Measuring your company’s online presence with an analytics platform is a great way to evaluate ROI, learn more about your visitors and see how they are navigating your site. While such platforms often reveal more than you might expect, it is imperative to have a carefully thought out plan before you get started.

Free platforms like Google Analytics, Stat Counter, and many others provide useful information about where your visitors are located, how they found you, and which search terms they used to arrive at your site. Excitingly, there’s a chance the data could reveal more about your site and your business than you expected. For instance, you might discover a target market you hadn’t even considered and can now augment your marketing efforts to include this new set of potential clients.

The biggest consideration to keep in mind is that while an analytics report may help display your ROI, the major search engines are constantly evolving and using new methods to evaluate your web page. Keeping your content current and focused on the key terms that best represent your company’s offerings is the greatest way to ensure a favorable assessment. The keyword analysis section of your report could even give you insight for your next blog topic.

Tweaking and updating your web page should be done frequently. Having a good plan in place to monitor and evaluate your analytics reports helps establish the framework for meaningful content creation, increasing new visitors, encouraging them to share your content on social networks, and hopefully generating lots of qualified leads.