Have you noticed that we revamped the Reports area in Office Live Small Business? If not, log into your account and click Reports when you get a chance. We’ve added new features that may help you attract more site visitors and turn them into customers. For instance, now you can follow day-to-day trends in your Web site traffic and see results of your keyword advertising campaigns at the same time. Those are great insights to have when you’re trying to make marketing decisions.

Let’s take a quick run through Reports so you’re aware of the valuable information you can get in just a couple clicks.

Visitor Report

Information on visitors coming to your site will help you make decisions regarding the reach/attraction of your site. You’ll see statistics on:

·         New Visitors – those who came to your site for the first time ever

·         Repeat Visitors – those who returned after visiting your site previously

·         Visits – the number of times individuals came to your site

Here’s an example of how you might use this information: If you find you are attracting lots of New Visitors but not many Repeat Visitors, it may mean you need to make the content on your site more engaging.

Site Usage Report

Like a shop owner who watches what people do once they enter his shop, this information tells you what visitors do once they come to your Web site. Information varies depending on your site, but you might see:

·         Views – the number of pages visitors viewed during a given time period

·         Conversions – the number of times a specific action was taken (such as signing up for a newsletter or requesting information) during a given time period

·         Conversion rate – the ratio of conversions to the number of visits

Referring Sources Report

Here you can learn who is sending traffic to your site and the quality of these visitors. For example:

·         Source – the name of the referrer sending the traffic

·         Source type – including search engines, online ads, direct links and partner referrals

·         Visits – the number of times people came to your site through a particular source during a given time period

Keyword Reports

Whether you use our adManager tool to place keyword ads or rely on organic searches, you can get great information about the keywords people are using on search engines to find your site. Details include:

·         Keyword – the actual keyword an individual used to get to your site

·         Search engine – the name of the search engine used and if an ad listing was involved

·         Visits – the number of times people were referred by a particular keyword to your Web site

There’s even more, but now you can see why Reports is such a valuable tool – and how it will become even more useful as you grow your Web site and introduce new features.

Good luck,

Sharad Nandwani