WSJ Measuring Traffic on the Web: Dot-Complicated

Constantly bathed in quantitative data that frequently comes with web analytics, website analysis and the like, it’s no wonder that businesses feel that every unique visitor, action or sale is easily monitored, but my Saturday read of the Wall Street Journal over coffee offered a reality check. Dot-Complicated: Measuring Traffic on the Web describes the murky (at best) world of online measurement and offers insight into the battle between industry heavyweights Compete, comScore and Nielsen.

For Most Businesses, Measuring Traffic is Futile

While this article is interesting, it simply doesn’t matter for most businesses. Traffic measurement has always been an inexact “science” and this article is simply a reminder. Absolute Unique Visitors, Time on Site, Bounce Rate, Hits and Conversions can all be defined differently by each business; furthermore each statistic will vary in importance depending on individual organization goals. Essentially, it reminds me of PageRank; it’s an overly simplified metric that everyone can understand.

Focus on What Matters to You

In my opinion, measuring web traffic is a red herring that draws attention away from what really matters to individual businesses. Off the top of my head, here are a few examples of metrics that may be more impactful:

Conversion – Moving prospects through the steps of a conversion funnel is important. Whether the conversion is a sale, subscription to an email list, or the download of a White Paper, it should directly lead to sales. Why focus on traffic when it does it cannot be converted to something that leads to revenue?
Abnormally High Bounce Rate – Bounce Rate generally measures the percentage of traffic that leaves a page without navigating to another page on the website. While this can be interpreted differently, it may make more sense to determine why existing users are leaving rather than those arriving on the site.
Traffic Composition – While the quantity of traffic may not matter, it can be argued that its’ composition does. A higher proportion of direct traffic and traffic from an AdWords campaign may suggest that the business should place greater emphasis on broadening its ability to attract users beyond those that already know the company or that it directly pays for.

The Takeaway

Measuring website traffic is complicated and convoluted at best. While it’s understandable that many businesses use it to measure their online performance, this may be misguided. Businesses should carefully determine whether focusing on website traffic is the most productive use of their time.

What would your advice be to businesses that want to measure their online performance? Is measuring traffic a productive use of time? Why or Why Not?

Bill Rowland