Measuring Your 'Online Presence'

When it comes to digital marketing there are so many metrics to measure it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But it's worth tracking some key metrics so that you have an idea whether what you're doing is working or not. 

Your online presence covers any touch points a potential customer might have with you online for example your website and social media pages. This might include any additional directory listings or similar. Below are 5 key metrics I believe are essential to track to have a benchmark for your online presence.

5 key metrics to monitor your online presence: 

#1: Web visitors -  How many people are visiting your website each month? Basic stuff although there are different metrics to look at.

#2: Google Business Profile search impressions - This metrics helps give you an idea of how many people are searching for your business by name. 

#3: Reviews  - How many reviews do you have? This is a great indicator of your online reputation, an important part of your online presence. 

#4: Facebook post reach average - How many people are actually seeing each Facebook post you share? To view the reach of each post you can click 'See insights and ads' at the bottom of each post. To calculate the average post reach for any given month you can simply divide the total reach by total posts shared.

#5: Online following - How many people do you have available to share any updates or promotions with? For many people this will be a Facebook page, but could also be an email list or client database.

Analysing Website Data
For many businesses, a website will be the 'centre' of their online presence and probably their biggest digital marketing investment. 

For businesses selling online your website is critical, and for physical stores, a website might just be a nice marketing tool for when your store in closed, either way, a website is generally where people go to learn more about your business before they make contact. For businesses without a website, it's worth investing in one, a simple one-page site with just your basic info makes you appear more professional. 

In Google Analytics you can view where people are visiting your website from such as Organic Search, Paid Search (Google Ads), Organic Social, Paid Social (Facebook Ads) and other ways.

It's not exactly 'accurate', but if you knew 25% of visitors from your website were coming from Google Ads you could extrapolate that to assuming 25% of any online enquiries or online sales could be attributed to Google Ads (in the absence of more detailed attribution measurement).

This can also tell how reliant your online presence is on any ads you're running and you can measure what impact any changes to your ads budget is having on web visitors.

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​Beyond numbers...

Answering the below questions can help you further understand your online presence in the context of your industry and competitors: 

• What appears when you search your business name in Google? ​
• What about the products or services you offer? (without any mention of your business name)
• Do ads for other businesses come up?
• Are they direct competitors? 

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Want more insights into your online presence? 

I offer free Google Analytics reporting for eligible businesses to provide a basic overview of website visits. Monthly reporting services with the inclusion of other channels (such as Google Ads and Google Business) start from $95/month and adding social media and Facebook Ads data from $115/month.