Site benchmarks

What are some good success measures?

[dfrancis]

Could you share what you use to measure web site success. I realize it will be different depending on the site and industry. I've heard the term "site penetration rate". Is there a commom definition of what this is? Some other measures I've heard of are # of unique visitors, visit duration, %single access pages. Are these good ones?

THanks

[brotherhood of LAN]

One good measure to use is the % of returning visitors, but this has to be compared with overall traffic numbers, which is a goal in itself

[DrCool]

The main measure of success for me is $$$. If a site makes money, I would consider it a success. If it doesn't I would consider it a failure and try to figure out why it is failing and learn from my mistakes.

Unique visitors, conversion rates, repeat visitors, and numbers like that are very useful when used within a site but trying to compare different sites judged strictly on those type of numbers is like comparing apples and oranges.

[caine]

1. Get the brand around, from the point of customer awareness
2. Getting the referrals from targetted customers
3. Money, getting the sales. (probably the most important).

[tbear]

>depending on the site and industry
Apart from other things I look at the % differences to relate these 3 areas.
From 'uniques' I can see how well I'm doing with site links and seo tweeks.
From 'visitors' I get a view of the popularity/usefulness/expectations of the site and the surfing 'waves' caused by holidays, football on the 'telly' and other environmental distortions.
From e-mail enquirys I can see my clients smiling when they write out the check. Oops, I mean the accuracy of my web aim.
I guess it also depends on what you expect from your site as to how you measure it's success. There are so many aspects to actively running a web site.

[hcstudios]

Don't forget money saved -- it's great if the site saves on tech support telephone calls by providing a FAQ or forum, or lowers the amount of product returns (for example, detailed clothing sizing info means folks don't order two different sizes to see which one fits and return the other). I always tell clients to remember that they're even saving some money by having a map on their site, because it means fewer telephone calls for directions.

PR can be an important benchmark as well -- are reporters downloading that PDF factsheet, downloading the product images, and so on, thus making it both easier for them to write articles and saving you a few pennies in postage. Shareholder PR too -- are you saving some postage/printing costs as well as keeping shareholders better informed with the stock info? Does the info on the site make it easier for institutional investors to research the stock? Both types of PR can be priceless, and can be easily tracked by checking your site logs to see who's going to the PR and Investor Relations areas of the site.

[Brett_Tabke]

The big 4 I look at:

Page views per day
Visitors per day (uniques)
Sales per day
Running ROI.

That's specifics, but like dfrancis, I wonder if there are some ways to measure global metrics? Some possibilities:

Inbound links?
Ratings services?
PR value on Google?

[europeforvisitors]

Most important: Net income at the end of the month.

Second most important: Revenue per thousand page views.

Useful as trend indicators: Page views, unique visitors, and referrals from the major search engines.

[Mike_Mackin]

>Most important: Net income at the end of the month. :)

Which takes the chargebacks into account and well as your operating costs.

[Michael Weir]

What about the success of non-commerce sites?

[europeforvisitors]

>>What about the success of non-commerce sites?<<

Well, my site isn't a commerce site (it's an editorial site), but my wife, kids, dogs, and mortgage company still have reason to care about my site's net income at the end of the month. :-)

For sites that aren't trying to earn revenue, traffic would be the most obvious benchmark, but it might not be the correct one. It all depends on what the site is trying to achieve. Depending on your mission, you could measure:

1) Donations.
2) Answers or help provided (number of e-mail replies, number of answers on an "experts" board, etc.).
3) Participation (bulletin board, chat, blog, etc.).
4) Religious conversions (on an evangelism site).
5) Signatures (on an advocacy site that has an online petition).

In short, you might want to start with traffic, as measured in page views and unique visitors, and add unique metrics of your own.