Gone are the days when the manufacturer or developer of a product was held in awe. Instead, the customer or client rules the web world. And so web sites are on the move to rate the quality of their service based on what the user has to say. This may not seem surprising, but for the enormity of the problem at hand. A web site is not a product that has limited features and hence can give rise to huge number of comments regarding its functionality, appearance user friendliness or design.

The initial yardstick to measure the success of a website depended on the number of people visiting the site. Over the time this has proved to be insufficient because all that a site had to do was to provide some eye-catching graphic with no content to back it up. Now more emphasis is given on the amount of time spent by the user on a specific web page. An analysis of popularity of the site as a whole is also taken into consideration. This shift in policy is important since a site like the YouTube, which may add content on a daily basis may be rated similar to that of a gaming site popular among adolescents, that is updated, maybe once in six months. The new system has its own pitfalls since a slow network or a particularly unscrupulous developer deliberately slowing the page load speeds could result in higher ratings.

Get viewers and independent analytics to rate your content – the text, pictures, graphics and tables, and their placing. The ease of using the navigation system and the frequency of updates must also be taken into account. The number of people who click on the Bookmark option on the page will give an idea of your popularity. Also, the number of hits you have through recommendations from other sites who provide links that lead to yours will give an idea of the reliability and depth of your content.

Measuring the ratio of product sales compared to the number of visits will give a good measure of how successful you are. This will also give a direct valuation of each product you sell on the web. Analyzing the average time a successful buyer spends on your site will give an idea of how easy it is for clients to get quality information from your site.

Google Analytics interface is a very helpful tool in analyzing web usage data. The tool allows measuring in detail how many users availed of an option provided on the page. It also enables to measure the unpopularity of a page by providing a count of the number of people who left a site without browsing around. Keep track of the variations taking place in number of users registering onto your site. Do a research the web to know what other sites and blogs have to say about the quality of your service.

The functionality of site is measured by analysing how useful and easy the tools are for all end users. User friendliness may include factors such as the time taken to resolve user queries, data downloaded and messages sent and received are acknowledged.

Although methods of valuations have changed and will change in the future be assured that finally the right judge – the user, has been appointed. So long as you play by his rules you are bound to stay in reckoning.

Peter Brittain
Perth Web Design