Many website owners have become so preoccupied with SEO techniques and making it to the top of search engine rankings that they’ve forgotten what really matters: giving searchers what they need. Unless you are able to Measure Site Usability satisfy people when they find your site, all high rankings and traffic achieved through SEO is only a false (and temporary) victory. But win over your visitors with relevant content, and triumph is yours to keep.
How can you tell if your website is delivering the goods that it promises? Below are some of the key indicators. Most of these you can gather from a web analytics tool like Google Webmater Tools or Statcounter.
Length Of Visits Measure Site Usability
Web analytics tools tell you how long people stay on each page of your site that they visit. This is only an approximate but a very good one nevertheless. Visit length is an excellent indicator how well your site is doing in terms of giving people the information they are looking for. If a visitor stays on your website for considerable periods, it is a good sign that he or she has found relevant material there. A few seconds is worthless; it is a “bounce” (that is, most likely the visitor clicked the “back” button and looked at another page in the search engine results).
Number Of Returning Visitors
Loyalty among visitors is crucial to success if you are building a brand. It is also a safeguard against relying too much on search engine traffic. Even if you lose considerable search traffic, your loyal followers/subscribers will keep driving more people to your site. You can measure visitor loyalty by looking at your web analytics tool’s “returning visits’ feature, by counting your email subscribers, social media fans and followers, etc.
Number Of Product Sales
Product sale conversions tell you that the visitor trusts your site enough to spend money based on what it says. This is different from ad clicks, which may be caused by the visitor wanting to go elsewhere and not so much being happy with your site. If you sell products regularly – whether they are affiliate products or your own – it’s a sign you have persuasive copy on your site. Whatever your message is, it is getting through to many of your visitors. It also tells you that you have found a niche people are willing to spend money on.
Quality Of Referral Links
Referral links are another key indicator of great content. Natural, organic links from forums, high-quality sites and emails are among the best. When people link to you this way, it means they find your content useful enough to refer others to it — for nothiing in return. If you analyze your site statistics carefully, you will find that it’s your best articles that get such links.
Amount Of “Social Love”
How many likes, tweets, etc. do you get? People share interesting, useful content. The more shares yours get, the better you have done your job. Try to understand what people like to share from your site and make more of those. And if you don’t have any social media or share buttons on your site, now is the time to add them. Many are free.
Number And Quality Of Comments
Comments in blogs are a strong indication of high reader engagement. People won’t bother posting comments unless they are really interested, or something you wrote or said provoked them. Enable comments on your blog if you have one. Get a plugin like CommentLuv to encourage other bloggers and website owners to do the same.
Conclusion
Reader engagement is a truer measure of success than rankings in SERPs or Google PageRank. It involves no manipulation of search engine algorithm, and no artificial link building. It’s all about finding and addressing a need. If your site is able to do this, you have a winner in your hands.
Author L.J. is an Internet marketer and professional blogger with years of experience in freelance content writing. Visit bloglady.net for Facebook login articles, social media marketing, niche marketing, blogging and SEO.
About Josh Nadeau
