Your Website Doesn’t Convert, Where Is It Really Failing?
You have seemingly endless possibilities for determining how your website is performing. There are hits, visits, length of time on page, bounces, and many more measurements. But assuming you don’t have endless hours to look at data you may be wondering what numbers matter.
The short answer is…it depends.
It depends on the type of website. But I’ll point out a few of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can help you measure the effectiveness of your website with quantifiable and actionable results.
Key Performance Indicators – More Is Not Always Better
A KPI is one piece of data that can be used to measure a certain aspect of your site. When you compare the goals of your website to KPI numbers you get an idea about how your website is performing. For example, if you have an ecommerce site the purpose may be to deliver information quickly so visitors find what they need and check-out quickly. If a potential customer has to click from page to page to find what they want, they can easily become frustrated and leave. So, in this case you would want a low number of page views per visit. However, if the goal of your website is to provide educational material on a certain subject, you would want to see a high number of page views per visit.
Here are a few KPIs to consider for your site.
Percentage of New Visits
If you have launched a new marketing campaign with the hopes of getting new users to your site, you would want to see a high number of new visits. This would mean that your campaign is working. However, if your focus is keeping the loyalty of existing customers, you would want to see a higher percentage of returning visitors.
Number of Visitors Per Conversation
The purpose of this KPI is to figure out how many visits it takes for your website to meet its goal. For example, your website’s goal might be to get people to fill out your newsletter list. If you are getting thousands of visits and very few sign-ups, it is time to take a hard look at your site. Are you really meeting the needs of your market? Do they perceive value or a sales pitch veiled as a newsletter? Whatever the reason, the KPI tells you that something is wrong and that you should take a good, hard look.
Bounce Rate
A bounce rate is the number of visitors that enter your site but do not go to any other page on your site. In other words, they bounce in and the bounce right back out. Not good! If you have certain pages on your site that have a high bounce rate, there are many things to consider. First, it could be a matter of poor page design, no offer/call-to-action, the improper use of headlines or lack of content. However, there could be other reasons for a high bounce rate. If you are doing advertising then you could be sending the wrong type of traffic to those pages. Or, it could even be that you are optimizing those pages with the wrong keywords and driving irrelevant visitors to your site.
So Much Data! So Little Time!
As you can see, there’s a lot that you can do once you’ve identified your website’s KPIs. The problem is, there is a lot to do once you’ve identified your website’s KPIs. While it may seem daunting, the best thing you can do is to take that first step. Take a look at all KPIs that will help you quantify the performance of your website. Once identified, the data will open a window allowing you to look into the minds of your website visitors and see what they see. With that valuable information, you can fine-tune it to perform at its highest efficiency.
If this all seems daunting to you, never fear! Here at DirectiveGroup we’ve helped many businesses take poor performing sites and suggest changes that have resulted in higher conversion rates. If you would like us to help you, give us a call at 866-925-9524 and discuss doing a High Conversion Website Strategy for your site.
