In these days of cut budgets and downsizing, keeping a close tab on your business success is a crucial factor to keeping overhead costs down for expenses like advertising, marketing and even payroll. In order to stay afloat amidst decreased business opportunities, business owners need to see what aspects of their business plan are working to make them money, and which ones are merely expenses with little or no return to their bottom line.

Metrics are needed to measure business success, and there are companies dedicated to this task. Some of them are small businesses like yourself, who will work within your budget constraints to help you achieve maximum profitability with less cash out of pocket, but others are companies that make big promises for big costs that may end up being the death toll for your small business.

How can you keep a tab on the success of your business without putting yourself OUT of business? Read on for some metrics tips that will help you stay ahead of the pack but won't drain the last dollars from your bank account.

Google Analytics

The long-standing tracker for website business success, Google Analytics offer business owners the ability to track their website performance, the viability of the site keywords and their online ad performance, among other ratios. Account setup is free and will help you track, in real time, your business performance.

A Few Obvious, but Highly Effective Tools

• Profit Margin - In short, is it maintaining, increasing or decreasing? What has changed recently in your business plan that could have had an effect on those numbers?  No matter what you filled in on your business plan as your business purpose, if you are anything except a non-profit company, the bottom line purpose of your business is to make money. Tracking the amount of money your making after expenses is a real way of gauging your business success.

• Client Base - Keeping track of existing and new clients is another easy way of understanding your business success. As much as regular profits can prove business strength, these profits depend on your current client base. Managing your customer service to retain clients and investing in ongoing marketing efforts to obtain new ones are crucial to your business success.