KPI or Key Performance Indicator prosody translate complex measures into simple indicants, which allow administrators to quickly and efficiently assess the situation and come up with an answer. For them to work smoothly in your business, you need to mind a singularly key point - all KPI's need to be actionable. Which means, they should report on the prosody that interest your organization. While the administrator might have the final say in deciding on which KPI's to select (and which to reject), all department heads should be involved in suggesting strategic indicants that would work best for their department.
To understand which rather KPI would work best for you, you first need to define the site you have. Note, if your company has a website which serves ten-fold functions, it may be more difficult to identify winner measures for the site. Similarly, if your business has more than one website, each website should be treated as an individual entity. It's also important to remember that KPI prosody should cover a broad spectrum of both financial and non financial goals.
The following are some of the more popular types of business websites we come across today:
Commerce Sites
In this rather environment, the goal is to get clients to buy goods and services directly online. An example would be amazon.com or expedia.com
The KPI's for this site is fairly simple to identify, as it tally's with the site's bottom line goal - to earn revenue. They should let in the following:
Conversion Rates
- While there are ten-fold ways to measure conversion rates, the most common one is the order conversion rate, which is the ratio of visitants to orders, and the checkout conversion rates which is the ration of visitants who start the checkout process to orders.Average Order Value
- This is the ratio of revenue for the site to orders, and it has a direct impact on the sites' profit margin, so it's an important measure to consider.Customer Loyalty
- The ratio of new clients to older one. Use this to track how many new clients you attract and how many loyal clients keep coming back.Search Engine Referrals
- Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing,will send clients to your site. Do you know how many come from there and which search engines send the most visitants over?
Content Sites
Content sites generally depend on online advertising to bring in the revenue. Alternatively, they may be built to promote an offline venture. Either ways, their purpose is to attract the largest possible audience and keep them coming back. News sites like Cnn.com and ABCNews.com and sites like WebMd.com are examples of content sites.
The site's goal is generally to bring in more visitants, thereby increasing the site's ad revenue. If this is the case, the KPI's should let in:
Unique Visitors and Return Visitors
- This will give you a quantitative idea as to how many visitants your site attracts, also as measure the effectiveness of delivery back return visitants. It forms a large part of your client loyalty strategy.New Visitor Percentage
- The ratio of new visitants to return visitants and how you focus your energy can in large depend on who your site targets.Depth of Visit
- The ratio of page view to visits. If your visitants appreciate your content, they spend time on your page and in the long run, increase your ad revenue.Duration of Visit
- How long a visitant girdle on site will also determine how your brand is perceived and winnerively marketed. The longer the stay, the more it speaks of your brand's effectiveness.
Lead Generation Sites
Typically gross revenue sites fall in to this category. The idea is to get visitants to submit as much information (not too much, as that would put them off sign language up in the first place), so that gross revenue representatives can carry out with them.
KPI's here can overlap with those defined for an ecommerce site, however, there are other indicants. These let in:
Sales Conversion Rates
- This refers to the number of leads which get converted into gross revenue and it also takes into account gross revenue campaigns that may be held. How does the conversion rate differ now? Another indicant could be the calls made by gross revenue reps each day. How does that convert into leads? Is it worth the pay paid out?Cost per lead
- What is the marketing and advertising cost your company has incurred, and how does it compare to the gross revenue brought in?Single access ratio
- Do your visitants go past the entry page to the buying page? If not, this might be other important indicant that your entry page inevitably to be stronger.
Support Site
The support site's aim is to provide answers to its patrons. Forums work a similar manner, and a model is that of Sears Community Page. The site may also be the client service online presence for a business or service. Some of the KPI's for such a site let in:
Customer Satisfaction Metrics
- This is information collected through online surveys and response forms. Is the client happy with your products and services? Would he continue to use them? Recommend them?Time spent onsite
- This is naturally a large indicant of how much the client enjoys your site, uses it and returns to it. The goal is to make it as quick and easy to use as possible.Returns and complaints
- Does the site receive a lot of complaints, negative feedback and comments, a request to return products? By measure these, you get a good idea as to how your clients feel about your products and services.
While there are many free and paid for tools available, take your time to see how you can best identify, implement and track KPI's for your own business.
2011 Usha Krishnan Sliva
