The mantra of a great web site team should be 'measure everything'. We covered installing Google Analytics in Chapter 1, The Tools You'll Need. Understanding what and why you're tracking certain things will help you make sound design improvements to your web site. Not all data is useful, though. The analytics you should be paying attention to will vary by the type of web site that you run. Here's a quick classification of a few analytics:
|
e-commerce |
Lead Generation |
Ad-Driven | |
|
Total Revenue |
Critical |
Critical |
Critical |
|
Total Profit |
Critical |
Critical |
Critical |
|
Profit Per Order |
Critical |
Critical |
Not Important |
|
Profit Margin |
Critical |
Good |
Not Important |
|
Conversions |
Critical |
Critical |
Not Important |
|
Conversion Rate |
Critical |
Critical |
Not Important |
|
Average Cost Per Conversion |
Critical |
Good |
Not Important |
|
Number of Visitors |
Trend Indicator |
Trend Indicator |
Critical |
|
Total Pageviews |
Not Important |
Not Important |
Critical |
|
Average Pageviews per Visit | ... |
