Pick one number that reflects the site's job, such as calls, form enquiries or bookings. Define what counts, record it the same way every month, and review it monthly. A rough honest count beats a confident guess.

The question nobody can answer

This is Small Business Week in Canada, a week of events, workshops and advice for people who run their own businesses.

One question worth asking this week is a simple one: how many enquiries did the website bring in last month?

Most owners can say roughly how busy they were. Few can say how many new enquiries arrived through the site, or how that compares with September last year.

Without that number, every decision about the website, from a redesign to an advertising budget, rests on a feeling.

Why the number is missing

Enquiries arrive by several routes: the phone, the contact form, email, a booking system, social media messages. Each lands with a different person, and none of them is counting.

Analytics counts visits well and enquiries badly. It sees a form only if a goal has been set up correctly, and a phone call almost never.

And nobody was given the job, which is the real reason most counts never start.

Pick one number

The first is the one most often left uncounted, because a call leaves no record unless somebody makes one. For many trades it is also where most work begins.

Choose the number that matches what the site was built to do. If two matter, count both and review their total.

Decide what counts

An enquiry is somebody asking about paid work that has not been booked yet. Leave out spam, sales pitches, job applications, suppliers, and existing customers chasing an invoice.

Write the definition in one sentence and keep it with the count, so the number means the same thing every month, whoever does the counting.

One person asking twice, by form and then by phone, is one enquiry.

Returning customers asking about new work do count. Mark them, since the split between new and returning tells you something the total cannot.

Counting calls without new software

A tally sheet beside the phone works, or a column on the day's job sheet: new caller, what they asked about, how they found you.

The phone system's call history is a useful check at month end, for the calls nobody remembered to note.

Tap-to-call events in Analytics count the calls people start by tapping the number on their phones. They miss everybody who wrote the number down and rang later, so treat that figure as partial.

Counting forms and bookings

For forms, file every notification in one folder in the email program as it arrives. At month end, count the folder.

Emails sent straight to the address on the website can go into the same folder, by a rule in the email program or by whoever reads them.

For bookings, the booking system usually reports new bookings or new customers for any period.

Set either figure beside the Analytics goal for the same month. If the two disagree by much, the tracking needs checking before anybody trusts it.

A worked example

An audio-visual rental company supplying projectors, screens, microphones and speakers for conferences, galas and school events took enquiries by phone, by a quote form and by email.

Asked at a business workshop how many enquiries the website produced, the owner guessed around thirty a month.

When the office manager counted three months of form notifications afterwards, the form had produced far fewer than that, and nobody could say how many calls had come from the site at all.

The company chose one number: new quote requests, by any route. Each now gets a line in a shared spreadsheet, with the date, the route, how they found the company and whether it became a booking.

Each month, on its first working day, the owner reads the total beside the same month a year earlier.

Within a few months the count showed which weeks the quote requests clustered in, and that requests sent on holiday weekends sat unanswered until the office reopened.

Review it monthly, in ten minutes

Pick a day, such as the first working day of the month, and one person who does the count every time.

Write the total beside last month's and beside the same month last year, with a short note of anything that might explain it: an advertising campaign, a site change, a holiday, a broken form.

Single months jump around on a small site. Read the direction over a quarter before drawing conclusions.

Share the figure with whoever looks after the website and the marketing. Conversations with them become specific the moment a number exists.

What the number makes possible

A redesign or an advertising campaign can be judged against it, before and after, instead of by how the new pages look.

An offer promising more enquiries can be met with a figure: this is what we get now, so what would you change, and how will we both know?

It shows the seasons, too: when enquiries rise and fall, and so when to advertise and when to update the site.

And the count becomes part of the business's records, the kind of history a buyer, a lender or a successor asks to see.

The counter-case

A business that wins nearly all its work through referrals may find website enquiries are a small part of the total. Count them anyway, but expect the site's main job to be reassurance rather than enquiries.

A one-person business that answers every call itself can keep the tally in a notebook. A spreadsheet adds nothing at that size.

Whatever the size, pick one number, count it the same way every month, and look at it once a month.

Starting this week

  1. Pick the one number that reflects the site's job.
  2. Write down what counts as an enquiry.
  3. Put a tally sheet beside the phone.
  4. File every form notification in one folder.
  5. Name one person who does the count.
  6. Record the total on the first working day.
  7. Compare it with the same month last year.

Step five is the one that keeps the count alive. A number that belongs to everybody is usually abandoned by the second month; one person with a fixed day keeps it going for years.

The other records a successor needs from the website, from logins to renewals, are covered in the website when the owner retires.

Frequently asked questions

Why count enquiries instead of visits?

Visits show how many people arrived. Enquiries show how many asked about paid work, which is what most small business websites were built to produce.

Which number should we count?

The one that matches the site's job: calls from new customers, form enquiries, bookings or orders. If two matter, count both and review their total each month.

What counts as an enquiry?

Somebody asking about paid work not yet booked. Leave out spam, sales pitches, job applications, suppliers and customers chasing paperwork, and write the definition down.

How do we count phone calls?

With a tally beside the phone or a column on the job sheet, noting new callers and how they found you. Tap-to-call events in Analytics add a partial second count.

How often should we review the number?

Monthly, on the same day, by the same person, beside last month's figure and the same month last year. Judge the direction over a quarter, not a single month.

Is Analytics enough on its own?

Rarely. It counts forms only if goals are set up correctly, and almost never sees phone calls. Use it as a second opinion beside your own count.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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