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Why Measuring Is Simply Not Good Enough

There is a post on ReadWriteWeb that highlights the best sites when it comes to delivering traffic to a website. Not surprisingly, Google heads search, Facebook heads social media, YouTube heads multi-media and StumbleUpon leads the way when it comes to social bookmarking. However, while the results are interesting, they really don’t count for much when it comes to analyzing your website.

StumbleUpon, for example, is notorious for sending waves of traffic that stop, look, then move on – often driving up bounce rates and heavily reducing conversion rates. You cannot measure the success of your website, your business, or any marketing campaigns simply by the increase in traffic. This is particularly true for businesses. Your measure of success has to be in conversions and the increase in the amount of business you do.

There is an argument that suggests that it’s better to convert 100 visitors at 10% than 500 at 1% – and there is some truth to that. There is also another argument that suggests that a five fold increase in traffic with a low conversion means there is something wrong with your landing pages. There is truth in both, however, those that have been involved in online marketing know that some sites just don’t deliver the same level of business as others – and StumbleUpon is a good example.

Another easier to understand example can be the conversion rates between paid search listings and organic search listings. Paid listings often have a higher conversion rate because they are easier to target. You may read that ‘traffic is the lifeblood of any online business’. That’s not true – it should read ‘targeted traffic that converts well is the lifeblood of any online business’. The problem with the latter, of course, is that it just doesn’t sound as good as the former – nevertheless, the latter is what every online business should be targeting.

We don’t really need research and statistics to prove that those sites top their niches when it comes to delivering traffic. What you need to do is to identify which of those sites will deliver the best traffic for your business. Twitter comes in second, but if it delivers more for your business then that has to be your target.

The bottom line: find where your customers are and target them with the right material that leads to converting traffic. Online marketing is not hit and miss anymore, its trial and error and requires constant tweaking as the web continues to evolve. The one thing that has become apparent is that no online business can afford a set-and-forget policy – you will be buried by your competition before the month is out. You can see the ReadWriteWeb article here.