7 essential website metrics you should be tracking

If you are looking for ways to improve your website, you are in the right place. You can use many different strategies to accomplish this, but they all depend on the same website metrics. This guide aims to show you the most critical website metrics you should be tracking. For starters, let's first see what web metrics are.

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Analytics

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PaulFloyd

7 essential website metrics you should be tracking

Web metrics – the bread and butter of your website!

The only way to know if any strategy is successful is to measure its performance. To measure performance, you need some kind of reference. A piece of data that will set the bar. That’s where website metrics play a huge role. You can keep track of essential website metrics with the help of tools like Google Analytics. But first, let’s see what those metrics are.

Total Sessions
Average Session Duration
Bounce Rate
Average Time on Page
Traffic Acquisition
Conversion Rates
New & Return Visitors

Tracking total sessions

Every time someone visits your website, they start a new session. When the visitor closes your website, the session ends. Anything that happens between those two moments is one session. They can visit one page or all pages, but it is still one session. You want to keep track of sessions to know how many people visit your website and what pages they visit. That’s an excellent strategy to learn how they communicate your website and what their browsing habits are. To generate more leads in 2022, you need to know this metric.

Average session duration

Measuring the number of total sessions is essential. However, you also need to know how much time every user spends per session. Having 1000 visits per day is nothing if the user immediately closes your website. The advertising is good, but you are doing something wrong:

your website could be slow;
it could be misleading or complex;
the users are not finding what they are looking for.

These are just a few examples, but a short session signifies something is wrong. A satisfying average session length should be between 2 and 3 minutes.

Average page time

Same as you can measure average session time, you can also measure average page time. This metric keeps track of the efficiency of individual pages on your website. If you notice that one page is underperforming, you can find ways to change it. Furthermore, this metric will tell you what parts of your website users like the most.

Bounce rate

Once you start tracking the total number of sessions and average session time, you will begin to notice another crucial metric: the bounce rate. A large bounce rate is probably the worst-case scenario (besides not having visits at all). A bounce is when a user visits your website, performs no other actions, and closes the website. No clicks, no further visits, nothing.

This could be happening because the website is slow, and they cannot wait for it to load, or the content is not what they were looking for. The website name was misleading.

The best way to battle a high bounce rate is to create quality content and a memorable customer experience.

There is also a scenario where a high bounce rate is good. This is usually for pages that should redirect customers to another page or website.

Measuring traffic sources

Knowing that you have many website visits every day is not enough. You need to know where those visits are coming from. Traffic acquisition metric helps you understand that. You are advertising your website through many different sources, like email campaigns, social media, guest blogging, PPC, etc. If you are spending money on a strategy that does not bring you traffic, you need to either change it or stop doing it.

Measuring traffic sources tells you exactly where your focus should be. If you see that most of the traffic is coming from social media, you can focus on creating profiles on other platforms. Or, that could signify that you need to work more on your SEO and increase URL searches through Google.

Tracking the conversion rate

You need conversions to generate profit. And to get more conversions, you need to know if your current conversion strategy is efficient or not. A conversion strategy consists of a set number of steps or actions a user must perform to convert to a paying customer.

Keeping track of the conversion percentage gives you a clear picture of the efficiency of your strategies. If you notice a low conversion rate, you need to understand why it is happening and find ways to fix it.

Track new and returning customers

Some businesses function by constantly acquiring new customers. However, some companies are dependent on returning clients. Both of these metrics are important. Also, if you only get new customers, but they never return for more, something could be wrong there.

A bonus – tracking customer data!

For the end, here is a bonus tip, a little extra! No matter how well your website performs, you must always think of ways to manage customer data. Keep CRM in mind because integrating a CRM system with your website is a fantastic strategy. This will not only help with managing data, but it will also improve your other advertising strategies. CRM can work with social media, emails, apps, etc., and you should learn what CRM metrics to track. This is where the secret to success lies. Get to know your customers!

Essential website metrics made simple!

Keeping track of these essential website metrics will improve not only your website but your business as well. It is not possible to move forward without understanding numbers in the background. It does require a lot of energy, effort, and resources, but it is a crucial process you cannot avoid. Whether you decide to do it on your own, find professional assistance, or purchase software, that will be a worthy investment in the future of your business!