Measuring your website's success.

Once your website is live and launched, you will need to start tracking the site's performance. Ultimately, you will know that your site is successful when your website goals are being met through sales, inquiries, registrations etc.

On a scale of 0 to 100, there are a lot of variables to success. Assume you are selling the only Easter Egg Widgets on the internet. You may be making some sales because you are the only one out there. The question then is, could your site be selling more? Are you reaching all the people that want Easter Egg Widgets?

This is where site tracking statistics can help you fine tune your website. You will start with your list of site goals, examine who is really using your site, how they are finding you, what they do when they arrive at your site, what triggers sales and maybe the most important factor - what triggers their exit.

Most hosting companies include some form of statistics program as part of your hosting package. Some of these programs are pretty simple, others offer so much information it becomes confusing. You can always add a third party tracking program that meets your needs. I always want to know the following:

• How many unique visitors does my site get in 24 hours? - Unique visitors are not "hits". Hit Count measures the number of files served which could include every single image on a page. Unique Visitors tell me how many people actually come to the site.



• How many visitors are new and how many are returning. - Return visitor count can be a measure of how effective your site is.



• How did the visitors find my site? - Are they coming from the search engines or from site referrals? Am I spending enough or too little on advertising. If most visitors are typing my URL directly into their browser, are they coming from print ads, word of mouth or from some other source?



• Which search terms are actually being used? - I need to know which search terms actually bring in visitors. Sometimes I'll find that I'm not offering enough content for those visitors, sometimes I'll learn which search terms I need to beef up.



• What path are visitors following through my site? - Is my text too subtle to get the results I want? Can I make the links easier to use? Can I "funnel" the visitor to complete the sale more effectively?

Once I know how the website is performing, I can start measuring success. It may be tempting to look at daily statistics, but I prefer to look at trends over a period of time. When I see an upward or downward trend I can more effectively tweak the site for success.

It may be tempting to only look at direct sales when measuring success. Most websites need to factor in all forms of contact. If you get sales inquiries, it is your job to convert that contact into a sale. The value of the contact may be less than a completed sale or it might give you the opportunity to sell in bulk!

If you've set up your goals, you can measure your success. Most importantly you must treat your website business like every other successful business. Your rewards are usually in direct proportion to your efforts.