Web Site Measurement Hacks

Identify Your Business Objectives

To provide real business value, you must first know what to measure and why.

Fundamental to web site measurement is the question “Why do you even have a web site?” Defining your business objectives, literally, your site’s raison d’etre, is tremendously important to identifying changes you should make now and which changes you should leave for later. There’s nothing complicated about defining your business objectives. Usually, when you start to ask about your company’s business objectives, everybody seems to understand exactly what they are. Still, if you’re not sure, read the rest of this hack.

Every Site Has Business Objectives

No matter how few pages or meager your goals. If you’ve taken the time to write some HTML and FTP it up to a server, you’ve certainly done so with agoal in mind. Even the countless millions who built unattractive and poorly linked GeoCities pages had a goal in mind: for others to see their site. If you have an eBay store, a weblog, any site at all, you will undoubtedly be able to identify some type of objective.

Your business objectives are always the most basic things. If you’re an online retailer your business objectives are to sell more products and support current customers. If you are growing a business selling software or services, your business objectives are to create interest and generate qualified leads. As you can see, brevity rules the day when you’re defining your business objectives, helping you craft an elevator ...