Measuring the success of your new website

Many companies (make that "most") are constantly trying to improve their websites either by doing (major) revamps of the current ones or building brand new. What are the goals of these constant activities? What will make the new(er) websites successful?

• Increased traffic?
• Increased engagement?
• Increased leads?
• Increased loyalty?
• Increased revenue?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The challenge is that some objectives are easier to measure than others. And some are easier to measure short-term than long-term. Measuring traffic and leads are fairly straightforward short-term, while engagement, loyalty and revenue (depending on your business) take longer time.

One of the best ways to measure success and give you immediate results is a website effectiveness survey.

A typical website effectiveness program consists of a success metric (e.g. "To what extent have you successfully completed your visit") and a loyalty metric (e.g. "To what extent is it likely that you will revisit the website" and "To what extent is it likely that you will recommend the website to a friend / colleague"). These metrics combined tell you how effective your website is. From, importantly, visitors' perspectives.

Implemented on both your existing and future websites, a website effectiveness survey is a great tool to measure the success of your new website. And benchmarked with industry data, you can also tell how your website is performing compared to your industry.