How to Measure Website Effectiveness Using New Success Metrics

Traditionally, Google PageRank and pure traffic have been the measure of a website’s success. However, these older metrics are becoming less meaningful in today’s web environment.

Entrepreneurs are now demanding more than just traffic and rankings, marketers have become more web-savvy and are using analytics tools provided free of charge by Google to understand their websites and their strengths and weaknesses. Here are 7 website success metrics to consider in addition to traffic and Google PageRank:

1. Drivers. Websites are often set up to be “corporate brochures”, not just to sell products. If your website is a brochure you want to educate and you want consumers to contact you based on what they have learned on your website. For this reason, it is important to measure potential customers. An SEO campaign that generated 100 leads is better than one that generated a million page views, but no new leads.

2. Conversions. Maybe you don’t sell anything directly on your website, but want people to join, take a survey, recommend your site, or just subscribe to your email newsletter? It is important to measure this underwriter because you have the opportunity to convert this person from a suspect to a prospect and from a prospect to a buyer and from a buyer to an evangelist.

3. Subscribers. Your subscribers are the most important users of your website, even if they don’t buy anything. Subscribers are often called conversions. To make sure you keep them on the list, consider adding an RSS feed so you can track and continue educating and converting.

4. Returning visitors. This is obvious, only returning visitors really like your site. So the more they come back the better, the more successful you will be. Unique search visitors and occasional social media visitors are not the backbone of your site. Subscribers and repeat visitors (often the same people) are.

5. Page views per visit. Page views per visit will often tell you a lot about how much your visitors like your website. A 1 to 1 ratio is bad unless everyone clicks the buy button instantly.

6. Time on page and time on site. The time spent on a page and on your site can tell you whether people are simply flipping through your content or reading your entire editorial. Longer isn’t always better, but 5 minutes is in most cases better than 30 seconds, especially for a publishing site or just a blog.

7. Bounce rate. The bounce rate is one of the most important usability metrics and thanks to Google Analytics you can obtain this information. Digg’s 100k visitors with a 95% bounce rate means that only 5,000 actually visited your site. Therefore, a site with a much lower number of visitors and a bounce rate can be much more successful than a site with a large number of traffic. Quality targeted traffic is key to a successful site.

In short, there are numerous ways to evaluate the success of your website. These 7 tips are some ways to judge the impact and success of what you are sharing on your website with your customers. Sign up for Google Analytics (it’s free) and find out how to use the tools. It will help you and your marketing team evaluate the success of your communication program and help you plan future website strategies.

Do you need help growing your business online? We show you how to use web marketing tools to attract, convert, and connect with customers. “Marketing chefs explain the web marketing tools and strategies that go into website design, email marketing, advertising, and search engine optimization. new, or have had a long web presence, we help improve online earnings by sharing our creative thinking and recipes for success. Nurturing a business is a lot like creating a delicious dinner – it starts with gathering the correct ingredients and, like a chef, creatively knowing what to do with them.

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