Looking to improve and optimize your website? Keeping an eye on your website metrics can help you better understand how well your website performs. In this guide, we’ll walk you through what web metrics are, why they matter, and which metrics are the most important to monitor.
What Are Web Metrics?
Web metrics measure your website’s performance and guide your key performance indicators (KPIs). This information can shed light on the behavior of visitors to your website, including how they got there and what they did on your site. Through website analytics tools like Google Analytics, you can track these metrics and make decisions that can ultimately help you create a more effective website and reach your digital marketing goals.
Why Should You Track Web Metrics?
In order to understand how your website is performing, you need to track web metrics. There are a number of useful metrics that can help you see your top-performing webpages and blog posts, how long users stay on your website, and more. Understanding this information allows you to make user experience updates to your website that can improve overall website traffic, increased engagement, and more conversions.
Web Metrics You Should Be Tracking
Which website metrics should you be monitoring on a regular basis? Here are the seven most important web metrics you should track:
- Total Sessions
- Average Session Duration
- Bounce Rate
- Average Time on Page
- Traffic Acquisition
- Conversion Rates
- New & Return Visitors
Total Sessions
A session tracks everything a user does while they’re on your website. For example, in a single session, a site visitor might read your “About” page, browse your online store, and look up your shipping policy. All three of those interactions are counted as one user session. Session information provides insight into customer habits as they progress through your website funnel.
Average Session Duration
The average session duration measures the average amount of time a user spends on your website. A session begins when a user opens a page on your website and ends when they exit your website. Knowing how long people spend on your site is helpful in gauging overall user experience. In some cases, shorter sessions could be a sign that site visitors aren’t finding the information they’re looking for. Or perhaps your site is too slow, and the user simply doesn’t want to wait. The typical goal is to have a 2-3 minute average session duration.
Bounce Rate
A bounce occurs when someone visits your website and leaves without doing anything like clicking on a different page. The bounce rate measures the number of bounces compared to the total number of sessions, which can tell you how effectively your site is delivering the information users are looking for. Websites that provide great user experience generally have lower bounce rates. But remember that your target bounce rate depends on your website’s goals. If the primary goal is to drive traffic to different pages within your website, you don’t want a high bounce rate. But if single-page visits are expected because your goal is to direct site visitors to a location or contact page, a high bounce rate might be normal.
Average Time on Page
Average time on page is exactly what it sounds like. It calculates the average time a user spends on individual pages on your site—but keep in mind that it doesn’t track time if it’s a bounce. This metric can allows you to identify which pages are the most engaging for site visitors. For example, using this metric can help you see if users stay on a blog post long enough to read it in full. You can also use average time on page to analyze how long customers browse certain products and product pages within your e-commerce website.
Traffic Acquisition
Traffic acquisition helps you understand how users are getting to your website and how they found it. It helps you know if a visitor came to your website by typing your URL into their search bar, through a social media post, Google search results, a link from a different website, an email campaign, and more. It’s also valuable to know if your web traffic is organic or not—that is, are users finding your site through an organic search result or via an online ad? When you can see how people are finding your website, you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. For example, if analytics reveal that Facebook posts drive a large portion of your web traffic, you might consider increasing the number of Facebook posts that link to your site.
Conversion Rates
A conversion rate tracks the percentage of users who complete a desired action on your webpage, such as buying a product, fill out a contact form, or signing up for your email newsletter. What counts as a successful conversion rate depends on your digital marketing goals, but ultimately, tracking this metric helps you learn whether your conversion-based pages are driving results. There are several types of conversion rates to analyze as well. New or unique visitor conversions track the actions of first-time visitors, whereas returning visitor conversions track the actions of people who are returning to the site after an initial visit.
New & Return Visitors
Finally, you should always keep track of the number of new visitors and returning visitors to your site. The new website visitor metric tracks your user growth and can provide insight into whether your efforts to increase traffic, such as awareness campaigns, are working. A high number of returning visitors generally means your efforts to engage users are working. In most cases, once you attract a new user to your website, the goal is to encourage them to visit your website again since returning visitors are cheaper to acquire, tend to spend more money than new visitors, and convert at a much higher rate.
Need help reviewing analytics and optimizing your website? Hurrdat Marketing offers search engine optimization services and web design services that can help you create a mobile-friendly website with good user experience, SEO best practices, and more. Contact us today!
