Site performance analytics cover a wide range of indicators. While I cannot cover all of them in this blog post, I will concentrate on a few, namely website traffic, conversions, and bounce rate.

Website traffic concerns the entire volume of people who visit a website. Altogether, “how many people visit a website will depend on the website’s purpose, the visitors’ goals, and the way in which they discovered the site.” Computer servers keep track of website hits, or the number of times a webpage gets visitors. However, a visitor may browse many web pages and take multiple actions. This is known as a session. Understanding website traffic is instrumental in the consistent growth of a website. Organizations can measure their website traffic in multiple ways.

• Sessions—Organizations observe session numbers over a fixed period to evaluate the effectiveness of traffic-building programs since their implementation.
• Purchase percentage—E-commerce companies that sell products on their websites depend on website traffic. Essentially, “identifying the number of visitors making a purchase reveals how effective the site is in encouraging people to buy.”
• Channels—Organizations can measure website traffic through the different channels through which it comes to the website. Channels can include organic search or email.
• Bounce Rate—Bounce rate documents the number of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one webpage. The lower the bounce rate the better (Airfocus).

Conversions are the actions of website visitors. Actions may include buying a product or signing up for a newsletter (Shiatis). By themselves, conversions offer little context. Instead, companies use key performance indicators (KPIs) to turn conversions into meaningful information. For example, Google Analytics has a Conversions section that allows users to see the KPIs. Conversions use several KPIs, including conversion rate, the total number of conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion value, and conversion ROI (Kotilla, 2021).

• The conversion rate is the number of conversions/the number of visitors. For example, if 1,000 users visit the website in January and 120 buy a new product, you have a conversion rate of 12 percent. This “metric matters because the number of visitors to your website is going to go up and down, depending on market conditions, the time of year, and whatever marketing efforts are sending them to the website.” Focusing on the number of conversions alone is not meaningful if it does not consider other factors. Making changes to a website usually involves improving the conversion rate by encouraging more users to convert or increasing a website’s usability (Beasley, 2013, p. 52-53). The conversion rate gauges the performance of landing pages and advertisement campaigns.
• The total number of conversions is the simplest KPI. It usually involves collecting one or two conversion types over a specific period. Some organizations find it helpful to track conversions by type.
• The cost per acquisition (CPA) equals the cost per conversion. In other words, how much did an organization pay per conversion? The CPA is determined by the associated marketing costs divided by the number of conversions.
• Conversion value helps companies estimate the return on investment of conversion rate optimization activities. Usually, organizations estimate the conversion rate except “when the conversion is a purchase, in which case conversion value can be considered equal to the purchase value.” Other scenarios involve how likely a conversion will become a transaction, and what the transaction’s value is. Metrics could involve average deal value or lead-to-customer rate. Sometimes conversion value ties to customer lifetime value and other long-term value metrics.
• Conversion of ROI is essential to marketing. Organizations need to know the number of conversions, conversion value, and cost per conversion to determine the ROI. The formula for conversion ROI is (Value of conversions – the cost of conversions)/Cost of conversions * 100%.

Conversions also consider sales funnel metrics and revenue. Some conversions never generate sales or the desired outcome. Therefore, organizations must consider how conversions “you capture proceed in the sales funnel, and what are they worth?” Working with the sales department can help determine the average lead-to-customer rate. Successful KPIs can indicate increased overall revenue. When working with KPIs, companies should configure benchmarks for each KPI. With established benchmarks, the company can track conversion performance (Kottila, 2021).

Website traffic and conversion measurements differ from each other in multiple ways. Some companies invest in developing traffic with the expectation that traffic alone drives sales. Other organizations focus so much on conversions by offering top-notch products that they ignore traffic. Without reaching the target audience, an organization limits its potential growth. An organization needs both website traffic and conversions for success. They must balance. Organizations must remember that website traffic gets visibility, but “conversion of that traffic is what gets them sales” (LocalFi).

Business experts state that the bounce rate metric is the “unsung hero of a successful website.” Optimally the bounce rate of a website should be low.

So how could the website decrease its bounce rate? A key tenet of bounce rate improvement is not to allow it to exceed 50 percent. The most common bounce triggers are closing the browser; going to an external link or a link that results in 404 errors; redirecting to a new URL through the address bar; navigating back to the search results and making the page inactive after switching tabs. Experts recommend five ways to decrease the bounce rate.

• Bounce rates on mobile devices tend to be higher than on desktop computers. Mobile users typically leave a site quickly if any element is out of place or the site is slow to load.
• Add more visuals. Users prefer sites with images.
• Since people read differently online, website designers should alter website text accordingly. For instance, experts recommend creating short paragraphs and using bulleted lists.
• Remove “fluff” material like widgets or promotional elements. Instead, consider putting these elements elsewhere.
• Use customer testimonials (Rahal, 2021).

References

Airfocus. (n.d.). Website traffic. https://airfocus.com/glossary/what-is-website-traffic/

Beasley, M. (2013). Practical web analytics for user experience: How analytics can help you understand your users [eBook edition]. Morgan Kaufman. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/reader/books/9780124046191/pageid/3

Kottila, S. (2021, March 26). How to measure conversion performance with KPIs. Leadoo. https://leadoo.com/blog/conversion-kpis-how-measure-conversion-performance/#:~:text=Conversion%20rate%20is%20the%20percentage,with%20the%20number%20of%20visitors.&text=This%20central%20KPI%20measures%20the%20performance%20of%20your%20campaigns%20and%20landing%20pages

LocalFi. (n.d.). The two key components to successful marketing: traffic and conversion. https://localfiseo.com/traffic-vs-conversion/

Rahal, A. (2021, June 24). Five ways to reduce your bounce rate. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/06/24/five-ways-to-reduce-your-bounce-rate/?sh=285f5d731420

Shiatis, C. (n.d.). Website traffic or conversions? Where should I put my efforts? Yello Veedub. https://www.yelloveedub.com/blog/website-traffic-or-conversions