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4 Important Website Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Tuesday, July 17, 2012 – posted by Rebecca Daneault
In past blog posts we’ve pointed out why
every business should have a quality website, as well as some helpful
tips for getting more traffic. But once you’re up and running, how can you
know if all your hard work is paying off? There are dozens of things you can
check and plenty of ways to analyze results, but unless you’re an experienced
web marketer, or have a lot of time on your hands (and, let’s face it, what
business owner does?) you probably don’t have the capacity to keep track of all
of these methods. The good news is you don’t have to be an expert. There are 4 highly
effective things you can and should be measuring that won’t take a ton of time
and will help you understand how your website and marketing strategy are
performing.
Before going into the
list, be sure you’ve set up your Google
Analytics account. It’s free and it’s extremely comprehensive, as well as
user friendly. You’ll need this to measure the four metrics on this list.
- Referrers – What this basically tells you is how people are making their way to your website. Are they Googling one of your keywords? Are they clicking on an ad you’ve placed on another site? Did they find your website URL through your Facebook or Twitter profile? The more you understand what is driving the most traffic to your site, the better you can hone your marketing and focus your budget.
- Keywords – One of the greatest things about Google Analytics is that you can actually analyze which keywords are getting the most attention on your site. You can use this information to further capitalize on what’s working by using these words or phrases more in your content and future blog posts, or you can gain perspective on words that may not be generating as much traffic as you’d like and try to beef up that number. The goal is to optimize your keywords so that they accurately reflect what your business is and how it works. (If you need help defining your keywords, try using Google’s keyword tool.)
- Conversions – What is the ultimate goal of your website? Is it to get visitors to sign up for your newsletter, or make a purchase? Your conversion rate tells you how many people that are coming to your website are completing whatever this goal is. Analyzing your conversions can give you insight into the behavior of your web visitors prior to conversion, so that you can understand what is motivating them and better focus your marketing efforts.
- Bounce Rate – The bounce rate reveals the percentage of visitors that leave your website after viewing just one page. The lower this number, the better. If your bounce rate is high, this typically means that your website is not effectively engaging visitors and you may need to work on improving your content and/or design to reduce this rate.
Having a website for your business is only half the battle.
In order for it to be truly effective in improving your sales, brand exposure
or whatever else your business goals are, you’ll have to regularly analyze how
your site is performing and make any necessary changes as they are identified.
These four things will help you optimize your site to get the best possible
results.
Labels: small business tips, website optimization
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posted by Rebecca Daneault @ 8:33 PM