Are people coming to your site and actually getting what they’re after?

I, much like you, change up the metrics I am using fairly often, and almost always use different ones for reporting to different clients.

At the end of the day though, it’s all about the cha-ching and did I make them any money. At least, it’s that way for the smart clients who WANT to succeed.

For the rest, it’s still just about how they’re ranking for “shoes perth” or sommat. They don’t have to listen to me, they can just keep paying the bills.

There’s only four, and only four, things a website can do – (i) generate a lead, as in fill out a form or ring a phone number; (ii) provide information, as in a .gov site; (iii) sell something via an online transaction, as in amazon.com; or (iv) substitute for customer service, as in… ummm… hp.com. In the absence of clear direction and/ or goals, most websites just become bland brochures with photos of suits doing power handshakes in glass offices.

I love the one page salesletter websites. No ambiguity, no alternate pathways, one clear CTA, and a tester’s dream laboratory. And they often work, regardless of the snake oil bullshit most peddle.

Just about every website we’ve got involved in has no clear call to action. Visitors click around and still the predominant mindset is WTF do I do now?

Most of us can get away with the easy metrics, simply because the one(s) that matter have no standing in the minds of website owners. And damn, Google Analytics sure does generate impressive PDFs with pretty colours and big figures. Love those maps, too – get lots of oohs and aahs from them.

Thanks for an eye-opening post.