You don’t have to be a mathematician to create a great user experience on your website. However, there is a little number work involved. Keeping track of your website’s metrics will help you pinpoint areas that need to be addressed and areas that are working well.
A website isn’t static. It needs to be updated constantly. Every time it gets updated, it should evolve to better meet your users’ needs. Being aware of your website’s metrics will help you create the best user experience for your website.
A great use for metrics is to give your marketers a better understanding of your website. You can create a google analytics custom report to best analyze your unique website.
There are three different types of metrics that Google Analytics uses. These are Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversion metrics. Let’s discuss some of the most important metrics to pay close attention to that will ultimately contribute to the growth of your website.
Acquisition Metrics
Acquisition metrics can show you how well your marketing is working to direct traffic to your website. You can see who is a first-time visitor vs. a recurring user of your site. You can also see how they ended up at your site and what page they entered. If your acquisition metrics can be improved, it may be time to revisit your marketing strategies.
Behaviour Metrics
Behaviour metrics is how users interact with your website once they’re there. An important behaviour metric is bounce rate. It is the percentage of visitors who only visit one page of your website. If you notice that your bounce rate on a page is particularly high, you should find out why people are not navigating through your website further. Other important behaviour metrics include pages per session, exit rate and average session duration.
If people are leaving your website early, it could be because they reached a dead end on your website. Always ensure that you are creating a clear path for your user to follow. Could this page use a clear CTA? Is the language you’re using confusing people? It’s also imperative that this landing page meets the user’s expectations. Is there any way that the user could have been misled?
Another reason why a page may have a high bounce rate is loading time and image quality. Slow loading times and poor image quality may disinterest users and deter them from navigating through your site further. Make sure you’re using high-quality images and you’re doing everything you can to reduce the loading time of your page.
Conversion Metrics
Your conversion rate is a direct representation of your website’s success. It lets you know if users are doing what you intend for them to be doing on your site. You can set goals and track whether or not they’re met. If you have a low conversion rate it could be due to the wrong traffic reaching your website. You should also ensure that your text-based CTA’s make sense and are leading users to the correct pages.
A great way to find out if something new is effective is by running a test. You can compare different methods and choose the most successful one. You can also look at your metrics to find the highest performing pages and optimize them to lead to more conversions.
Average Page Load Time
People expect fast loading times. People will click away from your site if it takes too long to load. We have high expectations using the internet, therefore a page that takes over three seconds to load fails to meet those expectations. Do you notice that people are continuously leaving a certain page of your website? Check how long it takes that page to load on average. If it takes over than a few seconds to load, it’s time to figure out the problem and get that page to respond quicker. This could be due to images that are too large or bulky code.
Top Pages
You should focus on your top performing pages and optimize them to improve your website’s performance. This also gives you an indication of what kind of content people are engaging with. Your top pages may frequently change. However, tracking themes may be an indication of your best content.
Error Rate
Lastly, you want to ensure that your users are not experiencing errors. Your error rate tells you how many people are experiencing problems on your website. A high error rate is not good as people are not getting the chance to view your content. Sometimes errors are inevitable, as it may be due to high traffic on your site at one time. However, it shouldn’t be a consistent problem.
Continue to Evolve
Whether you’re updating your website to keep up-to-date or implementing new marketing strategies, a website needs to be continuously evolving. Metrics are the most straightforward way of viewing your website’s performance.