This is all great, but the job is far from over if you want to really make the most of your site’s potential. Now is the time to dig a little deeper and start looking at your website’s analytics. There are any number of programs out there to help you do that – free and paid – but once you have those reports in front of you what exactly should you be looking at? Some basic pointers:

Bounce Rate – Most analytics programs record a bounce when a visitor only hits one page on your site and then leaves again. Monitoring your bounce rate – and which pages visitors enter and leave the site by – allows you to tweak your site so that the content is more likely to hold your visitor’s attention.

Session Duration – Are people hitting your site briefly and then clicking away? Or are they hanging around to see what you have to offer. By paying careful attention to which pages on your site hold the viewers’ attention best you can adjust the content of poorly performing pages to complement their obviously more engaging counterparts.

Conversion Tracking – If you want the visitors to your site to perform an action – such as filling out a form or subscribing to a newsletter – the conversion tracking statistics can tell you exactly how well that is going by showing you exactly what percentage of your visitors are doing what you want them to.

Traffic Sources – Keeping track of your traffic sources is crucial, especially for marketing purposes. Are the majority of your visitors coming to your site directly or from a referring site like a blog or Twitter? These numbers can help you figure out the best use of your marketing resources.

Most analytics programs will offer you a fairly large number of other statistics as well, all useful in their own way, but those above you should be checking on a daily basis if you truly want your website to reach its maximum potential.

Whatever online trends come and go original, engaging content that informs, entertains and educates your potential  customers is essential. But how do you do that when you’re already slammed trying to  run a home business? There are ways to create a lot of good internet content with far less effort than you might imagine. Here are some ways you take a single article or blog post and make it work extra hard to promote your home business:

Youtube it – There are two ways you can turn a single article into a promotional video to upload to YouTube and other video sites. First if you are comfortable being the star of the show invest in one of the new FLIP video cameras and record yourself reading your article. These little wonders are practically idiot proof and uploading your final product takes just a few minutes.

If you are camera shy try turning your article into an attractive visual presentation using photographs or illustrations. Microsoft Windows Movie Maker is a great free way to create such presentations or a service like Animoto lets you create something even more spectacular for a small fee.

Podcast it – Take a longer piece (or string together one or two related pieces) and turn them into a podcast. If you don’t feel you have the technical skills to create an MP3 file and RSS feed by yourself (although the free software Audacity makes it fairly easy) sites like Utterli allow you to record using just your phone and then gives you the code to post tour podcast on your website or in a newsletter.

Taking audio one step further you could expand on your articles and turn them into your very own radio show at sites like Blog Talk Radio.

Tweet and Digg – Every time you create a new piece of content of any kind tweet about it, post it on your Facebook page and make sure you Digg, Stumble and Propel it to increase its visibility even further.

When you cut through the hype though there is money to be made in MLM marketing if you know what to expect and how to make it work for you. Consider the following to decide if it might be the home business for you after all:

PRO- When you get into an MLM business you really are starting up your own home business, but perhaps franchise might be a better way to think of it. You will be given access to, and instruction in, the use of tools that have already been tried and tested by others and proven to be excellent ways to promote and sell a great product (assuming you have chosen a great product.) This means you are freed from the hassles of order taking, inventory, warehouse management. The company does all of that, you can concentrate on promotion and marketing.

CON – This can be a downside for some people though. Because it all sounds so easy they assume that they can get away with doing very little and simply sit back and watch the money start pouring in. MLM marketing, like any other business requires a great deal of hard work and dedication.

PRO – MLM marketing can be very flexible. You can pick your own hours for the most part, meaning it can be perfect as either a full or part time venture. There is a certain amount of set up work that can be quite arduous but after that is in place your main focus becomes promotion and finding new ways to market your chosen product.

CON – If you were never one to follow up then MLM marketing may not be for you. Following up religiously is the key to MLM marketing success and not just with your customers but with your down line as well. Those who make the big bucks in MLM marketing are those who take the time to teach, mentor and support all the people on their down line. And your leads? Research has shown that people may have to be exposed to your information 7 times before they finally make a purchasing decision so letting them go cold is a real business killer.

CON – If you cannot handle rejection then sales of any kind are simply not for you. If you cannot be patient and willing to change strategies when something is obviously not working the world of MLM marketing is not for you either.

If after reading all this you believe that you do have what it takes and decide to go for it, do it cautiously. Do your homework before you sign up for any program, checking it with the BBB and researching it elsewhere online.

Pop Ups – Many home business owners seem to think that pop ups are great and that filling their site with them is a good idea. For many people though pop ups are nothing but a nuisance and a turn off (after all why are there so many pop up blockers available?) Some appear before the user has even had a chance to view the first page of a site, others before the average person can get half way through reading the first few paragraphs. It’s a little like that old fashioned door to door salesman who wouldn’t take his foot out of the door, annoying and counterproductive.

No Contact Information – Your potential customer or client is interested enough by the content on your site to want to learn more, or they have a real interest in the products you are selling but have a few questions before they proceed to checkout. They scroll up and down the page and cannot find any contact information. For many net savvy surfers that is an immediate red flag and they will determine that you are not someone that they want to do business with. It takes two minutes to add a contact page (like ours here http://myworkathomeresources.com/about/contact/) and it can make all the difference.

Demanding Contact Information – More websites are now demanding that a customer enter contact information before they can access a certain part of a site. I have recently encountered several blogs whose articles looked interesting but when the read more button is clicked a pop up appears demanding name and email address before you can continue reading. My instant reaction? Navigate away and find the information somewhere else. People are very concerned about their privacy. If they are interested in your products and services they will share their email with you, but do not force the issue.

However, how you “tweet” really determines how successful the microblogging site will be for your home business. Here are some of the things that may get you unfollowed just as quickly as you were followed:

Constant Tweeting about your own business – Sure you are on Twitter to promote your home business but if all you ever tweet is “10% xxx for zz weeks” or “get your xxx here” then people will quickly become bored and hit the unfollow button. There is nothing wrong with promotional tweets but mix them in with actual interesting content people want to read.

Automatic Direct Messages – A bad way to get off on the right foot on a social media site. Someone is interested enough to follow you and all they get in return is a canned response? Not very friendly. With an application like Hootsuite it is easy to keep track of your new followers and it takes less than 30 seconds to just craft and send a quick, but personalized, hi message.

Just Links – Where does that bit.ly link actually lead? In an age where nasty spam and viruses are everywhere no one is going to click a link that may lead anywhere. Take the time to explain what the link is and why your readers should be interested.

Mixing Business with Pleasure in Public – When you make dinner plans on the phone or by email you only contact those who are actually invited. This logic seems to fall apart on Twitter with many people believing any communication on Twitter should be broadcast to the world.