Why such a big deal on user experience and web site usability?

It’s good for brand awareness. The user will spend more time on your site and will be more likely to “Buzz” positively;
It’s good for lead generation. Spending more pleasant time on the web site, the user will be more likely to perform those actions you want him to: buy a product, insert a certain product in the shopping cart, contact you for more information, request for a quote, download your brochure, sign up to your newsletter and so on.

Ok. But how can a company measure the user experience on the site?

Analyzing which are the mostly clicked elements of the site (flash videos, java script buttons, banner spaces)and the sections which mostly attract a user’s attention;

Discovering errors, points of weakness and immediately take action ;

Identify the points of strength, given greater relevance the most popular links to optimize web site performance;

Increasing the usability of each elements, forms included;

Analyze the popular paths to conversions;

Popular entry point to your site, and availability of links to your key pages on those entry pages;

Measure the performance of landing pages (if investing in PPC, and banner media);

A lot of site invests in paid per clicks (PPC), and banner ads. Typically those media campaigns would drive traffic to a specific landing page, and as a best practice that would be relevant to the ads

Learn about the performance of the landing pages of the web sites:
• % of visitors to your landing pages
• Popular paths followed from them
• Popular entry point to your site, and availability of links to your key pages on those entry pages
• Custom landing page