Whether giving your website a new look or building a new website, there are a few important elements that should be considered prior to the official launch. By using the checklist below, it could help improve visitor experience and search visibility, and by default, increase traffic and/or sales.

Read more: Website Checklist before Launch

When deciding to create a website, you must first decide on the type of website you want. If you plan on adding content regularly, need a website where many different users can add different types of content, a type of online magazine for your business then you probably want some kind of Content Management System.

Read more: Which CMS? Joomla, WordPress, Drupal?

Website statistics display how well your website is doing and what content seems to be the most popular. Google Analytics is a powerful (and free) reporting tool for capturing the "who, where, and how" of your website visitors. With Google Analytics, you're able to see: How many unique visitors & pageviews your website receives Where visitors are coming from (search engines, sites linking to yours, etc.) How long visitors stay What keywords are being used to find your site Technical information about your visitors computer (resolution, operating system, etc.) There are a lot of different types of statistics to track and Google Analytics offers advanced reporting tools; however, below are a description of a few key statistics to track when you first get started with any tracking tool. Visits – Analytics measure both visits and visitors in your account. Visits represent the number of times the website was visited, without regard to repeat visitors. Visitors represent the number of people that visited your site. Most Popular Pages – This is a record of the pages on your website that are getting the most traffic, and which are not doing so well? Look at popular pages and their traffic sources to figure out what your doing right and how to best repeat your success. Who Links to You? – This tracks websites and search engines that are sending you the most traffic. Keyword Based Traffic – This is a great report that will display what keywords are being used to find your website through search engines. This will also help you determine the type of keywords you should be targeting or if your website needs to be optimized for your keywords. Bounce Rate - The Bounce rate is a statistic of how long each visit lasted, revealing how many people come to your site and leave without going any further. Analytics will let you view your bounce rate over time, and see how it varies from page to page. For example, if you have multiple landing pages, those with a higher bounce rate should probably be updated to increase visitor interaction.