Success on the Internet by Whose Measure?

How do you measure success of your own web page if you publish on the Internet?

1) A person can measure success through the actual sales of a product or a service that has been offered on the web site. At the point of sale will you ask your customer "where did you see my product or my service?" Can you measure the amount of sales that were an indirect result of someone seeing your presence on the net or did the web site persuade the person to buy? , Mutual funds, for example. may not be sold as a direct result of your advertising on your web site, but the number of requests you received for further information through your web site may generate new sales or future sales.

2) Will your web site allow you to store and retrieve data about your present or future customers who have visited your site? It is technically possible to collect some data about your visitors and build an e mailing list of others who might be interested in your product.

Success may be better measured by using your web site as part of your overall marketing plan and letting it become part of your advertising plan. How does Internet advertising differ from other types of advertising? Conventional advertising can deliver a message to a larger undifferentiated audience. The message and its content are controlled by the business and what it wishes to say about itself or its products. There is little control over who reads or hears your message and no opportunity for direct feedback from your audience.

On the Internet a good web site must entice its potential audience to make a conscious effort to visit your site. The Internet allows one to get a "profile" on their visitors, and enables the visitors to your site to make a direct response to your message. You, potentially can enjoy a one on one communication with your clients through e-mail responses. If your customers are interested in your product than they will provide you with their e-mail addresses. Web sites can be set up to collect potential addresses and phone numbers of interested people.

Traditional advertisements will focus on the outward appearance of a message rather than content. Advertising can be clever, elaborate, or stylish but is generally empty of content. A site on the Internet can focus on creating useful content while quietly selling the company and its product. The World Wide Web offers new opportunities for individual companies to target their customers by matching their interests and their tastes. A web page becomes an identity relevant to the needs and interest of the customer. A well-designed web page provides pleasant graphics, relevant news and information to its customer.

Home computers have become more powerful and faster. They are opening up new possibilities to their users. Many people who produce new things equate speed, and new technologies to a good web site. The MTV culture of rapid image movement has infected many current productions. Images are hurled at you, high volume grabs for our attention, as commercials flash before we "buy me", "limited time offer", "etc.," That approach won't work on the Internet as it will not be ready to deliver such MTV morsels. Image sensation is not -- or should not be- what the Internet is about.

The Internet is about delivering the power of computer technology to search, organize and deliver information to people who would not otherwise have an opportunity to receive that information. A web site that can deliver useful and practical information to its readers; and an opportunity to interact with others that allows them to become part of a social building process then it has achieved its purpose.

In the final analysis, it is not the latest bells and whistles, nor the sophisticated hardware of the server which determines the rate of information delivery to its consumer, but the quality of the copper telephone line that enters the home and the structure of the home computer that delivers the message. There are still lots of 386's and outdated modems still connected to the net and that determines the quality of the message "coming down the pipe"