16 Website Metrics to Monitor For Data-Driven Decision Making

Whether you’re a marketer, site owner, or entrepreneur, you must have found yourself stuck staring at your analytics dashboard and figuring out which website metrics to track regularly for more online visibility, leads and conversions.

61% of businesses agree SEO is among their top marketing priority and here's the thing: one of the best ways to improve SEO is by tracking website metrics and KPIs. So, it’s about time you start tracking the right metrics and boosting your brands’ online presence, customer engagement, or ROI depending on your specific needs.

With so many metrics available, how do you choose the most relevant and useful ones for your marketing goals?

To keep things simple, we’ll walk you through the 16 most used metrics among marketers that help in data-driven decision-making. We’ll also delve into the type, purpose, and usage of each metric. We’ll also cover how each website metric makes a difference in digital marketing with real-life examples.

At the end of this article, you’ll know and be confident to select the right metrics and KPIs for your marketing goals and optimize for better performance and conversions.

16 Most Important Website Metrics To Track In 2024

Website analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) give you a clear idea of what’s working for your business’s online marketing and what’s not. From tracking how visitors interact with your website, which content most resonates with their needs, and what website elements are improving your conversion rates, they get you covered.

Let’s find out which ones are the most critical to monitor in 2023.

1. Traffic Sources

This traffic metric refers to the channels or platforms that drive visitors to your site. You can also identify which channels or sources are driving the most or least traffic to your website.

They can be divided into 4 main categories: 

• Organic Search Traffic: This comes from search engines such as Google or Bing. It indicates how well your site ranks for relevant keywords or queries.

• Direct Traffic: This comes from visitors who type in your site’s URL directly into their browser or have it bookmarked. It indicates how well-known and memorable your site is.

• Referral Traffic: This comes from other websites that link to your site. It indicates how authoritative and trustworthy your site is.

• Social Traffic: This comes from social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. It indicates how engaging and shareable your content is.

To increase website traffic, you need to create engaging and valuable content, optimize your website for search engines (SEO), promote your website on social media and other platforms, etc.

Consider this high-tech eCommerce business’s organic traffic strategy. They post high-quality and relevant articles. They’re using keywords and meta tags that match their audience’s search intent like “solar panel” and “solar generator kits”. They’re increasing website traffic by putting their product links on their social media posts and sharing articles and high-value content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

2. Top Pages

This traffic metric lets you find out your top-ranking pages per traffic. If you’re attracting more online traffic on a particular website page compared to other pages, it shows that the content present on it is the most relevant to your target audience.

Top pages let you find the pain points and favorite content for the audience. This will help you adjust the content on other pages based on what your audience likes the most.

3. New Sessions

It’s a traffic metric that tells about first-time visitors to your website. You should expect a steady increase in new sessions over time as your website generates more visibility and popularity. 

The session metric is a great indicator that your SEO and marketing efforts are driving traffic and building leads. Users and pageviews are 2 important factors that a marketer should consider while tracking sessions.

Categorize your website traffic into uniquely identifiable visitors (users), and repeated visitors (multiple sessions). Also, track the pages users viewed to keep track of what’s resonating with them the most. You’ll improvise your marketing campaigns to align with your audience’s interests.

4. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate (CTR) is a conversion metric that gives the percentage of visitors who click on a link or an ad on your website or another platform like Google, Facebook, etc. It shows how effective, appealing, and persuasive your content or ads are for the visitors to take action. CTR also identifies which links or ads are generating the most or least clicks.

You can improve your CTR with the following instructions: 

• Create catchy and relevant headlines

• Use clear and compelling calls to action

• Optimize your links or ads for keywords

• Evaluate your CTR performance using A/B testing

5. Conversion Rate 

This conversion metric gives the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your website, such as signing up for an email newsletter, downloading an ebook, making a purchase, etc. It shows how well your website persuades and motivates your visitors to take action. 

It also identifies which pages or elements on your website are influencing or hindering conversions. To increase the conversion rate, you need attractive calls to action, provide trust and social proof, offer incentives or discounts, etc.

