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How Do I
Monitor My Website Progress?
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Q.
I have just started
my own website. What measures would I take to monitor improvement and success?
How do I know what metrics to track to tell me if I am doing well or not. Right now,
I'm just looking at traffic numbers but what else can I look at? Thanks --
Ingrid (Richmond, VA)
Advice
by Isabel M. Isidro
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(article continued below ...)
A. Dear
Ingrid:
You did not indicate what your website is about, as the business model of
your site can help us better determine what important metrics you need to
look at.
The first thing you need to do is to set your success parameters: when do
you think you have achieved success and how do you define success for your
website?
If this is an information site, success may mean the volume of traffic
your site receives. You may want to look at:
- Growth of your traffic - pageviews, visitors, uniques
- Ratio of the number of pageviews per visitors (you want a high ratio)
- Bounce rate or single access users versus visitors (you want a low
bounce rate)
- Content analysis - meaning what content are they interested the most and
provide more of that content to them
- Sources of traffic, from the number of traffic search engines bring you
to traffic from your links, so you know where to focus your marketing
- Number of media mentions, if any.
- Keywords where you get traffic so you can craft pay per click campaigns
using keywords you want to get traffic but currently not getting as much as
you want
- Buzz about your site in the blogosphere as well as social networking or
bookmarking sites
- Number of pages or articles being shared in social bookmarking sites
- Quality of feedback you receive from your audience.
- If you have a newsletter, how is your subscribers growing overtime. Also
look at metrics such as unsubscribe rate, open rates (number of email
recipients who open your email), and click throughs (or number of those who
opened the email who actually clicked on the links in your email presumably
to your site)
The way your site is monetized will also determine what metrics are
important.
- If you sell advertising, look at the growth of your ad sales as well
as the growth of the number of your advertisers. Also check how many
advertisers renew their ad campaigns in your site.
- If you use third party advertising sites such as Google Adsense,
determine if your income is growing overtime; and if not, experiment with
optimization techniques.
- If you are running an ecommerce site, do a funnel analysis and see the
process of how users are buying from your site (and at what part of the
process do they leave your site without completing the sale). Look at your
sales, your conversion rate, the rate of return on your marketing
investments.
To track the performance of your website, some suggested tools include:
August 2008
About the PowerHomeBiz.com Guide:
Isabel Isidro is the
co-founder and VP-Managing Editor of PowerHomeBiz.com, an online magazine
for home business entrepreneurs that provides guidance on starting, running
and managing a home-based business.
The opinions expressed in this column are
those of the author, not of PowerHomeBiz.com.
Users
should not treat the Guide's response as legal, accounting, or
professional advice as all answers are intended to be general in
nature. Such advice can only be properly given by qualified
professionals who are fully aware of a user's specific geographical areas or circumstances, such
as
an attorney or accountant.
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