3 Numbers to focus on when it comes to Websites

If you hadn’t picked me yet, I’m a fan of numbers – and appreciate high performing websites.  So it’s only fate that I should write an article on what numbers you should monitor when it comes to your website. I’ve put together five of what I consider are the most important numbers to focus on.  All of these numbers can be accessed and reported on via Google Analytics too, a free essential for any website. It is important to keep in mind to monitor the trends in these numbers (just like financial numbers too!). This is so that you can make adjustments and also review what web strategies have positively impacted these numbers.

Unique Visitors

It’s important to know how many unique visitors are coming to your website each month.  Unique visitors gives you a good understanding of the reach of your website and how much your content is being viewed. You can also compare this number to your repeat visitors, to understand what percentage of your web traffic is hitting your site for the first time.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a percentage of how many people view just one page of your website before moving on. As you would preferably want your visitors to look around on a few pages of your site, the lower the bounce rate the better it is. A high bounce rate can also tell Google that the traffic it is sending you is not finding what they’re after. Ways you can reduce (and improve) the bounce rate is to map out the path and help your visitors navigate around your website. Oh, and just a note here – be sure to ‘Filter’ any traffic that is from site crawling robots such as semalt as they will bump up your bounce rate. (There’s a great tutorial that we used here.)

Sources of Traffic

If the goal of any website is to increase traffic, then it is important to know where it’s coming from. A big one here is to look at how much (as a percentage of overall traffic) is coming from Google.  If it’s your main source, then it would be a good idea to treat Google well, by putting some resources into the site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Once you’ve nailed your SEO, and continue publishing great content, you should see your traffic from the search engines start to take off.   Do let us know your thoughts and what numbers you monitor when it comes to your website in the comments below.