There’s a great post by Rich Page on what you need to analyze to truly know if your website is succeeding.
The most important takeaway? It depends what kind of website you have.
Rich gives a different list of goals for: e-commerce, publishing (content), lead generation, blogs, and communities. I think there are more (e.g. brand awareness), but the point is that you need to define measurable success for yourself.
Here’s what Rich says to look for in e-commerce:
- High percentage of repeat visits (above 50%)
- Low bounce rate of your homepage (below 40%)
- Low shopping cart abandonment rate (below 20%)
- High average order value (depending on average prices)
- Multiple products per order (at least 2.0 per order)
- Low average number of days until purchase (lower than 7 days)
- High total site order conversion rate (total site visits by/of orders)
- High usage of refer-a-friend & social tools (e.g. Facebook Like or sharing)
You should read the article.