Why Conversions are a Better Metric than Page Views

Page views are a great metric to quantify the amount of a traffic a site receives, and can be factored into CPM negotiations with advertisers.  Wikipedia tells us that a page view “is a request to load a single page.”  But in terms of web development, the true utility of page views is limited.

A site’s conversion rate tell a better story. (Wikipedia: “the ratio of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions.”) High conversions and click-thrus serve as an excellent indicator of a site’s ability to satisfy the needs of it’s audience. That is, of the audience that navigates to site A (for any given reason), how many of them continue to browse the site after their initial landing.

So in general: page views sale ads, conversions develop an audience.

The conversation rate of a site’s homepage and subsections can allude to the effectiveness of the page’s design and organization. Conversions reflect the compelling force of cross-linked content, site navigation, and give a holistic interpretation of the effectiveness of the site.

This metric really lends itself to deep-linking. Here, when referral sites link directly to, say, an article or blog-entry, a high conversion rate may serve as an indicator of the audience’s satisfaction with the content they landed on. Or at least an indication of their curiosity about the site.

Using SEO to get the readers to a site’s content is admirable, but keeping visitors on the site, engaged with the content, and increasing click-thrus should be every web developers end game.