Are you measuring your website analytics?
Measuring is one thing, but what you measure is the important part and is what can make the difference.
If you don’t track some core KPIs (key performance indicators), you may only be looking at half of the story.
On the other hand, if you track every possible thing, you may be wasting your time. Not to mention, are you even interpreting all of that data or just adding it to a spreadsheet?
This list includes the core website analytics metrics you should be tracking. Measure these data points on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. If you’re starting from scratch, try going back at least two years or as much as your data will allow. This will determine baselines and allow you to analyze year over year changes.
Note that some of these measures are only relevant for eCommerce websites and others only for lead generation websites. Some websites may have other very specific items that are tracked, such as the number of leads that come from a specific button or page. These are the core KPIs, not a full list.
Visits
- Number of visits to your site
- Compare Returning Visits to New Visits to determine your customer loyalty and expansion of your customer base
- Compare Returning Visitor Revenue to New Visitor Revenue to determine which segment converts better, and which may deserve more of your focus
Bounce Rate
- Percentage of visitors who left the site from the entrance page
- Compare this to the Average Time Spent on Page to determine if visitors are reading your content on that page, even if they are not diving deeper into your site to other pages
Conversion
- Rate at which your visitors are converting = Transactions ÷ Visits
- Look at Conversation Rates per Channel (organic, paid, direct, email, referral) to determine where you might be getting the most bang for your buck and where you should consider spending more of your budget
- Consider Cart Abandonment Rate to help examine your check-out process. You may determine your site is easy to use and customers add products to their cart, but something during checkout is making it difficult to convert
Leads (Conversion for Non-eCommerce Websites)
- Rate at which your visitors are converting = Leads ÷ Visits
- In this case, conversions are measured in leads, not transactions
- Be sure to define what a quality lead is for your business and what will constitute a hard vs. soft lead
- A soft lead may be a website download whereas a hard lead may be a request for information submitted in a website form
- The same analysis of Conversion Rate per Channel can also be done here
Average Order Value (AOV)
- Average value of a customer’s total order
- Average Order Quantity: the average quantity of products purchased in an order. Depending on the type of products you sell, this can reveal areas for improvement
Revenue
- Total dollar amount earned
- Revenue per Channel (organic, paid, direct, email, referral): the amount of revenue brought in by each channel. This helps you determine where you should spend the bulk of your time – your revenue “winners”
- Revenue per Visit (RPV): the amount of revenue generated by each visit to your site (revenue ÷ visits). This determines the value of each visit to your site
Traffic Source
- Source of your site visits
- Search Traffic: traffic coming from a search engine. Analyze branded search terms vs. non-branded search terms to help determine changes in keyword ranking and brand awareness
- Referral Traffic: traffic coming from another website, such as Facebook, your blog or a third-party site
- Direct Traffic: traffic coming directly into your site. Can be from typing your URL into a browser or by clicking a bookmarked link