21 Website Metrics to Track: The Ultimate Guide 2023
Learn about the importance of tracking web metrics to understand user behavior and optimize your website. Discover 21 key metrics organized into categories for easier analysis. Focus on relevant content, technical SEO optimization, and cohesive design to improve metrics and enhance user experience.
By contact.rovae@gmail.com
26 June 2023 | 11 minutes to read
Looking to make better sense of your website’s metrics?
Our Ultimate Guide of 21 Website Metrics can help you get started. By understanding what different types of metrics are, and which ones you should track, you can quickly learn how users find and interact with your site. Get insights into where visitors go on your website, for how long, how often they return, and more!
With the Ultimate Guide to Website Metrics as part of your business toolkit, you’ll be able to monitor activity across all channels plus receive up-to-date insights into site visitor behaviors that will give you the information needed to take bigger steps towards growth and success.
Read our ultimate guide today and unlock valuable data about deeply engaged users!
What Are Web Metrics?
Web metrics are data points that measure the site's performance, including user activity and website engagement. They provide insights into how visitors interact with your site, helping you to identify areas for improvement or optimization. Metrics can range from basic numbers such as page views and bounce rate to more complex measurements like time on the web pages and conversion rate.
Why Should You Track Web Metrics?
It’s no secret that tracking metrics for websites is important for any website. Metrics give you a better understanding of how visitors interact with your site, helping you to identify areas that need improvement or optimization. But why should you track these metrics in the first place? The answer is simple: by monitoring and analyzing your website performance over time, you can gain insights into user behavior and make informed decisions about how best to optimize your website for success. In this blog post, we'll take a look at and understand what is web metrics like bounce rate, page views, and time on page.
Overview of 21 Web Metrics to Track
To understand how your website is performing and how users interact with it, it's important to analyze web metrics. However, with 21 different metrics to review, it can be overwhelming. To make it easier, we have organized the metrics into six categories to simplify the analysis process. By categorizing them, you can focus and identify which metrics matter most to your business.
User Engagement Metrics:
1. Page Views
2. Average Time on Page
3. Average Session Duration
4. Pages per Session
5. Bounce Rate
Traffic Metrics:
6. Website Traffic Sources
7. Social Referrals
8. New Visitor Sessions
9. Returning Visitor Sessions
Conversion Metrics:
10. Conversion Rate
11. Exit Rate
Page Performance Metrics:
12. First Contentful Paint (FCP)
13. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
14. Total Blocking Time (TBT)
15. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
16. Speed Index (SI)
Device Metrics:
17. Device Type
Other Metrics:
18. Top Pages
19. Top Exit Pages
20. Revenue Attribution
21. Event Tracking
User Engagement Metrics:
These metrics provide insights into how users interact with your website, including page views, average time on page, average session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate. They help you understand user engagement and the effectiveness of your content.
1. Page Views
Page views refer to the number of times a particular page on your website has been viewed by visitors. When a page loads in a browser, it counts as one page view. If a visitor loads and then reloads the same page, it would count as two page views. It provides insights into the popularity and traffic of specific pages.
For example, you can track the page views of your blog articles to identify the most popular ones and understand the content preferences of your audience. Learn more about Page View at Google Analytics.
2. Average Time on Page
Average time on page measures the average duration of time visitors spend on a specific page before navigating to another page or leaving the website. It helps you gauge the engagement level of your content.
For instance, if the average time on a page for a blog post is high, it indicates that visitors are spending more time reading and engaging with the content. Learn more about Average Time on Page at Google Analytics.
3. Average Session Duration
Average session duration represents the average time users spend on your website during a single session. It gives you an overview of the overall website engagement.
A higher average session duration indicates that visitors are spending more time exploring multiple pages and engaging with your content. Learn more about Average Session Duration at Google Analytics.
4. Pages per Session
This metric calculates the average number of pages visited within a single session. It provides insights into the depth of engagement and content consumption on your website. For example, if the pages per session metric is high, it indicates that visitors are navigating through pages, and exploring different sections of your website.
5. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate data helps you measure the percentage of visitors who navigate away from your website after viewing only a single page. A high bounce rate can indicate that visitors didn't find what they were looking for in the landing pages or encountered a poor user experience.
It's important to analyze bounce rate in conjunction with other metrics to understand the context behind visitor behavior. Learn more about Bounce Rate at Google Analytics.
Traffic Metrics:
This category focuses on metrics related to the sources of your web traffic. It includes traffic sources, social referrals, new visitor sessions, and returning visitors sessions. Understanding where your visitors are coming from helps you assess the success of your marketing team.
6. Website Traffic Sources
Website Traffic sources indicate where your site visitors are coming from. Common web traffic sources include organic search traffic (visitors from search engines like Google), direct traffic (visitors who directly type your website URL), referral traffic (visitors from external websites), and social media traffic (visitors from social media platforms).
Monitoring traffic source helps you understand the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and identify areas for improvement.
7. Social Referrals
Social referrals specifically focus on site visitors coming to your website from social media platforms. This metric helps you track the impact of your social media marketing strategies and campaigns.
For example, you can analyze the number of visitors and engagement metrics generated from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to evaluate the success of your social media strategies.
In a recent study by Visual Objects, it was found that 67% of small businesses consider social media as their primary digital marketing tool for 2022. While tracking how much traffic each source is providing is beneficial, paying specific attention to social media referrals can provide insight into an important aspect of the buyer journey and website engagement.
8. New Visitor Sessions
New visitor sessions represent the number of unique visitors who are visiting your website for the first time within a specific time period. Even if a user starts multiple sessions within that timeframe, they will still be classified as the same visitor.
Monitoring this metric helps you assess the effectiveness of your website in attracting new audiences and expanding your reach.
9. Returning Visitors Sessions
Returning visitors sessions measure the number of unique visitors who have previously visited your website and are returning within a specific time period.
Tracking how many visitors are returning allows you to evaluate the loyalty and engagement of your existing audience.
Conversion Metrics:
Conversion metrics measure the effectiveness of your website in driving desired actions from visitors. Conversions and exit rates are key metrics in this category, helping you evaluate the percentage of visitors who convert and the pages where visitors are leaving your site.
10. Conversion Rate
The conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter.
A higher conversion rate indicates a higher level of website engagement and success in achieving your website's goals. It's important to set up proper conversion tracking to measure and optimize this metric.
11. Exit Rate
The exit rate represents the percentage of visitors who leave your website from a specific page. Unlike bounce rate, exit rate considers all visitors who leave, whether they visited multiple pages or not.
Monitoring the exit rate helps you identify pages where visitors are more likely to exit your website, providing insights for improving those pages or user experience.
Page Performance Metrics:
These metrics focus on the speed and performance of your website. Metrics such as First Contentful Paint (FCP), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Total Blocking Time (TBT), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Speed Index (SI) provide insights into the user experience and potential performance issues.
12. First Contentful Paint (FCP)
First Contentful Paint is a site performance metric that measures the time taken for the first content element to be displayed on the screen. It assesses the perceived page load time of a web page. Keeping load times as short as possible can help provide a satisfying webpage experience. Page loading times are also important for search engine optimization (SEO). A fast FCP helps ensure a positive user experience, as visitors can quickly see the content.
13. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Largest Contentful Paint is a site performance metric that measures the time taken for the largest content element to be rendered on the screen. It provides insights into how quickly the main content of a webpage becomes visible to users. A fast LCP contributes to a better user experience, reducing the perceived loading time.
14. Total Blocking Time (TBT)
Total Blocking Time is a performance metric that measures the amount of time during which the main thread of a webpage is blocked and unresponsive to user input. It indicates potential delays in interactivity and responsiveness. A low TBT ensures a smooth and interactive user experience.
15. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift is a performance metric that measures the amount of unexpected layout shifts that occur during the loading of website pages. It quantifies the visual stability of a webpage, as unexpected shifts can be disruptive to users. Minimizing CLS helps ensure a consistent and frustration-free user experience.
