Too often, online business owners tend to focus purely on the bottom line, looking only at profit and sales figures without placing importance on other factors. Particularly during the first months when a fledgling business is still struggling to get on its feet, it can be disheartening to not see immediate online success.
The truth is, there are many ways of measuring online success, no matter how far along your particular e-commerce may be.
Consider these ways of looking at your online business and take heart that you may be much more successful than you first imagined.
Measuring Online Success Via Statistics
Outside of the obvious, i.e. your traffic statistics, review additional statistics that indicate success. Is your site experiencing a high amount of repeat visitors? This is a good sign that indicates your content is always fresh and interesting and keeps visitors coming back.
How about exit pages? If visitors are exiting from a page with a buy link, chances are that even if they didn’t make a purchase, they were at least interested enough to check out the products or services linked.
How about reviewing where your visitors came from. Check out the site that directed them to yours. Did someone compliment your page and include a backlink to your URL (make a note to send a thank you and perhaps ask for reciprocal marketing in the future)?
Perhaps you’ve developed a good relationship with the owner of a very popular site; it’s great if you can piggyback on that high amount of traffic. In either instance you can give yourself a pat on the back for doing a good job.
Googling Your Success
Don’t forget about that old standby, Google. Have you Googled your business name lately? Sometimes it can be quite inspirational to see the number of pages that appear referencing your name.
If you haven’t set up Google alerts to inform you when your business name or specific keywords relating to your website are used, do so now. This is a great way to keep track of all sites or blog posts that link to your business URL or mention your company name.
Success In The Rankings
Perhaps you started your website some time ago and have built it up to become popular and achieve a high page ranking. There are various online sites that will give you a page rank (Alexa, for example) and others that rate your site based on keyword usage, number of links, etc. such as Hub Spot’s Website Grader.
High page rankings and ratings are something to be happy about. You are obviously getting noticed by the search engines and using some good SEO techniques; sales are likely to follow soon.
Measuring online success is not factored by sales alone. There are many other factors that are part of good SEO and will drive both visitors and sales. Creating an online presence is an important part of achieving profitability so results in this area are just as important as obtaining the notice of search engines. Remember to celebrate all your successes in order to stay motivated.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.AussieSEO.com 2010
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Sean
Thanks for the nice reminder that there are lots of ways to measure online success. You’re right, especially when we’re starting out, it’s tempting to measure success by the bank balance. But there’s a lot of ground work to be done. And if we’re looking to build long-term, viable, online businesses, the things you mention are are the foundations to getting a steady online cash flow.
Lina Nguyen´s last blog ..Copywriting rates
Hi Lina
I know you have only recently started out in blogging and IM, and I bet you are already seeing some of the successes mentioned in my post. Don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back for any type of success, whether they be small or large. Keep following your passion and in the not too distant future, the money will come.
Regards – Sean
Hi Sean
I definately agree, although we have not been financial rewarded as yet, seeing your own post on the front page of google has many personal rewards and self satisfaction.
Regards
BelindaO
BelindaO´s last blog ..The Power of Website Competition Analysis
You are doing all the right things Belinda. It’s no easy feat to hit the first page of Google, and the satisfaction that comes with achieving one makes it all worthwhile. The financial rewards are only a matter of time and persistence.
Regards – Sean
Hi Belinda,
I’m with Sean. You should be very proud of hitting the first page of Google. It’s not an easy thing to do and if you can do it once; you can certainly do it again.
Besides, the financial success won’t be too far away.
Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion
Hi Sean,
There are lots of ways to measure your online success. Right now I measure my success by things like how many unique visitors I get each month, how many unique page views I get, what my bounce rate is, how many backlinks I have and is my Alexa ranking coming down, etc.
Then I look at things I learned like setting up my first self-hosted blog, installing a RSS feed on my blog and submitting my first article, etc. Not to mention things like how many conversations did I have in Social Media this week?
I think it’s important to value each and every success as you need all of them to have online success. Hopefully soon though, I’ll be able to start measuring my financial success.
Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn – It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint
Hi Sean
There are quite a few things you mention in your article that I had not considered as a measure of success so it is very heartening to know.
Things such as high rankings and creating an online presence that draw people to your site are also important.
I know that I would have been checking out my bank balance in the first instance as an indication of my success, but now I realise that I need to look at other factors that are working in my favour.
This is all very satisfying to know.
Blessings
Elly
Elly´s last blog ..
If you can give yourself a pat on the back for all of the small achievements along the way, you will be far more inspired to keep going
Thanks Sean,
Piggy backing someone else that has a high amount of traffic sounds like a great idea & is some thing I will look into further. I also like your tips on Googling your name & setting email alerts for your business name as it often gives a little boost of inspiration when I can see that something is working : )
jeremy´s last blog ..jlagatule- RT @tonyrobbins For you night owls still upCome be the first to have a sneak peak of R Breakthrough insiders site http-bitly-caSRxw
Hi Sean, there are a couple of points I will have to take note of,
one is getting back to people when they comment on my blog!!
I do not know about bounce rate or backlinks, but I’ll learn!
It’s all a learning process Willem and regardless of where we’re at, we are all learning.. all the time. You are doing well mate