By: Aditya Patwardhan

 Your website is the foundation of the online presence for your business.  Is it working correctly?  Answering that question isn’t that simple. To achieve your marketing goals, businesses should monitor specific indicators of performance. There are some indicators that almost all businesses will want to measure when reviewing their website’s analytics. Below is an explanation of  5 indicators that you should look at as you analyze your business’s online presence.

  1. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions on your website where the user exits without any interactions. The extent to which bounce rate matters depends on the type of website your business has. For example, if your website is only one webpage, a high bounce rate is more acceptable than when your website has multiple pages which should all be visited during one session. For example, according to Hotjar, the average e-commerce website’s bounce rate is between 20 and 45 percent, with a bounce rate under 20% being “exceptional.” On the other hand, the average bounce rate for a small business landing page is between 60 and 90 percent. Still, if the bounce rate is above the average range, it shows that users aren’t engaged by the webpage and is something you definitely would want to look into. Google Analytics provides multiple reports which contain bounce rate as a metric. This can help you isolate problematic areas of your website that need to be looked at and fixed. 

  • Pages per Session

The number of pages users look at during a session is an indicator of how engaged they were when they were on your website. The more pages viewers look at in a session, the more likely they are to use your services or buy your product. An issue with only looking at the bounce rate is that it shows whether users engaged with your website, but not how much their engagement level was. Of course, the number of pages on your website affects how important this should be to your business. 

  • Audience information

As a business, it is important to know what the demographic of people viewing your website. That can help you better communicate to them and turn make a sell. Knowing this group will allow your business to have the information needed to do a better job of targeting your ideal customer. For example, if your ideal clients are men 50 and above, and you are not attracting this demographic then changes must be made. You may need more relatable images and content on your web site for this group.

  • Sources, Mediums and Campaigns

A good way to better understand your business is to see where users came from to your website. The term source is the website where a user was before your website. This could be direct search, search engines like Google, or other sites if users clicked on links to go to your website. The medium means the type of search that happened or the way that a user came to your website. Examples include organic search (unpaid,) cost per click (paid search) and many others. Campaigns are specific marketing operations to bring people to your website. You can look in Google Analytics to see which campaigns are doing better than others. All of these help you understand where your audience is coming from and informs your business strategy.  For example, if you have a lot of followers on social media but very few of them visit your site to take an action, you may need to modify your efforts.

  • Conversion Types

A conversion is when someone transacts with your business, helping achieve your greater business goal. There are many ways in which one could give credit for conversions. One way is to give credit only to the page where users completed the transaction. But it can also be useful to know how people got to that page. An assisted conversion is where a user goes to the final page to complete a transaction from another page of your website. In Google Analytics, you can look at the paths that users take from first landing on your website to buying something. That way you can see what sites contribute most to users buying from your business. For example, for an e-commerce business, the final step of a conversion is the shopping cart page on their website, but a user might have visited their site twice through direct search before making the purchase. Each of these times contributed to the purchase, meaning that direct search would get credit for an assisted conversion.

       Conclusion

One of the most important things you need for your business to succeed is knowledge about who your clients are and what strategies are the most successful at retaining them and attracting new clients. By looking at these indicators, you can analyze what parts of your business operations are succeeding and which need to be changed, and ultimately maximize your profits.