16. Speed Index (SI)
Speed Index is a performance metric that quantifies how quickly the visible parts of a webpage are loaded. It measures the visual completeness of a webpage. A lower speed index indicates faster perceived loading times, contributing to a positive user experience.
Device Metrics:
17. Device Type
Device type refers to the category of devices used by your website visitors, such as desktop, mobile, or tablet. Analyzing device type metrics helps you understand the preferences and behavior of your audience across different devices.
This information is crucial for optimizing your website's design and functionality to ensure a seamless user experience.
Other Metrics:
This category encompasses additional important metrics that don't fall into the previous categories. Metrics like top pages, top exit pages, revenue attribution, and event tracking provide valuable insights into specific aspects of your website's performance and user behavior.
18. Top Pages
The top pages on your website are the ones that are most frequently visited, such as your home page, or possibly a landing page that you are promoting. Monitoring this metric helps you identify the content that resonates the most with your audience and allows you to prioritize and optimize those pages.
19. Top Exit Pages
The top Exit Page represents the pages where visitors most commonly leave your website. Analyzing this metric helps you understand potential weaknesses or issues on those pages that may contribute to visitor drop-offs. By optimizing these pages, you can improve user experience and reduce exit rates.
20. Revenue Attribution
Revenue attribution tracks and assigns a monetary value to specific marketing channels, campaigns, or actions that contribute to revenue generation. It helps you understand the effectiveness and ROI of your marketing strategy. By attributing revenue to different sources, you can make data-driven decisions and allocate resources accordingly.
Combining revenue attribution with conversion rate can provide a more complete understanding of the buyer journey. While conversion metrics focus on specific actions, such as clicking a CTA button, revenue attribution tracks visitors from start to finish.
21. Event Tracking
Event tracking involves capturing and analyzing user interactions and actions on your website that are not pageviews, such as clicks, form submissions, video plays, downloads, and more. It provides valuable insights into user behavior, engagement metrics, and the effectiveness of your website elements.
Conclusion
To make the most of website metrics, it's important to figure out which ones will give you useful information about how your site is performing and whether it's meeting your business goals. Trying to measure all the metrics at once without a clear plan can be confusing and may not actually help you improve your website. Instead, focus on finding insights from the metrics you have, and use these insights to make changes that will improve your users' experience on your site.
In general, there are three primary tactics that can contribute to the improvement of most of these metrics:
- Ensuring content relevancy: Delivering relevant content that aligns with your users' expectations and search intent is crucial. This can help you engage and satisfy your audience, ultimately leading to improved metrics.
- Optimizing technical SEO aspects: To enhance the user experience, focus on technical optimizations like optimizing page speed, images, and code. These improvements can lead to positive changes in various metrics.
- Emphasizing a cohesive and intuitive design: Often overlooked, a well-designed website with a user-friendly interface can enhance user engagement and drive positive metrics. A cohesive and intuitive design helps visitors navigate your site effortlessly and encourages them to stay longer.
While there is an abundance of information available regarding the first two tactics, we have noticed that the importance of the third tactic, which is having a cohesive and intuitive design, is often underestimated, particularly by small business owners who are just starting out.
At Rovae, we understand the significance of a well-designed website in enhancing user experience and driving positive web metrics. Our web design services are tailored to prioritize a cohesive and intuitive design that resonates with your target audience. By partnering with us and incorporating our expertise into your website strategy, you can make significant strides in improving your web metrics and delivering a seamless user experience.
By prioritizing content relevancy, optimizing technical SEO aspects, and partnering with a professional web design company, you can maximize the potential of your website and achieve your business objectives. Let us help you create a visually appealing and user-friendly website that not only captures the attention of your visitors but also keeps them engaged and encourages them to take desired actions.
Incorporating these tactics into your website strategy, along with our web design service, will undoubtedly pave the way for improved web metrics and a better user experience. Contact us today to discuss how we can elevate your online presence through effective web design.