Good question and good responses. Layla, in terms of community growth I usually recommend that communities start by measuring seven things:
Posts
Page views
Registrations
Searches
Time to Response
Posts per Board
Top Posters
The goal is to cover the full spectrum of community usage. Posts are obviously key -- no content, no community -- but since most community users never register and never post, you need passive metrics like page views and searches too. (Per your list, sessions and unique visitors are also helpful here.) Registrations and posts focus on that smaller percentage that participate (logins and time on site also address this segment), and top posters focuses on the tiny percentage that contribute a large percentage of the content. All of those segments need to be healthy for a community to grow.
At the next level down, there are metrics that are helpful in analyzing the trends that underlie changes. You want to break down posts into threads (or OPs) and replies, because you want to know when post count rises or falls whether the change reflects questions or more answers or both. (Answers come disproportionately from a small number of people, and questions come from everyone, so how you'd address a drop, for example, would greatly depend on which metric has dropped.) You want to measure time-to-response because it will tell you whether people on average are getting a response in a day or less, which is generally what people expect. Anything less will inhibit growth. Same with posts per board -- there's a ratio at which communities continue to grow and thrive, and below which communities stagnate and fail. You have to keep on the right side of that equation even if it means reducing boards or putting off internal demands for new forums.
Beyond that, there are other metrics you might view only when you want to dig further down into a particular trend or question. We have more than 100 metrics in the system now, and that's why.
Hope this helps!
Message Edited by JoeC on 09-15-2008 07:00 AM
