As every business website is different, so are the metrics that measure success. What's considered successful for one site may be seen as failure for another.

To measure your own site's success, it's important you first understand and define what success is to you.

Define your goals

What do you want your website to achieve? Some common goals include:

• selling your products
• promoting your business and building brand awareness
• attracting new customers and increase engagement

Clearly defining your goals, and listing these in your marketing plan is key to defining and measuring your site's success. If you want to focus specifically on your online goals, consider developing a digital strategy.

Metrics for measurement

Web analytic tools can help you keep track of how your customers are interacting with your site. They also provide insight into what's working well, and what might need some tweaking.

Here are some metrics that you can use to track use of your site.

Engagement metrics

If what you're trying to achieve relates to providing information, communicating a story and increasing the awareness of your brand, then your success metrics may be more concerned with the engagement level of your customers, for example how engaged they are with the content on your site.

Some engagement metrics include:

• time spent on page
• time spent on site
• pages per visit

Revisit your objectives and understand whether your content needs to be changed if people:

• aren't visiting a particular page
• aren't staying long
• are exiting your website from that page

Conversion metrics

If your goal or objective is to make a sale, then you'll have a 'call to action' that leads the customer to take action and buy an item, or book an appointment.

When measuring conversion, you're essentially looking at when your customers click or buy, taking action.

You could also track:

• a completed form
• a sign up or subscription to a newsletter
• downloaded tools, such as a tax calculator

A better way to understand conversion metrics is by using free online tools such as Google Analytics.