Return on Investment It's an old adage, but if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.  Whether you use the I Team, another agency or market your site yourself, there is a cost involved.  So how can you tell if it has all been worth it?  There are a number of different metrics you really need to measure and understand in order to be able to justify your expenditure and qualify your returns.
SEO Reporting PPC Reporting Visitor Analysis Site Analysis

>> Search Marketing Reporting

How are your key phrases doing in your chosen search engines?  Don't get complacent!  There are millions of new pages created everyday.  It stands to reason that some will result in direct competition.  They will be doing there best to oust your site from high rankings and get the traffic for themselves.

>>  Pay Per Click Reporting

This is very important as it represents a direct cost.  What phrases are working well and which ones are misnomers?  Are your adverts attracting visitors?  What is the competition doing?  Not managing your PPC accounts closely can cost a lot of money for no return.

>>  Site Visitor Reporting

All that effort in getting visitors to the site better have been worth it!  What are your Web sites visitors doing once they arrive?  Where are they clicking and where are they going?  What can you do to improve the visitor experience - that will almost inevitably increase returns!

>>  Web Site Analysis

What are the raw stats?  How much traffic are you getting?  How many enquiries or sales is your site generating? Are there seasonal variations? Are you achieving a sensible ration of enquiries to traffic?

By reporting on these core areas on an ongoing basis, you can better judge the state of your site.

Finally, the one thing that must be measured are the attributable sales.  Not everyone will use the Web site as a point of contact - some will call direct, but you must ask what stimulated the enquiry.  By keeping a simple tally of Web site generated income, you can quickly see the scale of your return and providing you with the information you need to decide whether to increase or decrease your investment.