5 website analytics to pay attention to

1. Site Visitors

One of the first pieces of data that you’ll see upon opening up Google Analytics is your site visitors. This really is what it says on the tin – the number of visitors i.e. people that have visited your site over the specified time period.

It’s worth bearing in mind that they may have visited your site multiple times and that those additional visited won’t be included in this statistic. This is your number of individual visitors.

Reviewing your site visitors on a regular basis will enable you to gain a better understanding of traffic trends, ideally this number should be increasing over time implying that more and more people are becoming interested in your website.

This is a high level statistic the enables you to determine broad success without any of the details behind it and is best used when compared with other analytics. For example, if your number of site visitors is increasing but sales numbers are declining then this could be a good indicator that you need to review your sales and conversion process to make sure that your website is converting those leads properly.

2. New Vs. Returning Visitors

Have you got loyal fans? This percentage enables you to compare the number of visitors who have stopped by your website before, compared to those who are visiting you for the first time.

There’s no ideal proportion to aim for here but I’d recommend that you don’t want to swing too far in either direction. If you have primarily returning visitors with a very low proportion of new visitors then this could be a sign that you’re struggling to garner new interest in your business. At the same time, having folks stop by once and never return again shows that you’re not capturing their interest in the right way.

3. Audience by Country

Where are people visiting you from? I love exploring this analytic and discovering the various countries that people are reading my content from (please do comment below and say hello!).

Clearly this is an important one if you’re a physical business, the majority of your site visitors coming from outside your local area could be a warning flag that your targeting isn’t working effectively. You can also use this data to plan future developments for your business such as adding international shipping, if that’s something that fits with your strategic goals. What many folks don’t realise though, is that country stats are just as important if you are a service based business.

Why? Well, this allows you to tailor your content. If most of your site visitors are coming from a country outside your own then you need to consider how you can best serve them. Let’s say you’re hosting online workshops and so you should check that you’re offering slots to fit your audience’s time zones. It’s worth checking that you’re offering enough virtual services that are accessible and approachable for this audience so that you’re making the most of the opportunities that are presenting themselves to you.

4. Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of site visitors leaving your website straight after they arrive. Ideally, this should be as low as possible. A high bounce rate will impact your SEO rankings as Google sees that your content isn’t engaging your visitors, will cost you money from PPC (pay per click) ads and put potential customers off your content.

Don’t worry – there are some easy ways to fix it! Start by checking your blog post and page titles. Take a look and see if they’re linking directly to the content of that page, or if they’re confusing to a new reader.

Then look through the first few paragraphs of copy on each page, are you getting straight to the point? Or are you starting your content by talking about another topic entirely? Putting your website through a rough audit in this way will help you assess how clear your content appears, especially in the eyes of new visitors.

5. Site Speed

Your site speed will also impact your bounce rate. The average website visitor will spend just 15 seconds deciding whether or not your content is for them. And if they spent those 15 seconds waiting for your website to load, well, you’ve lost them. A speedy site has never been more important.

One of the most common mistakes I see is websites with exceptionally large image files. Checking the size of your images is always a great starting place in speeding up your site. Google also has a great tool for assessing your site speed that offers free actionable advice to fix any errors that might be slowing you down.

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