touchy subject with me, because there's a lot of people who are a little Hippocratic about it. And they don't understand that they're the ones

giving up their own privacy. But in any event, these multi channel funnels are going to be built to allow you to view if somebody went from Facebook, to Google to direct, and it's going to now say there was a goal made, there was a shoe that was added to someone's cart, they bought it, you made 75 bucks. And your multi channel funnel is telling you that it took them three touchpoints to get to you. That's what multi channel

Funnels is. And this doesn't, this doesn't only happen for you know, for Facebook, you it'll happen for referrals. Also, it'll let you know that there was an email that went out. So you might see something from MailChimp, or Constant Contact, the user clicked it. But because they didn't have time to shop or something came up. Or maybe the next day, they decided to go back to your website, your brand

stuck into their head. So now branding comes into play with multi channel funnels, you're going to be able to see how much does your brand matter. And that's what's most important. If people remembering to go to your website, after they saw an ad today before, you're doing a pretty good job of branding, because either either they loved the ad, maybe it was something funny. Maybe it was your logo, maybe it was your the fact that

your brand is in their face. And something is leading them back to your website, that's what multi channel Funnels is going to be telling you is that people will remembering your brand. And if you're lucky enough to get the actual keyword of what people typed in. That's even better. Because now you can tell, not only did people go back to my website, they typed in my brand name, this was a branded keyword search, then you're really in good shape. And that's really the gist of it.

That's really the gist of multi channel funnels, which is another great feature of Google Analytics. The next section I want to talk about is actionable forms. So what would be an actionable form? They could be basic, they could be something like, someone goes to your website, there's a contact form, you know, a general name, email message, and they hit submit.

That's as basic as it is, that is an actionable form, you would still want that on your website, you still want to know, if somebody can't find something on your website. You want them to know, I'm here. What do you need? Let me know what you couldn't find. And those are all ideas, by the way that you guys should remember is you could do stuff with your form. It doesn't have to say, you know, very military name, email, message, submit, it could say something like, What is your name? What

could we help you with? Or what did you find anything here? How did you find us? When you start digging deeper into actionable forms, something that's giving your audience something to fill out and giving you information? You want to know how they found you. As much as Google Analytics is a great tool. Sometimes people take people I'm sorry, sometimes people take their privacy, very serious, and they might turn off all of this stuff. You know, with iOS 14 out now, you might not be able to

track all that. You might need a form to tell you. I found you from a friend word of mouth. I found you through Facebook. I found you through Pinterest. And if you let people fill out this information, the majority of people are actually going to fill out that information as much as you think they're not.

They'll tell you if they're going to put in the work to say, you know, for instance, you're a, you're a restaurant that hosts catered events, if they're filling out all that information that says, I'd like to have a wedding ceremony or a bar mitzvah, at your catering Hall, and they're, they're putting, you know, there's going to be 100 guests, it's going to be on, you know, two months from now, they will put in that extra time to say, How did I find you, my best friend, Vicki told me about

you guys, though, gonna put it because it just takes two seconds. If you want to make it a required field, you can, if people really don't want to fill it out, they could just put blob, you know, anything in that field doesn't matter. As long as they could submit the field and get their kids party going. They don't care. Just put it in there anyway, give people the option, they will fill it out. We've seen this on so many of our clients, they will fill it out.

So let them decide, don't decide for your audience what they will and won't fill out sometimes if you put too many fields. Yes, it might look like oh, God, I have to fill all this out. Majority of the time, though, you have nothing to worry about. And going back to the topic of actionable forms, how can this help you tell what your return of investment is? The number one way it can tell your return on investment is literally by giving your service a price. And you want a form to be on each

service page that you have. For instance, if you offer something like you know, cocktail parties, you're going to make a page with this form on it. And this form is going to be separate from every other page that you have. Because when someone submits this form, guess what? You're tracking it through Google Analytics, okay. And you're gonna connect the goal to it. So you're gonna say, hey, Google, when somebody fills out the cocktail parties form, on average, we make $2,000 for an

event. And now Google Analytics is going to be able to tell you, Hey, Karen, guess what? This form that was filled out? Got you $2,000. Okay, and guess where it came from? It came from Pinterest, or it came from Facebook. And you're gonna know, you're gonna know what's making you money, you're going to know how much money your website is making you. Because if you don't have these connections made, what is the point of having a

website? You're paying monthly, you're paying for that website, you paid somebody to build the website, if you paid 100 bucks, or you paid $5,000? Wouldn't you want to know what it's doing for you? I mean, you're not just gonna go up to a car salesman and say, Oh, it's a $5,000 for that car. Sold. I don't even want to know what's in it. I'm just gonna give you the money. No, you're not gonna do that.

You're gonna give them the money, you're going to drive it, you're going to say, Wow, this car is really fucking worth it. Or you're gonna say, this car is a piece of shit. I don't know why I paid this money. I don't know what it's doing. For me. It's breaking down every five minutes. I mean, that's another thing. If your website doesn't have the foundations in place, it's not going to make you money. And I'm not just talking about Google Analytics and actionable forms. I'm talking

about basics. I mean, we're talking about backups. The basic, the most basic thing in the world is a backup. I mean, if your site goes down, can you get it back up within an hour, the majority of business owners probably have no clue. If they have a website backup, that's a problem. Especially in 2021, when online ordering is becoming

a huge deal. People were getting used to post COVID The things that they did during COVID, which was online ordering curbside pickup, you have to make sure your website's up. There's no if ands or buts about it. I mean, if you offer online ordering, I mean, if you go through something like DoorDash, or Uber Eats, not a lot of restaurants are paying the fees. They don't want to they want they want their own ordering system or their POS offers it, then your website has to be up.

