The Vanity Metric is Killing Your Business – The What, The Why & The What To Do Instead
When it comes to business building, sometimes it can be slow going.
You can put hours, days, months into it and feel like you’re not seeing the traction you *should* be seeing by now.
Especially when you see “success” after success story in the blogosphere, you can feel like everyone’s getting there faster than you.
So you put more hours, more days, more months into it. And still you’re not quite sure why you haven’t hit it big yet.
Which is frankly – EXHAUSTING.
Ugh.
Which is why you look for almost *any* sign that things are progressing in the right direction. Some sliver of feedback that all that work isn’t for naught.
If you’re a savvy business owner or have been following the blog for awhile – you might even have something like Google Analytics already setup.
But when you log in there… first off it’s overwhelming. That’s a lot of numbers that they throw at you.
So you look at what’s easy to look at… and try to take pride in ANY number that seems like it’s improving – whether or not that actually means something for your business.
These numbers are what I call the “Vanity Metric” – basically all they do is let you feel like you deserve a pat on the back… and nothing for your bottom line.
A bottom line that you very much would like to see improve! Hence why you’re looking at your numbers in the first place!
The biggest culprit?
Pageviews.
Pageviews do nothing for your bottom line.
(With the notable exception if you sell advertising on your site in which case pageviews is a commonly cited metric for advertisers – but my guess is selling advertising is not the reason *you* got into business for yourself. Am I right?)
Just because pageviews are increasing for your website doesn’t mean anything is happening for your business.
Even if visits (or pageviews) from a certain marketing source are increasing… doesn’t mean anything is happening for your business.
In fact, if you’re not tracking the right numbers, increased visits from a certain marketing source could just end up reinforcing your desire to focus on that marketing source… when it’s not actually doing anything for your business.
You could be doubling down on something like Twitter when in fact, it’s not actually working for you or your business that well.
Focusing on the wrong metrics means more time wasted. More money wasted. And more time stuck in that spot of feeling like you’re not “there” yet.
What should you be focusing on?
What metrics ACTUALLY matter for your business?
The ones that mean that you’re seeing more dollars in your bank account – or will soon.
As a small business owner – everything else is a distraction.
I’ll be sharing what I think are the two metrics you should focus on (and only focus on) in Google Analytics in a free webinar next week.
But in the meantime – I’d love to hear what metrics you focus on in your business or in your analytics account. Share with us below!
