I know this blog is simply a personal journey, but the marketer in me is addicted to watching my blog stats. For some reason I can’t leave without checking to see if anyone has been on and what they are interested in. It’s not an ego thing, I simply have a festering need to know how people are experiencing web content.

A website is made up of three interdependent components: content, technology and usability. Get one of these wrong and your website loses its impact. Content is the most important piece. Great content attracts the right people to your site and keeps them coming back. For content to be great it needs to be relevant and speak to the visitor.

• Don’t tell them what you want them to know, tell them what they want to know.
• Value their time. Make it easy to find what they want.
• Don’t confuse them with details. Give them a little bit and drag them in.

The days of the CEO calling the switchboard to simulate a customer’s experience are likely gone. But, the theory of this practice extends well to the web. Sit down at home as if you were a visitor (being in your underwear wouldn’t hurt), decide what you want to find out from your organization and then see if your website works.

In the absence of daily usability testing, web stats give a clear picture of exposure, engagement, task completion and what’s hot and what’s not on your site. Interpreting stats correctly is an important part of measuring your success—the success that comes from having a highly usable website with great content and reliable technology.