For example, if you’re an eCommerce store, you can increase your conversion rate by adding a prominent “Shop Now” action button on each product page, displaying customer reviews and ratings, offering free shipping and returns, etc. This marketing strategy can boost your Return On Investment (ROI).

6. User Demographics

This marketing metric is crucial to tailor your website and its content to the needs and interests of your audience. Demographics like age, gender, location, and language can provide a wealth of information about who your visitors are. For instance, niche-specific businesses like women's swimwear or summer lingerie can have user demographics like: 

• Gender: predominantly female

• Marital Status: mostly single or married

• Age: typically between 18 to 45 years old

• Occupation: mostly working professionals or students

• Interests: mostly interested in fashion, beauty, wellness, travel, etc.

• Location: mostly in regions with warm or tropical climates or seasons

• Income: varies depending on the price range and quality of the products

• Language: mostly English or other languages spoken in the target markets

• Education: varies depending on the level of interest and awareness of the products

• Ethnicity: varies depending on the cultural and aesthetic preferences of the customers

7. Cart Abandonment Rate

It's a marketing metric that gives the percentage of visitors who add items to their shopping cart on your eCommerce website but do not complete the checkout process. It is an important metric for eCommerce websites because it indicates how effective and persuasive your checkout process is.

It helps you understand how well your website converts visitors into customers. It can also help you identify which factors or barriers are causing visitors to abandon their carts.

To decrease the cart abandonment rate, you need to improve your checkout process’s design, usability, security, speed, etc. You also need to provide clear and compelling calls to action, trust and social proof, incentives like offering free shipping and return, etc.

8. Organic Search Traffic

Organic search traffic is a marketing metric that gives the number of visitors who come to your website from organic searches on Google, Bing, etc. It tells how visible and relevant your website is for your target keywords and audience.

To increase organic search traffic, you need to improve your website’s search engine optimization by conducting keyword research, creating high-quality and relevant content, building links and authority, etc. You also need to track and measure your website’s SEO using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Moz, etc.

Leveraging online website auditing tools gives you insights into the search terms that are largely contributing to your website traffic. The key is to conduct site audits quarterly, 2x a year, or yearly depending on your business needs. 

For instance, if you audit the sites of blog-wide-audience websites like Styiens, you’ll get detailed insights on the top-ranking keywords alongside their respective SERP positions, location, search volume, etc. These keywords are responsible for bringing organic traffic to the website.

9. Social Media Engagement

It's an engagement metric that gives the number of visitors who interact with your social media posts or profiles on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Website engagement tools can track how many visitors interact with your social media posts or profiles on different platforms and channels.

It shows whether your content solves the pain points or adds value for your target audience. It can also help you identify which platforms or types of posts are generating more or less engagement from your audience.

One of our favorite examples is this travel website to find cheap tickets and book online flights. They have over 436k highly-engaged followers on Instagram. Their key to pulling social media followers to their website lies in actively engaging with user comments, queries, and concerns while being friendly, funny, and witty.

10. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is an engagement metric that shows the number of prospects who leave your website after viewing only 1 page. It’s a valuable metric to assess if your content is engaging and relevant to your target audience. You’ll identify which pages or elements on your pages are causing visitors to leave.

To decrease the bounce rate metric, you need to improve your pages’ design, usability, navigation, search bar, content, etc. Also, make sure to optimize your website for desktop and mobile users. This makes visitors stay longer or take further action on your website.

We like this pet insurance company’s website as it's interactive, interesting, and has a clear design. If you see closely they use enough white space and an attractive color theme of blues and yellows to make it easy and fun to use. They use clear CTAs on their homepage to get more users to click on them and generate more leads.

The interactive elements are user-friendly and responsive. They use a prominent unique selling proposition on top of their homepage so that their visitors know what services they provide without having to navigate through the whole website. The high readability score coupled with creative imagery and video content helps them reduce their bounce rates.

