It’s crucial for you as a website owner to know important website metrics in order to track your progress. That will also be the way to improve your website as well. But it’s important not just only to know what you need to look at but to really understand them and the importance of little things. The most common mistake people make is neglecting the little things on their web page or blog. Sometimes little things like paying attention to alt text in your images can go a long way. So, cover some basics with the help of our Link Department experts and you can take over from there and continue your research solo.
Page load speed might be the most important website metric you need to pay attention to
Yes, page load speed is crucial. Pay special attention to it. People are impatient and don’t want to wait to see your website. They will go somewhere else to find the same information. It’s simple as that. Do you wait around for few minutes so the page can load or do you just go somewhere else and find what you needed on the first page? The most problematic thing with page loading slowly is that users are not likely to return when they had to wait the previous time so you will be losing a lot! If Google notices that you are losing people your ranking will also drop.
Device source
Also, pay attention to the device source. If your website is not optimized for smartphones you need to do it right away! Even if the percentage of people coming to your site from their phones is low you need to do it. Optimize, optimize, optimize – that is the key to success in this line of work. You don’t want to lose anything because you neglected that part. If you don’t know how to do it hire experts to show you or to work for you and make it happen.
Different lines of work
Important website metrics will vary depending on the line of work you are in. For some lines of work you need to monitor sales performance metrics and of course opportunities and leads. Executives will look at big picture financial metrics and the marketing team will look at social media metrics. All of them are important but there is a big difference if you are selling something or having a cooking show and blog on your website for example. You need to see what is important for you but those first two we mentioned (device source and page load speed) are important for everybody.
Keyword ranking
Very important factor. So is the link building. You also need to have keyword-rich anchor text. All those components matter a lot so as you can see you need to pay special attention to your SEO. If you by a chance have an in-house SEO expert you don’t have to worry about those metrics. Since you are paying already for someone to pay special attention to this aspect.
Total website traffic is yet another important website metric
This is a high-level metric. What it shows is the overall state of health of your site. Of course, it also shows SEO strength. Our best advice is to track total website traffic on a month-to-month basis, also during specific peak business events because it will show trends of how and when users interact with your site. It’s also important to have a yearly comparison. That will help you to measure growth over time and seasonal trends. Understanding this metric will help you improve your website and see your strong and weak spots.
Conversion rate
This is a number that shows how many visitors (out of everyone who visited your website) completed a desired action like filling out a form or something similar. You can track your rate by using Google Analytics. Use it across ads you are running at the moment or through the forms filled out on your site. That way you will be able to measure your conversions based on your goals in the marketing field.
Another one of the important metrics you need to track
It’s important to track your users vs. new users or to explain it closely – how much of your traffic is new users versus returning visitors. Your website needs to perform well if you want people to come back and you do! New users are great but you need old users even more. Those returning ones are important if you are selling something. If they had a bad experience they most likely won’t come back so you need to know and you need to fix if there is a reason why they are not returning.
Get help
It’s very admirable if you are running your website on your own, but as it grows chances are you will be needing help. To learn more about strategies, marketing, important website metrics, your SEO plan, and all the other aspects that involve the growth of your website. But it’s perfectly fine if you need to focus more on finances and other aspects of your business. If you only need occasional help then the best would be to hire freelancers to help. If you need someone to work every day on your website then you need to hire another teammate.
List of important website metrics you need to research
Before we finish it’s important to list all the metrics you should track and pay attention to even though we mentioned most of them:
- page load speed
- total website traffic
- conversion rate
- bounce rate
- keyword ranking
- click-through rate
- pages per session
- traffic source or medium
Those are just basics you need to pay special attention to and to track regularly of course. Hopefully, this helped you see and cover your basis on important website metrics and now you will be able to continue the research and learning on your own. If not – you can always get help.