

Ask HN: What are good analytics numbers? - endlessvoid94

I launched a site approximately about 2 weeks ago and I'm looking at my google analytics numbers.  I've never had anything be as successful as this, and I'm generating a few dollars per day in adsense revenue.<p>But I have no idea what good numbers are.  Should I look at visitors?  pageviews?  avg. time on site?  bounce rate?<p>The site is www.thathigh.com, so my goal is to get people reading and clicking on stuff.<p>FOR EXAMPLE: is a 50% returning user rate good?  is that low?  or is that very good?<p>thanks for any advice.  this community is invaluable.
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_delirium
I guess it depends on your goals; I'm not sure there are really "normal"
numbers. Some stuff explodes overnight, some grows over years. Some sites have
relatively few, very profitable visitors; others a ton of less-profitable
visitors. Some sites get all their traffic from word of mouth, others from
Google, others from direct links.

One first cut would be, is your main motivation profit or influence?
Optimizing for readers who read your articles and then apply or disseminate
what they read isn't quite the same as optimizing for ad revenue. Another one
would be: do you intend to build a community around the site or not?

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endlessvoid94
thats a great answer, thanks.

mostly i want to grow the site and make it popular. i'm making a few dollars
per day off ads, but my goal is to make a hundred or more dollars per month
off the site. then i can work towards more profitability.

my guess is the best way to do this is to build a bit of a community, but
nothing like reddit. the site is a clone of fmylife, so basically the same
thing i guess.

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nreece
Have you tried the Google Analytics Benchmarking feature:
[http://analytics.blogspot.com/2008/03/benchmarking-now-
avail...](http://analytics.blogspot.com/2008/03/benchmarking-now-available-
plus.html) It's pretty neat. It will give you a fair idea of where your
website stands comparatively.

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bradleyjoyce
you should look at everything... my personal order of importance:

(1) Unique visitors (2) Aggregate Visitors & Pageviews (3) Stickyness (this is
avg TOS, bounces, %new vs %returning etc)

numbers are all relative as well.. ie, who cares about a 99% returning user
rate if there are only 10 visitors per day.

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endlessvoid94
thanks. what sort of growth is desirable? i literally have 50% new users, 50%
returning. is this good? or is it considered too slow?

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mailarchis
50% news users and 50% returning is supposedly good. It means you are getting
new users (converted from traffic) while at the same time your previous users
are returning to use the app.

