Key Metrics - The Ultimate Solution to a Bad Economy
Sameer Khan

The global economic situation is clearly getting worse. The media
are selling the "dark" sizzle and people are buying it [day and
night. One thing that pains me even more is that people believe
more in the media than they believe in themselves. It's a sad
truth of the modern economy.

I agree that the financial markets are not looking good at all,
and the meltdown in the US market will continue to have a ripple
effect on all other markets. What I can do not agree is that a
country with a solid infrastructure and the best minds in the
world can be a slave to economic conditions.

People who don't understand economic factors will try to blame
everyone else. If you want to blame, then blame the people who
manage the key financial metrics. Key financial metrics are
important numbers that can predict the financial future of a
company or the entire stock exchange. Companies often overlook
these metrics and end up with problems, and if many companies
ignore the KFIs, the result can be an economic nightmare.

Similar to KFIs are key Web metrics that can predict the future
of your online business and Internet presence. It is extremely
important to constantly monitor these metrics and identify new
trends. An expert Web analyst knows that key Web metrics can be
used to turn around a mediocre Website into a sales machine. If
you ignore them, then chances are your online business will soon
be history.

Let's talk about how you can use key Web metrics to profit even
in a "bad economy." The first step in identifying key metrics
is to define your site goals. Goals can be anything you want to
achieve from your Website i.e. - selling products or services,
generating leads, providing information, or enhancing brand
image.

The second step is to install a Web analytics solution on your
Website. There are many free solutions such as Google Analytics,
Compete, Quantcast, and paid solutions such as SiteCatalyst,
Coremetrics, Webtrends etc.

Once your Website is loaded with the analytics code, the next
step would be to wait a couple of days and allow the data to
populate the analytics systems.

You will be able to perform some analysis just a few days after
installing the analytics code but it would be better to wait a
month and then perform a detailed analysis.

The first key metric you should watch out for is the bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that visit one page on
your Website before exiting it. Your Website should encourage
customers to spend more time on the site and navigate to internal
pages.

If your bounce rate is too high (more than 50%) then you should
change your Website design and navigation. Ideally, bounce rate
should be less than 10%, but if you maintain a bounce rate of
less than 50% you are doing a good job.

The second important metric is your goal conversion rate. You can
set up the goal in most Web analytics solutions easily. This
metric will tell you how many visitors it took your Website to
generate a sale, lead, or new member. Your focus should always be
on increasing the conversion rate.

If you are selling multiple products or services through your
Website, then you can also add average order value to your
arsenal of key metrics. Average order value is the total sales
revenue generated by all the orders placed.

If you want to conduct in-depth analysis, I would encourage you
to consider visitor recency and visitor loyalty metrics. These
metrics tell you how often a visitor visits your Website and how
frequently.

It can take you some time to understand the key metrics and
derive solutions from them, but learning and understanding these
metrics can turn your Website into a sales machine. You can
easily maximize ROI and generate more sales, leads, or members
with the same traffic and ad spending. Decreasing your marketing
expense to cut costs in a recession will also result in decreased
sales, but if you use Web analytics, your sales will increase
dramatically using the same ad budget.




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Sameer Khan is web analytics and online marketing expert who
specializes in maximizing roi, increasing conversion and sales
of any website. Sameer's ability to understand the key metrics
and derive optimal solutions from it helps him turn any website
into a selling machine without increasing the ad spending. To
find out how you can increase sales in bad economy and for more
information on Sameer's latest work, you can visit his
website Key Web Metrics. http://www.keywebmetrics.com/