Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
4 Web Traffic Metrics You Need to Know
Monday, July 25, 2011 by Michelle Hartley
Increasing web traffic to your site is never a bad thing, but
increased traffic does not necessarily mean increased revenue. The
more important and often harder part is to drive worthwhile traffic
that is interested in your product or service. It is important to
know how to decode your web traffic to discover where traffic is
coming from, what pages are visited the most, and how many visitors
are actually turning into clients.
Some small business owners choose to handle this information on
their own. In order to best take advantage of the wealth of data
they are getting from tools like Google
Analytics. Here are some pointers to consider when reviewing
your traffic on your own or with an online marketing
strategist.
High Value Keywords: Search has become one of
the primary ways people find businesses. Ranking well for
worthwhile keyword searches is quickly becoming an integral way for
new customers to find your business. Looking for what your
competition is ranking for and trying different keywords over time
will give you a better idea of what phrases are most useful for
your business. For our clients, we track "High Value Keyword"
traffic. This is non-paid search traffic with the business and
brand names filtered out. This gives our clients a better
understand of what their search engine placement means.
Pages Visited: An important metric to track is
which pages are visited and where the traffic to that page is
coming from. It is important to find out what pages are getting the
most hits. Evaluating top pages can tell you about what your
consumers are interested in -- and what they are not. Your product
and services page that include a call to action should be one of
the most highly visited pages on your site.
Bounce Rate: The bounce rate is the number of
people that only view one page and then leave. It is important to
evaluate if the visitors enter in on the homepage and then leave
immediately. If your bounce rate is high, you first have to
consider the keywords visitors are entering the site under. If a
specific search term is driving a lot of traffic to your site but
that traffic bounces off the site, there must be a disconnect.
Consider your homepage and its overall look. Is it appealing to
your audience? Is it outdated? Is it difficult to understand?
Social Media Traffic: Now that most businesses
are utilizing some kind of social media, it is important to
evaluate the return on time you are putting into managing it. The
next version of Google Analytics will let you better track how
social traffic is entering your site, but also how people are
sharing your site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. For the time
being, look at your where referring traffic is coming from. If you
are seeing a large percentage of traffic coming from social
networks you can consider this a win. Traffic from social media is
far more likely to create links to your site than traffic from
other sources.
Take a second to look at your traffic and see where it's coming
from, not solely how much traffic you are creating. Simply finding
where consumers are coming from and what pages they are visiting
can help you see what keywords, social media sites or promotions,
and referral websites are working for you. It is important to keep
testing to see what works best for your business, small
improvements can change the way visitors view your site -- and
might even encourage them to look a little further.
Until next time -
Michelle Hartley
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
DC IT Support &
Consulting
Outsourced Marketing Services
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