7 Things You Should Know About Your Website
October 07, 2008 filed under: 7 Things
I am no economist but even I can tell that times are tough. And in these tough times making sure your website is performing as well as it can becomes even more important. Your analytics software will tell you how well your website is (or isn’t) working for you and it will help answers these 7 things you should know about your website.
1. How many visitors does your website receive?
An excellent starting point. Sure you’ve built a great website but unfortunately just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean anyone will come. Knowing how many visitors your website receives is essential to determining the effort that should be put into driving traffic to your website.
2. What is the most popular page of your website (other than the homepage)?
The great thing about analyzing website traffic is that it can tell you what your visitors are finding useful on your website. Knowing your most popular page will tell you where you should be concentrating your development efforts. (I rule out the homepage simply because it tends to be the most popular page by default.)
3. What is the bounce rate on your website?
When someone lands on your website and leaves it immediately this is called a bounce. Obviously not a good thing. A bounce rate is a percentage of total users who bounce. Your website should be inviting and offer visitors enough choices to draw them further into the website rather than bounce them away.
4. What is the average time spent on your website?
People tend to move quickly on a website but if your visitors are spending 30 seconds on your website it clearly isn’t doing you any favors. I tend to look at average time and bounce rate in tandem as they usually go hand in hand. The more time spent on your website the better.
5. Where does your traffic come from?
Does most of your traffic come from search engines? Does it come from links on other websites? Does it come from people directly entering your website address in their browsers? Knowing this information is critical as it will show you which marketing efforts are working, which are not, and will guide your marketing efforts going forward.
6. What page do most people exit your website from?
If a high majority of visitors are leaving your website from the same page chances are there is something on that page that is turning them off. It could be the page content or a form that isn’t working properly. Identifying top exit pages often identifies problems visitor experience on your website.
7. What are your website goals?
A website is an extension of your business. Frequently it is the first impression as well. Do you have goals for your website? Do you track those goals with your analytics software? By doing so you will see how often the website meets your goals in guiding your visitors to a desired result.
Now, if you have read this far and found that you know few (or any) of the answers to the questions above I highly recommend you spend some time with you analytics software. You do have analytics software for your website, don’t you? Well, if you don’t I highly recommend Google Analytics. Not only does it offer a wealth of data but it presents it in an easy to read format. If you still need help contact me and I’ll be happy to help you out. Every website owner needs to know the answer to these 7 questions, especially in these tough times!