What to actually measure on a company site
Visits do not pay the rent. Four numbers that tell you whether the site is doing its job.
Most website reports open with a visitor count. It is the least useful number available.
Four things matter: how many people reach the call to action, how many act on it, how many enquiries arrive, and how many of those are genuinely the work you want.
The fifth is the important one and it is almost never tracked: how many enquiries turn into signed work. Without it you cannot tell whether a campaign is delivering clients or clicks.
All of this is set up once, on launch day. Added later, you have nothing to compare against.
Key takeaways
- A visitor count is the least useful number in the report. It moves for reasons that have nothing to do with the work arriving.
- Four numbers matter: reach of the call to action, action on it, enquiries, and how many of those are the work you want.
- The fifth is the one almost nobody tracks — enquiries that turn into signed work. Without it you cannot tell clients from clicks.
- Set it up on launch day. Added six months later, it has nothing to compare against.
Frequently asked
How long before the numbers mean anything?
Long enough for the smallest of them to be countable. Enquiries are the scarce number on most company sites, so a month with four of them tells you very little and a quarter tells you something. Traffic moves sooner, which is exactly why it is the number people over-read.
We already have Analytics. Is that not this?
Analytics is where the first four come from once somebody decides what counts as an enquiry and marks it. The fifth — which enquiries became work — is not in it at all: that lives wherever you keep your pipeline, and connecting the two is the whole point of measuring.