There are many things that make a great website. It should be optimized for SEO, easy to navigate, feature good UX design and be bug-free. All of these things and more come together to create a site that is a pleasure to visit.
But the real test of a great website is what site visitors think of it. You may be happy with your site’s appearance and functionality, but this doesn’t matter one bit if your customers or clients are not.
How can you tell whether this is the case? This is where engagement metrics come in.
Site visitors tell a story with the way they interact with the different parts of your web pages. If you want to know how you can improve your site, it’s best to go directly to the source. Read on to learn five engagement metrics you should be tracking for better results.
Exit Rate and Exit Pages
If certain pages on your website have a high exit rate or bounce rate, it may not be a good sign. The exit page refers to the point at which a site visitor leaves your site. If you are seeing site visitors exiting your site on unusual pages, you should examine them to see why this might be the case and try to make changes to prevent this from happening.
Pages Per Session
Pages per session is a good measure of a good site. This refers to how many pages a site visitor goes to on your website before leaving. If the number is high, this is a good sign. If the number is low, it could mean they got all the information they needed in only a few pages, but it could also be cause for concern.
Conversion Rate
A good website will facilitate a high conversion rate. If you are seeing low numbers of conversions, you should try to think about possible reasons for this issue and how you can improve it. Often, the problem may be slow page load times or obstacles such as an overly complicated process.
Repeat and New Visitors
You can track which visitors are new to your site and which ones have been there before. You will want to have a good mix of both.
A good repeat visitor rate is anywhere between 10% and 30%. If it is lower than 10%, you might need to look into if your site has any issues that might be causing this.
Average Time on Page
Seeing how long a visitor spends on a given page lets you know how engaging your content is. Are they spending five minutes on pages with 5-minute long videos or blog posts? If so, you know your content is high quality.
Using Engagement Metrics to Your Advantage
Engagement metrics are a great way of assessing the quality of your site. But you need to know how to look at them in order for them to be useful. You can’t look at one metric in a vacuum, but rather you should take a holistic approach to get the full picture.
If you’d like to improve your website’s performance, we can help. Get in touch today to see how we can help you design your ideal site.
