How to measure the success of your website?
What is the first thing you do when you want to contact a company? You will most likely go to their website, find answers to your questions and retrieve contact information. There is no doubt that the first impression returned by a website is more important than ever.
Due to the increasing competition, there is a lot of interest in the success factors of websites. But, being aware of exactly what makes a website successful, and how to measure it, are practices you need to know and integrate into your business.
As an offshore outsourcing company, we will explore in this article, the different measurement tools that can help you evaluate the success of a website.
To be successful, you need to have goals. Whether you are developing your site alone, or with a team of offshore developers offered by Bocasay, you will need to define goals. Finding answers to questions such as “What are the specific goals we are trying to achieve?” and “What will I use my website for?” is the first thing to do when starting a new project.
Skipping the goal-setting phase and going straight into the design phase to save time is a common mistake.
Unless you know exactly what you are trying to accomplish, it is unlikely that you will achieve anything with your website.
Every website must have a well-defined strategy. The strategy sets the tone for all actions and provides the context for making design decisions. If you know exactly what you want from your website, you can work towards it.
Now that the goals are set, you can analyze your site’s results with the following measurement tools.
Average browsing time ๐
The amount of time visitors spend on your site provides some interesting information. By monitoring the time spent on your website, you can see how engaged your visitors are with your content.
If you find that users are spending very little time on your site, your content may not be holding their attention. Every business should track average browsing time. This data is extremely valuable to marketers because it shows how well a website is meeting user expectations.
A high average browsing time proves that the site’s usefulness to users is satisfactory and that the content is useful and relevant. This allows you to see which content precisely matches your target audience’s expectations and which does not.
If the average browsing time is high, but the visits do not convert into sales, you may have a problem with your CTA (Call to Action).
The analysis of the navigation time can even push you to make drastic decisions. For example, a low average time and a high bounce rate may require a redesign of the user interface.
Total traffic ๐งฎ
Total traffic is an important metric that monitors and leads to observing who is coming to your site each day.
- How many pages are visited on your website per day, per week and per month?
- Will this number increase over the life of the site?
- Do seasonal months like Christmas, Black Friday, Valentine’s Day attract more visitors?
You can look at your geographic location to see if your site is receiving local, national or international traffic.
This data will help you determine who is visiting your website and how best to convert visitors into customers. This can be invaluable in helping you improve your site in the future.
๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ ๐จ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ค ๐๐ ๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ค ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ ๐๐๐ ๐ค๐๐ฅ ๐๐ ๐ฃ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ๐ค๐๐๐? ๐๐ ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐ฅ๐ค ๐๐๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐ค ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ ๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐? ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฃ๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ ๐ค๐๐ฃ๐๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ค๐๐๐๐ค ๐ฅ๐ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ช ๐ ๐ก๐ฅ๐๐ ๐? ๐ผ๐๐ฅ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฅ ๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ฃ๐๐๐๐ค๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ฃ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐ ๐ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ ๐จ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฅ๐ ๐ฅ๐ ๐น๐ ๐๐๐ค๐๐ช. ๐๐ฆ๐ฃ ๐ ๐๐๐ค๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ ๐ ๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ค๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ช ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐๐ช ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ ๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐ ๐ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ ๐จ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฅ๐. ๐ป๐ ๐๐ ๐ฅ ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐ช ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ฃ, ๐๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ฅ ๐ฆ๐ค ๐๐ ๐จ!
The source of traffic ๐
Tracking the source of traffic to your site is an equally important metric to consider.
What sources are your visitors coming from?
- From a search engine (organic source) such as Google?
- Inbound links from other sites (backlinks)?
- Paid traffic from ads (Google Ads)?
- From people coming to your site from social media?
Knowing the source of your traffic can help you better target your marketing campaigns.
For example, you may notice that a large percentage of your traffic comes from a specific social media platform. You may then decide to focus your marketing efforts more on that platform.
Bounce rate ๐ช
How many people leave your website before converting into customers? How many visitors stay only a few seconds on your site before leaving?
Bounce rate is a marketing metric that refers to the percentage of visitors who access a page on your site, then leave without clicking anywhere, or even accessing another page on the same site.
A high bounce rate is 70% or more. In this case, it means that your content doesn’t grab users’ attention, doesn’t answer their question, or is difficult to read.
The bounce rate is an important factor to know if something is not working on your website. In other words, this indicator reveals that your visitors have not taken notice of what your website has to offer.
On the web, first impressions make all the difference. If your site has a high bounce rate, your visitors may be disappointed with your design or overwhelmed by the amount of content and calls to action.
Almost all first impressions are related to website design. If you want your visitors to stay active, you need to make sure your site is welcoming, easy to read and looks good.
Page views per session ๐ป
Page views per session should be examined in correlation to bounce rate analysis. If the visitor didn’t leave right away, where did they go next? How many other pages did they interact with before leaving your site during their visit? All of this can be determined using โpages per sessionโ and โaudience flowโ statistics.
This metric is useful to know what pages your visitors are viewing and what they are looking for.
You can then define:
- The pages that have captured their attention.
- The pages that contain what they were looking for.
- The pages that did not hold their attention.
- The last pages they viewed before leaving the site without converting.
Once you have understood all this, you can adapt the content of your site to the very specific expectations of your visitors, because they are the ones you are trying to convince above all. This is a great way to understand which pages attract users more effectively to your site and which ones need to be changed.
Click-through rate ๐
Engagement is analyzed based on the click-through rate of search results. Click-through rate represents the number of clicks recorded on a clickable item relative to the number of times the item was viewed. The CTR measures whether your site is attracting the user’s attention. A higher click-through rate means more interest in your site. The click-through rate also allows companies to monetize their website with advertising costs measured in cost per click.
But, this metric, as interesting as it is, should be taken with care. Indeed, over time, Internet users have become so insensitive to the ads they are targeted with, that typical click-through rates can be as low as 2 users per 1,000 views (or impressions), or 0.2%.
Since click-through rate is a simple metric and usually not an end in itself, it is often supplemented by taking into account conversion rates or more qualitative metrics for advertising campaigns, for example.
Your website is a lever in which an investment is essential nowadays, because it is the window of your company. Acting so that it is efficient is essential and will be profitable in the long term, and will tend to ensure the sustainability of your business.
