The 80/20 rule famously states that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts. Yet most of us keep wasting time on activities that produce little to no ROI, because we don’t know where we’re sweating for no reason and where we’re striking gold.

Luckily, that uncertainty is not true on the Internet. Metrics show you exactly what’s working and what’s not, so you can laser focus your efforts on getting more results. If you get into the habit of checking your metrics weekly, you can start to see the results of your Internet marketing activities in real time and track the trends over a month or two.

That’s amazing. Think about it. How many times in life can you instantly see where you’re struggling and how your efforts have paid off?  Then adapt and refine? Imagine pitching your project to a key partner and being able to know what word convinced them to move forward with you. That’s exactly the kind of information you can discover in your Google Analytics or Clicky dashboard.

Here are 5 key web metrics that will get you started:

• NUMBER OF VISITORS – How many people are coming to your site? Is this number trending upwards or downwards? If downwards, what have you stopped doing that was working prior? If upwards, what have you been doing that’s working and how can you do more of it? It’s a great kick in the pants to log-into Google and see the big red arrow pointing down, knowing the reason is due to slacking on blogging or social media.

• OPT-IN RATE – What percentage of new visitors to your website are signing up for your newsletter? If you’re only getting 2-3% conversion to your mailing list, how can you improve your opt-in offer? Does it need a better graphic, could the copy be tightened, or do you need to offer a gift with a higher perceived value? You could also ask yourself whether you’re attracting the right people to your website.

• TOP REFERRING WEBSITES – Where are your visitors coming from? If most of your traffic is direct – i.e. a visitor types your URL directly into Google – that means you’re not engaging people who don’t already know about you. If Facebook and Twitter are top referral websites, then perhaps you should spend more time doing social media. Alternatively, if you’re spending huge amounts of time on these platforms and not getting traffic, you should adjust what you’re doing and how you’re spending your time.

• TOP KEYWORDS – What words are visitors typing into Google to find your website? If they’re finding you mostly by your name or company name, that means you haven’t optimized for keywords related to your topic or services. You’re missing a huge opportunity to connect with people who are already interested in what you do. Other words might be surprising. Perhaps you’re getting a lot of unexpected traffic from a word you used in a blog post. Start using that word more often and look for related words that might also be a draw.

• TOP PAGES ON YOUR WEBSITE – Where are your visitors going once they land on your site? If everyone is checking out your services page and you haven’t updated that page for a year, you should put effort into making that content really strong. Alternatively, if no one is going to your products page and you’re really trying to promote your products, you should think about how you can better direct people to that page.

I hope you see how AMAZING this is. It’s like looking into a crystal ball and predicting the future of your business. If you let the numbers guide you and pay attention to how people are responding, you can really hit your stride. And the beauty of this is it only takes a few minutes a week to find out where you’re at and prioritize the 1-2 things you can do to improve your results the following week. I recommend logging in on a Friday afternoon to celebrate your successes and prioritizing your plan of attack for the following week.

Let me know what your numbers say and tell me one thing you can tweak to skyrocket your success.