One of the great things about the internet is how you learn how to use it better by using the internet.

Yup.

But given how much information there is out there, it can be nice when someone curates it for you and just gives you the best of the best.

Here are the go-to internet marketing resources we’ve used to learn the trade and that we heartily recommend to others. Bookmark this page because we will update it as we find new ones.

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Note: Here’s a video covering the same material as this article, in case reading detailed posts isn’t your cup of tea.

Take a moment to think about why your business has a website in the first place. Your site is not a static brochure that you tell people to go look at; it is a lead-generation machine. Your business’s site should be working for you, bringing in leads, and making your job easier (certainly not harder!). So how do you make your website into an effective tool for churning out valuable leads?

That’s where website analytics tools enter the picture. Website analytics can help you make sure that the site is doing its job — bringing in more clients/customers (or donations/volunteers if you are running a nonprofit). Secondly, analytics can help you identify ways to fine-tune your website so that it can do an even better job. Here are some of the questions that analytics can answer for you:

• Is my website working for me and generating leads?
• Where are people falling out of my funnel?
• What can I do to bring them back?
• Which channels are bringing in the most traffic and leads?
• How can I make my website even better?

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You shouldn’t spend money on digital marketing unless you have the proper analytics set up to measure the results. But what if customers aren’t buying something directly from your website like they would on an e-commerce store?

For local businesses, a conversion is usually when a lead contacts them. This can be through:

• a contact form
• a phone call
• an email
• a scheduled appointment

Luckily, it’s possible to track these website actions. Yes! It can be done with the power of an amazing free tool called Google Tag Manager (GTM).

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