A methodology for identifying ‘Web metrics’ for ‘Web analytics’

Abstract

The need for perusing sound business practices when adopting an organizational web strategy is highlighted by many authors. Measuring effectiveness of business activities is a standard practice of any organization. However, few organizations actively take steps to assess successfulness of their web strategy. The main reason for this is due to the lack of a standard approach to measure the effectiveness of web sites. Many authors have come up with different types of metrics (measurements) for measuring the effectiveness of web sites. Two common approaches identified are; user centric measurements which depend on consumer surveys and site centric measurements which depend on server logs. The latter approach is preferred by many organizations Software tools have also been developed for collecting and analyzing results from web metrics. But still Organizations are faced with problems of identifying appropriate metrics for their web site. Different sections of a web site have different functions and objectives. Therefore different metrics are needed to measure the effectiveness of different sections of a web site. Thus a formal methodology for identifying suitable web metrics for a particular web site is invaluable for measuring the effectiveness of web sites. The research proposes a methodology for identifying appropriate web metrics for measuring the effectiveness of a web site; based on the objectives and functionalities of the web site. A set of metrics have been identified by combining the findings of previous researches which are evaluated through expert opinions. These metrics are the input for methodology development where a stepwise approach is proposed to identify appropriate web metrics based on the functions of a particular web site.