To determine whether your web site is successful a set of objectives should be developed. They will differ for each organisation but common web site objectives include:

• Obtain competitive advantage. This involves some serious analysis of the strengths, weaknesses and directions of competitor web sites to determine outflanking strategies. (See methodologies)
• Have a corporate Web presence. Some organisations simply wish to know you have a web presence in order to do business with you
• Traditional objectives translated into the web environment - eg increase revenue, reduce costs, improve customer service, grow market share
• Obtain x number of "hits" per day
• Compliment existing marketing strategies
• Generate leads
• Sell products or services by direct Internet ordering
• Explain, educate, inform
• Social responsibility objectives.

As with any business objective, it is best defined in terms of its relevant numerical dimensions - for example, improve speed of information to market by 40%, cost reduction of 20% by year end, revenue increase of 20% by third quarter, improved customer satisfaction rating of 10%.