- Where your website traffic is coming from
- Number of conversions that your website is earning
- Times and days of the week when traffic peaks
- Pages on your website that attract the most traffic
- Keywords your visitors are typing into search queries to arrive on your website
By having this information available, your business can regularly tweak its website to earn more traffic and conversions.
Google Analytics provides you with so much information about your website that it can be difficult to know where to get started with using this tool. To simplify your use of Google Analytics, here are five website metrics that you need to be measuring with this tool:
1. Number of new and returning website visitors
You need to be aware of the number of people visiting your website for the first time as well as the number of returning visitors. If visitors are returning to your website, it’s a sign that the content on your website is compelling enough to merit a follow-up visit.
You can track the number of new and returning visitors to your website by selecting the “Frequency and Recency” option in Google Analytics. This information will also reveal which pages on your website are the most visited. Being aware of the types of content on your website that attract the most visitors will help you to re-work other pages on your website to optimize traffic and conversions.
2. Engagement rate
Attracting visitors to your website is just one part of the equation. Once you earn visitors, you need to engage them to keep them on your website. Monitoring the engagement rate will let you know if the content on your website is interesting enough to hold your audience’s attention. When reviewing this metric, keep in mind that Google only measures engagement if visitors move from one page to another on your website.
3. Average pages per visit
You need to know how many pages on your website visitors are looking at during each visit. This metric is another indication of how intriguing and valuable visitors consider the content on your website to be. If the average pages per visit number is low, you can improve this metric by adding CTA buttons on each page of your website and including links to other related content on your website.
4. Bounce rate
The bounce rate refers to the number of visitors that arrive to your website and then immediately “bounce” away without even looking at your content. A high bounce rate is usually an indication of a poorly designed website, an unattractive homepage, a confusing layout, a slow website, or an inactive business blog. If your bounce rate is higher than 40 percent, it’s time to update your website design and start creating fresh content to keep your business blog active.
5. Email conversions
You should be using your website to collect email addresses from leads so that you can serve them with relevant content that will drive conversions. Google Analytics will reveal the number of website visitors that subscribe to your email newsletters as well as the number of visitors that click to your website from a link in one of your email newsletters. Tracking email conversions will make you aware if your email marketing strategy is effective.
In summary, Google Analytics will provide you with valuable information to help you create a better digital marketing strategy that delivers value to your target audience. With your website being the foundation of your digital marketing efforts, you need to be using Google Analytics to measure your website’s performance and make tweaks to maximize results.
