When you’re looking at reports of the traffic you’ve seen on your website during the last period of time, it’s important that you know what you’re looking at! Each different number is an incredibly valuable metric and insight into your audience. Every little bit of information shows you what’s working and what isn’t – and that can make or break your business! It’s no doubt that these ten website metrics are a huge deal.
You don’t necessarily have to be an expert on each one of these metrics (unless your career is extremely web-focused), but you should at least have a general understanding of the measurements your website is tracking. After all, you want to target your specific audience accurately, right? Here are 10 website metrics you must be measuring and what insight they can give into your business’s audience.
Clicks from Social Platforms
How did a particular customer find you? How well is your Facebook page working for you? You have access to these answers! Knowing the source of your clicks is extremely important in determining where to focus your marketing attention. For example, if you’re getting more clicks from Twitter than Facebook, you may want to post more on Twitter throughout the week and less on Facebook. This can really help you fine-tune your marketing channels in a way that benefits your business most!
If a lot of people are seeing your website in search results but not a lot of people are actually clicking and visiting your website, it may be time to take a closer look at your copy. Writing good headlines is one of the most important (and influential) aspects of your marketing, as it’s what really draws in the reader. Take the time to improve your headline-writing game, and go kick booty in search results.
Clickthrough Rate (CTR)
Conversion Rate
Let’s be honest here. Is your website really driving sales for you? How many clients are you really getting from your website? If your CTR isn’t where you want it to be, it’s time to take another look at your website. And if you’re looking for a team to get your website in its best shape, look no further than our team of experts at Blackwood. Just sayin’.
If your website isn’t what’s getting you sales, what is? Whether it’s social media, email campaigns, word of mouth or otherwise, you should identify and focus on whatever is bringing you the most moolah. But in all seriousness, you should be auditing every channel through which you reach your audience on a regular basis to make sure it’s still performing the way you expect. If not, it’s time to make some changes; it’s better to catch them sooner than later.
Conversion Source
Number of Pages Visited
This one is pretty self-explanatory, but extremely helpful. You can see how many pages each person visited when they came to your site, and this will show you whether or not your website is interesting enough to keep that particular person’s attention. It sounds harsh, and it kind of is – however, humans are judgmental by nature, and you’ve got to make sure you’re hooking people and keeping their attention! That’s how you’ll get conversions.
If you have a referral program, you have a surefire way to get people to share your content. It’s been proven time and time again that when you offer an incentive, people are far more likely to complete the task you’re asking. Whether you have one set up or are interested, it may be worth considering if you’re really looking to get the word out there about your content.
Referrals
Returning Visitors
Retention is a huge consideration when it comes to your business, especially if you’re trying to make a lot of sales. (And let’s be honest, who isn’t?) If your website is high-quality, easy to navigate, and contains valuable information that your viewers can actually make use of, they’ll keep coming back for more! This is how you start building up a loyal audience. These people will be the core of your business, and you want to maintain these relationships. Lay a strong foundation with a great website.
If visitors are leaving your site as soon as the homepage loads, you’ve got an issue. It’s better to catch that sooner rather than later, too! The longer people are staying on your site, the better. Longer session times are an indication of good, valuable content that people find useful, and that’s what you should strive to provide to your audience. Definitely focus some energy towards increasing session duration. Add more (valuable) content to your website! Give more information on products, your process, or your team. However you can further entice your visitors, do it!
Session Duration
Unique Visitors
You want new people coming to your site on a consistent basis! This one may seem obvious, but it’s true nonetheless. Keeping track of your new website visitors is helpful because it shows you whether or not your current marketing and outreach efforts are working.
If you’re thinking, “well, duh,” good call. It may seem obvious, but you need to have an up-to-date understanding of how many eyeballs are on your website at any given time. This is one of the most (if not the most) important website metrics to keep track of, because if nobody’s looking at your site, what’s the point of doing anything else?
Website Traffic
How the heck do you keep track of so many website metrics?
Let us let you in on a little secret: the UTM code. We’ve gone more in detail in another blog post, but in short, UTM codes are short strings of text on the end of website URLs that allow visits to that particular page to be tracked. This also allows the opportunity to track other actions on the website, giving more access to information on what did and didn’t convert website viewers.
All in all, these website metrics are one of the most make-or-break aspects of your business, and they are not to be taken lightly. If you’re not tracking these 10 website metrics, what are you doing? 😆
Looking for a place to start? Look no further than our team of experts here at Blackwood. We’re in the business of building remarkable brands, and yours could be next. Contact us today!