But regardless, you need a destination for people to go if they want to online order, they might not go through the app, they might go on your website, look at the menu. And if you offer a button right there, that's another piece of that's another return of investment right there is your website is up, it's online. There's a button that says order now after someone looks at the menu. If your website isn't up, you might be losing sales. So that's something to think about.

Okay, now, the last piece of the puzzle is going to be something that might scare the majority of you because once you hear this term, you're gonna say oh, no, I can't I can't do that. I don't know what that is. So what I'm talking about is Basic Search Engine Optimization fundamentals. Now I personally work on SEO for a living. So I know how advanced it is how detailed it is, I mean, you need to really know what you're doing, you're not going to be doing any of the stuff that I

would do. You know, obviously, to a degree, some of the basics I handle, but I'm saying your you will not be doing the majority of the work that SEO takes. I mean, it's a lot of work. What that what we will be discussing on this episode is basic SEO is something as simple as if somebody shares something from your website, to Facebook, or to Pinterest, or to Twitter, that your website will have an image, it'll have a title, and it will have a little blurb piece of text that explains what

they're sharing. That's it, that is basic fundamentals of SEO, as it pertains to social media. And these are the basic SEO fundamentals anyway. I mean, if when it comes down to brass tacks, you're talking about words, text, images, and media, on your website is the basic fundamentals, a basic building block of SEO. As a business owner, you can control the text, the word, the picture, that shows up when someone posts something about your brand, you

100% are in control. If someone shares from your website, to another social media platform, you can control everything that happens. And it could be through my favorite platform is something like WordPress, because there's a plug in called Yoast, y O, A, S, T SEO, I'm going to have a couple of links in the description anyway, so don't worry about remembering all this shit. But something

like Yoast SEO, it's free. You plug it into your website, and it'll literally tell you on the page, you know, it'll have a little tab for social media. And it'll have the picture the title and an excerpt, a little message. So that if someone shares, you know, a shoe from your website, it's not just going to be a basic picture of your logo with the title that says, you know, dsw.com shoe

store. And the excerpt is going to say something like, you know, media image one, because it can't grab any information from your page, what you want it to say is, it'll have a picture of the shoe that's being sold, the title is going to say something like, or actually, let me put it something more relevant, because I told you guys, we weren't doing anything with E commerce, let's do a restaurant there on the menu, or you have a specific

page for a brand new burger. The actual picture, as far as in Yoast is going to say is going to have the burger, right, the burger itself is not going to have your logo. The title is going to say, you know, Bourbon bacon burger. And the excerpt is going to say, this brand new burger just came out. It's loaded with cheese, bacon bits.

And bourbon sauce, you have to try it for a limited time, that's going to make you want to buy something, if you see that, that's going to that's what's going to catch your eye, not your logo, your logo is not going to catch someone's eye, because they're not interested in your brand. They're interested in the something leading to your brand, the burger, the shoe, that anything, anything but a logo, you need

something to draw people in. So if your website has these fundamentals set up, then your audience is going to be marketing for you. If they share whatever this is, they could copy you know what, they can even copy and paste the URL to that page into a text message. And on iOS, you know, when someone sends you a URL link, it shows you a picture. It has the title, it has a little description. I mean, these are, these are things that help tell

the story about your brand. So if your website has all of this setup, you you already have the basic fundamentals of SEO accomplished, and you don't know anything about SEO. And once again, this is not to belittle how search engine optimization works. This is to give you a better return of investment on your website. As a business owner. It's very simple. And just because you can do it doesn't mean you shouldn't pay

for it. Okay. You got to remember when you're paying agencies, I mean, you know, I own an agency myself, and I'm not trying to steer business away from my agency, but just because you could do something doesn't mean you shouldn't pay for it because anybody you know anybody can drive a car But if it's not, you know, dale earnhardt jr. You're not going to win a NASCAR race. I mean, you have to know what you're

doing. But to what degree a business owner can set up these tools on their website, basic foundation, if you think it's not doing anything for you, of course, you should consult someone who knows what they're doing, such as an agency or, you know, some kid who, you know, you know, it's your nephew's best friend, and he knows how to do SEO, of course, you should

pay for it. All I'm saying is, these tools, these three tools are designed to help you as a business owner, who maybe you don't want to pay for an agency, you just bounce back from COVID, you don't feel like paying for an agency you can afford it or whatever it is, you should you use these three basic, basic fundamentals in order to get a better return of investment on your website. Because the whole point of your website is to make

you money. And if it's just sitting there, collecting dust, and you don't even know how many people are visiting it. You might say to yourself, oh, maybe I'll update the website. But what's the point? If no one's visiting it? Do you have that answer? Do you know how many people were visiting your website? Probably not. The majority of business owners have no fucking clue how many people are visiting their website, they

have no clue. If the visitors are visiting from a mobile device, or if they're visiting from a desktop, they don't know. So this will hopefully help you along the way. And if you need any help, I'm gonna put my text number, my community number at the end of this podcast. There's no reason why you can't text me and say, Joe, I don't know how to set up Google Analytics, can you send me a link to an article, I'll send it to you. But I'm not here to make money off of people off this podcast.

This is just to help business owners. We've been helping small business owners for almost five years now. And, you know, we're just trying to give back when business owners small businesses, especially are in a very rough time right now. And there's no reason for them to not succeed when people like me exist, and we're really trying to help you guys as much as we can. So please use these resources. Please ask us questions. And I hope you found

this podcast very helpful. As always, thank you guys for listening. And if you think this episode is brought you some value, you can text the word podcast to 516-447-5332 and you will be the first to know about new episodes. And you can even ask us questions about the podcast or about digital marketing in general.