Website metrics are a powerful addition to any website. Metrics not only allow you to see how many users are visiting your site, they also allow you to see who they are, where they came from, and how they found you. Your website is your brand’s link to the outside world—learn about that world through the information you can gather with website metrics. Here are five reasons to implement website metrics on your site:

1. Website metrics are free!—there are several quality, open-source software solutions that are able to gather and analyze data as well as benchmark your site against similar sites, giving you invaluable insight with minimal capital outlay.

2. Website metrics are easy to use—the free, open-source software is designed with you in mind. Most website metrics applications are capable of running custom or prepackaged reports that are displayed in visual and easy to use format. Because the software is web-based, you can access your analytics from any computer at any time.

3. Website metrics help you learn about your site’s users—once you know where visitors are going with in your site, you can see why they are going to your site and what’s most important. Web site metrics help put your site’s visitors into perspective; who they are, their geographical location, how they navigated through your site, which pages they paused at and which they skipped, if they purchased anything, and where they exited the site. This invaluable information provides actionable feedback for strategic modifications that will make your site more user friendly.

4. Website metrics will help you drive more traffic to your site—once you have installed metrics on your site and observed the trends of your users, you can start to revise your site to make it more appealing to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Discovering how people found (or didn’t find) your site is valuable information about keyword strategies you should implement for search engine optimization.

5. Website metrics helps you plan for the future—as you monitor your site with website metrics, patterns will emerge. Use the information about these patterns and trends to help increase the traffic to your site and build your brand. As you plan upcoming marketing initiatives, consider the online community as a viable audience.

Website metrics are a crucial source of information about your web presence and your online audience. One of the best things about the web (and email) is that it provides the platform to collect endless amounts of measurable data that is waiting to be analyzed and put to good use. Make your website work for you and become one of your most valuable marketing resources.