Websites are still of the utmost importance, even despite eCommerce and other businesses diversifying across multiple platforms and marketplaces.

The business website serves many purposes, acting as a mark of credibility, a source of content, news, updates, and products. Selling directly from a website is much cheaper than selling on most eCommerce platforms too, so if eCommerce is your game then there are many advantages to growing your website.

For everything else from SaaS to affiliate marketing and non-profit charities or NGOs, the website is still the staple of any brand.

As such, it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on your website.

Here are 3 basic website metrics you should measure.

Before You Start…

Google Analytics is suitable for measuring all of these website metrics (and many more). It’s free, easy to set up, and measure most website metrics. There are also options for analyzing your audience including their location, mutual interests, etc.

Google Analytics can also help you optimize the sales funnel using some of the website metrics this guide will cover.

1: Bounce Rate

Bouncing is when a user clicks on your site and leaves without making any other interactions or clicks. Whilst there has been some speculation as to whether bounce rates are a direct SEO ranking factor, they’re important either way and provide an indication that either:

• Your page isn’t loading properly
• Your page isn’t loading quickly enough
• People realize your site isn’t what they want after they click it
• Your page is unattractive and drives people away

Bounce rates can be found in the Audience Overview section of Google Analytics. There’s little consensus on what a bad bounce rate is, but anything over around 70% should ring some alarm bells.

Page speed is of critical importance here. Google found that bounce rates increase in 32% of cases when page load speed increases from one to three seconds and 90% when the page takes 5 seconds to load. Measure your page speed using a tool like GTMetrix and implement some of the suggestions to increase load speed.

2: Traffic Sources

It’s always very useful to know where your traffic is coming from. The main traffic sources are direct, referral, search, email and paid.

• Direct traffic is when a user types the website directly into the URL bar.
• Referral traffic is traffic referred from another site, e.g. a link posted on another site, or from social media.
• Search is organic traffic gained from the SERPs (search engine results page).
• Paid traffic is from advertising.
• Email traffic is driven by email marketing campaigns.

Traffic sources enable you to understand how your campaigns influence your web traffic, allowing you to delineate increases in traffic when you’re running different campaigns, e.g. a content marketing campaign, SEO, ads, social media, etc.

3: Keywords

Search engines still primarily understand sites based on written text and keywords. Keyword indexing has become much more diverse and nuanced in recent years, but understanding what users are searching for when they find your site is always insightful.

Keyword tools as part of SEO suites like SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs, etc, are all excellent for this task and allow you to discover keyword gaps – gaps in your content that you should look to cover.

If you’re just starting out and are trying to build out a blog with some content then be sure to use some of these SEO tools’ competitor analysis features to discover what your competitors’ best posts are.

Keywords can also be tracked using Google Analytics or even just Google Search Console.

Summary: 3 Website Metrics You Should Measure Right Now

These are 3 basic website metrics, but even highly skilled marketers shouldn’t lose sight of them.

For those building out their websites or who are looking to build a new website, always keep these metrics in mind.

Aside from anything else, these simple metrics are thought-provoking and will keep you engaged with the development of your website.