10 Website Metrics That Matter
Launching a website is one thing. You can style it and design it. You can load the images, and the videos, and write the copy, and… you know… make the thing live online. But having a website isn't the same as having a good website - a high performance website; one that genuinely builds your brand, engages customers, and compels them to convert.
Whether your conversions are sales, sign ups, or sending people to a brick-and-mortar location, there are several straightforward website performance metrics that you should continue working to improve. Optimizing your website with these metrics in mind, will drive growth in your website's performance and drive value for your business.
This guide dives into the Top 10 Website Performance Metrics, demystifying their significance and equipping you with practical strategies to optimize each one.
1. Page Speed:
Why: Fast page speed is crucial for user experience, SEO ranking, and conversion rates. Slow pages frustrate users, increase bounce rates, and harm search engine visibility.
Improve: Optimize image sizes, minify code, leverage browser caching, use a Content Delivery Network (CDN), and consider server upgrades if needed.
Tip: Use a tool like Screaming Frog to measure your website’s performance, and that of your competitors.
2. Mobile Friendliness:
Why: Over half of global website traffic comes from mobile devices. A mobile-friendly site ensures accessibility, improves user experience, and avoids Google penalties.
Improve: Use a responsive design framework, test across different devices, optimize for touch interactions, and address any mobile-specific loading issues.
Tip: Once you know which device types users are visiting your site with, explore Google’s article about device targeting to ensure that your media reaches users who are on the devices which perform best on your website.
3. Core Web Vitals:
Why: Google's Core Web Vitals (Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, Cumulative Layout Shift) measure key aspects of user experience on the page. Optimizing them directly impacts search ranking and user satisfaction.
Improve: Use image optimization tools, prioritize critical rendering, minimize render-blocking resources, and implement lazy loading for non-critical content.
Tip: Learn about Google’s Core Web Vitals in order to get clarity about which elements of your site’s experience stand for improvement.
4. Bounce Rate:
Why: High bounce rate indicates visitors leaving without engaging with your site. It suggests content relevance issues, poor navigation, or confusing user experience.
Improve: Analyze bounce rate by landing page, traffic source, and device. Create compelling content, optimize headlines and calls to action, improve navigation clarity, and address mobile usability issues.
Tip: Your bounce rate will never be zero. Get comfy with that. The only way to improve bounce rate is to send qualified traffic from among a targeted audience to a landing page that speaks to their desire. Learn about what kind of content performs best among your audience from at tool like Buzzsumo.
5. Average Session Duration:
Why: Longer session duration suggests engaging content, successful navigation, and potential for higher conversions. It also sends positive signals to search engines.
Improve: Offer valuable content, personalize user experience, optimize internal linking, implement internal search, and definitely consider adding interactive elements or multimedia content.
Tip: Improving average session duration is about keeping the visitor’s attention wherever you need it. You can do that by experimenting with creative content, promotions and offers, and other user experience design tests. Tests would be considered to be successful when users stick around for longer sessions.
6. Conversion Rate:
Why: Conversion rate measures how effectively your website leads visitors to take desired actions, like purchases, signups, or downloads. It reflects both the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts, and the quality of your website’s user experience.
Improve: Analyze conversion funnels, identify drop-off points (where folks exit your site), optimize calls to action, A/B test different designs and elements, and create clear user journeys for specific conversion goals.
Tip: Remove friction between your visitors and your conversion events. For example, shorten forms, simplify checkout experiences, and offer added value to drive conversion rates up..
7. Website Traffic Sources:
Why: Understanding your traffic sources helps tailor marketing strategies and resource allocation. It reveals the effectiveness of different channels and identifies potential opportunities for growth based on the quality of the traffic that each channel sends to your website.
Improve: Use your analytics tools to track traffic sources, segment audience by acquisition channel, and review campaign performance and visitor quality. Then invest time and effort in the channels that drive high-quality traffic.
Tip: Your brand may not need to use every marketing channel. Be willing to favor spending time on top-performing channels, leaving the poor-performers until your more successful endeavors have been optimized.
8. User Engagement:
Why: User engagement metrics measure the active interactions that website visitors have with your content. Clicks, downloads, comments, shares, form submissions, social media mentions, and even something as simple as a scroll down the page or a button click can indicate valuable engagement.
Improve: Encourage user interaction with clear calls to action, create shareable content, facilitate comments and discussions, run contests and interactive campaigns, develop unique interactive features and functionalities, and personalize the user experience.
Tip: Use tools like HotJar, Unbounce, or VWO to A/B test creative content, landing page experiences, to see how it performs for a specific fraction of your website’s visitors. Quickly gain an understanding of your user’s behaviors and learn new and better ways to increase engagement.
9. Organic Search Ranking:
Why: High organic ranking for relevant keywords increases website visibility, drives free traffic, and boosts brand awareness. It's a key component of sustainable SEO efforts. First-page presence on Google is invaluable, and it makes sound business sense to focus on appearing there.
Improve: Conduct keyword research, create quality content for target keywords, build high-quality backlinks (links from other sites back to yours), address technical SEO issues with a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider, and ensure mobile-friendliness, page speed, and more.
10. Website Uptime and Performance:
Why: Website downtime leads to lost revenue, frustrated users, and potential SEO penalties. Consistent uptime and reliable performance are essential for user trust and business continuity.
Improve: Choose a reliable web hosting provider, monitor uptime and performance metrics, implement website monitoring tools, and have procedures for rapid issue resolution.
Tip: While it’s an essential metric, you’re mostly in the passenger seat on this one. Unless your business has enterprise-scale requirements to handle, it’s usually best to err on the side of simplicity, so consider your hosting partner carefully, and feel well supported.
Remember, these metrics are interconnected and influence each other. Optimizing one aspect is likely to lead to growth in others.
Your role is to focus on doing work that will grow these metrics. When the work rolls out, test it, measure its performance, iterate on its content and style, and optimize your designs, features, and functionalities. You’ll improve and strengthen the user experince in ways that will inevitably lead to higher conversions and business success.
If you’d like to make time to talk about website performance, you can get growing here.
