One metric to define website performance!

In the recently conducted poll on this blog "what one metric best defines your website's performance" a clear favorite emerged in the RETURN FREQUENCY (42% of votes). In second place was the Bounce Rate (28%), while Page Views and Conversion were not considered primary indicators of performance, although conversion did have some takers.

I would agree with the pattern, although, I also consider Bounce Rate to be a good indicator and more importantly, easily measurable metric to monitor.

Return frequency is interesting, since it indicates that users liked what they saw and are coming back. The greatest challenge I faced when measuring this metric was the accuracy and granularity of tagging to understand what was bringing the users back. The data usually is at site level and does little to offer insights into what did or did not work! (read my earlier post on this .. http://www.analyticsheaven.com/2009/11/are-you-looking-at-your-return_09.html)

Take for example, a content site where users may be coming back to read about a developing story and may stop once there are no new updates (or, the story fades from public memory). For an ecommerce site, certain deals and promotions may prompt repeat visitation, but don't necessarily mean loyalty.

I believe repeat visitation or loyalty is achieved through a combination of factors - navigation, user interface, relevance & timeliness of offering and source of the visit. Hence we need to build a framework, on site usage data and insights, that can be applied across the following 4 criteria.

A - (Product) where are users falling off or bailing from the site - improve our navigation to help users find what they came in looking for quickly (higher number of Page Views may not be a sustainable strategy, given the short attention span of users)
B - (User Interface) are there redundant widgets on the page that are distracting from the main story/promotion (one size fits all not a good strategy)
C - (Relevance/Timeliness) use the keywords trends and industry seasonality to ensure content is in tune with the user needs and interests
D - (Source of the Visit) differentiate the experience for browsing versus targeting. Browsers, ex., SEO visits, tend to consumer more pages, while more targeted referral traffic tends to be focused on the topic and leaves after the first page.

To summarize, if you decide that Return Frequency will a key indicator of the health of your business, ensure that your audience segments are clearly defined and measured; AND product navigation, UI, content and traffic source are designed to fulfill the needs of these segments.

Did I miss a metric(s) that you found to be a better indicator of success - I would love to learn about it, so please drop me a note!