Expert Advice:

Use a distinct color for the CTA so it easily stands out. You can use a complementary color of the mostly used color on the page. For example, this invoice payment blog has an overall blue theme so for the CTA, they used orange, making the CTA visually prominent on the page. 

11. Page Views

Page views are an engagement metric that is an excellent indicator of your content's attractiveness. Here’s the thing: if a specific blog post or product page is garnering a lot of views, it's safe to say that it's resonating with your audience. You can use this information to create more similar content or replicate successful features in future product offers.

For example, when you audit this medical alert systems’ website for top-page views using Moz, you get the following results. The data can then be utilized to optimize website content for more online visibility:

12. Return Visitor Rate

Return visitor rate is another engagement metric that offers insight into how relevant and valuable your website is to your audience. A high return visitor rate implies that your content or products are so good that people come back for more. This works as a key metric to gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction.

13. Average Session Duration

This key website engagement metric gives the average time frame that visitors spend on your website during a single visit. A higher average session duration indicates that you’re offering quality content that aligns with their search intent. When a visitor finds your content useful and engaging, he’s more likely to stay on your website longer.

This metric is specifically relevant for online magazines, blog posts, and other valuable resources that you’ll want your readers to connect and engage with. 

To increase average session duration, you need to create high-quality and relevant content, provide interactive and multimedia features, offer personalized and dynamic experiences, etc. You also need to avoid distractions or interruptions that negatively impact your customer experience and may cause visitors to leave your website prematurely.

14. Interactions Per Visit

It's an essential engagement metric that shows which elements of your website users find most interactive and engaging. Advanced website analytics tools can also record visitor sessions and can provide dynamic heatmaps of how users are navigating through your website.

For an eCommerce store, you can find which products are getting more clicks through heatmap analysis. You can optimize your website by showcasing the most liked products as they have the potential to drive more traffic from search engines and increase website engagement. You can keep track of what visitors liked or commented on as well as whether they filled out a survey or went for newsletter signups.

Similarly, you can get an idea of which pages and CTAs are getting the most clicks. These tasks involve continual monitoring to understand user behavior. Small and medium-sized businesses can hire overseas marketing managers to check on website metrics and marketing performance for them.

15. Exit Rate

Exit rate is an SEO metric that tracks the number of visitors who leave your website from a specific page. It’ll identify which pages or elements on your pages are causing visitors to leave. As a marketer, keep an eye on common exit pages as they indicate some potential problems with the content or CTAs.

You can minimize website exit rate if you enhance your user experience in the following ways: 

• Utilize retargeting strategies.

• Enhance mobile responsiveness.

• Use exit surveys to gather feedback.

• A/B test and optimize landing pages.

• Implement exit-intent pop-ups or offers.

• Address customer concerns and FAQs.

• Offer attractive discounts or promotions.

• Simplify the checkout process and forms.

• Personalize content based on user behavior.

• Provide clear product information and benefits.

16. Page Load Time

Page load time is a speed metric that measures the average period that it takes for a page on your website to load completely on a visitor’s browser. Your loading time should be ideally 2 seconds to maximize conversions. It indicates how fast and user-friendly your website is. You can track which pages or elements on your pages are slowing down your website.

To decrease Page Load Time, you need to optimize your website’s speed and performance using specific techniques. The most notable are compressing images and files, caching pages and resources, and minifying code. You also need to test and monitor your website’s load speed using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, etc.

Conclusion

While you choose which website metrics to prioritize, closely consider your marketing goals and strategies. You should focus on the metrics that align with your desired outcomes and help you measure your progress and performance. 

Let's say your goal is to increase conversions, you should prioritize metrics like conversion rate, click-through rate (CTR), or return on ad spend. If your goal is to improve user experience, you should prioritize metrics like bounce rate, page load time, and session duration.

Are you looking for an all-in-one conversion optimization tool to keep a close eye on your site visitors?

Lucky Orange lets you monitor every click, scroll, and move of your website visitors with dynamic heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels, and more. With this analytics tool, you can visualize and comprehend user behavior and make informed, data-centric, and actionable decisions accordingly.

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