You’ve spent a lot of time tweaking your site, getting everything streamlined, polished, and efficient. You’ve designed everything from the ground up, and it’s been a gradual but steady climb to the top, as you developed strategies that seem to keep winning customers over and moving that merchandise at a steady clip. Just like Toptenwholesale.com and its network of sites (manufacturer.com, wholesaleu.com, offpricenetwork.com), you’re all about general merchandise, apparel, accessories, gifts, electronics, handbags, jewelry, toys, and more… but you’re still stuck when it comes to figuring out what kind of people are really looking at your site, and even more perplexed by the thought of developing marketing that caters to a specific group, by using some web-based metrics. After all, how much information could there be out there to help you out with this stuff?

Plenty of information. As someone wisely pointed out to me once upon a time: “Everything you put on the Internet exists somewhere, even if you don’t see it anymore.” Scary stuff indeed.

To put it simply, much of it can used to drive your sales in the right direction, if you know the answers to the five ‘W’ questions, and us them to track your website performance…

• Who is checking out your site right now? Who visits most often, and browses the contents of your online catalogs, but never buys? Don’t you want to know which customers are using your FAQ page, then heading straight into the order form? This kind of information can help you better service the people that are currently working with your site… and tailor the rest of it to suit the ones that seem interested, but not fully compelled to follow through.

• What are visitors looking at, anyway? Do you really know which parts of your site get the most traffic, and which components are getting the most clicks?

• Where does your site show up on the Internet, anyway? You might be surprised to see some blogs and other sites that have linked your site in reference to a story, article, or random post. On top of that, you’ll probably find a few reasons to work out a deal with some sites that you’d love to have a link posted on, which will direct traffic back to your site very easily.

• When do visitors frequent your site? Are there particular times of the day, month, or even year that seem to get the most activity? This goes beyond the simple logic of holiday season peak traffic, but maybe there are some connections to other events on the calendar that tie in very nicely with your site’s offerings. Once you’ve identified these trends, it could be easier to position yourself for some higher visibility during the times that count most.

• Why are consumers even looking at your site, anyway? True, you’ve spent some money and worked out some deals with partners and affiliates to promote your property, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg… consumer buying habits can be tricky to nail down, and chasing down the answer to the ever-elusive why can put you in the lead. It may also expose some flaws in your system, and help you to answer the other logical question: why not?

One major thing to consider is the rise of the vertical search market on the Internet. Companies like our very own Toptenwholesale.com specialize in narrowing the spectrum of search, to give seekers of industry-specific information the tools they need to find more relevant results with fewer clicks. While search giants like Google are doing an amazing job of bringing information to everyone, they almost do it too well, and a simple search for a text query will turn up thousands of results. Who’s got that kind of time? Fewer clicks - in terms of buyers looking for sources - means the difference between somebody choosing you… or your competition! It also means that you’ll get answers to questions that are heavy on the wholesale, and lighter on the other stuff that doesn’t apply to your business. All of this will work towards your goal to Find it. Source it. Profit!