I find it curious how some people choose to define success when it comes to web marketing. For example, I have one particular site in mind that many (if not most) traditional web marketers would define as a failure in many ways. It’s been up for over 4 years now, and I’ve never added any content to it. The bounce rate (people who hit the site and immediately leave) is high…over 60% last time I looked. After 4 years, it doesn’t rank very well for many keywords I would like. As if that’s not enough, traffic is low by many people’s standards. It gets fewer than 2,000 visitors per month.
Is my website a failure?
These are all metrics that most web marketers use for indicators of success, and by all counts this website pretty much sucks! But I consider it a success. Why? Because I spend no time on it and no money on it, yet it brings my team an average of $18k per month. How does that sound to you? I think that a pretty good return on investment, so I’m thinking I’ll leave this sucky website up for a little while longer 🙂
What metrics do YOU use to measure your site’s success?
What’s my point? Maybe all these metrics we use to measure “success” don’t mean nearly what we think they do. Maybe it doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, not if you’re converting at a high rate and earning a good return on your investment. Maybe it doesn’t matter whether you have 100 or 100,000 followers on Twitter. Maybe quality matters, not quantity. What do you think? Is it too simplistic to say this? I get lots of questions from clients that reveal their distress over things like not having more comments on their blog or not having as much traffic as they think they should have. First, we always have to address “why”? Why do you want these things in the first place? It’s crucial…
Therefore…
Are you working hard to build your follower count on Twitter? Why?
Are you spending a lot of time or money to get more traffic to your website? Why? If you’re not making a good return on the traffic you’re already getting, why do you think more traffic will help?
Let’s challenge ourselves to set worthwhile goals. Let’s go deeper than the superficial metrics we usually use. Numbers matter. They do, but context is everything. The number of people on your email list, for example, means nothing outside the context of your business plan. Do you have a written business plan? Does your business plan address your web marketing goals? Too many of us do not have these things in place, and without them, the traditional metrics we use to gauge success online don’t have any context.
I know marketers who did over $1M in business last year with a  list of 500 or less. You can do it too. The tactics that will work for you are out there, but first you have to figure out your business. If you’re interested, fire me an email about my training solution called “Sales Funnel Mastery”. It addresses this exact thing for you. It gives you that context you need and puts everything into perspective for you, so you know exactly how to approach your business and get laser-targeted results.
Until we have that type of clarity in our business, none of the metrics we use to measure success mean anything.