Which website statistics deserve the most attention

We have just written a blog post about the nature of website analytics and what tools to use for measuring these data. Since the amount of statistics and metrics collected is huge, we will take a closer look on some of the parameters – what they mean and how they affect your visitors’ experience.

Number of page views

This metric takes into account all instances of a webpage loaded in web browsers. Page reloads are also taken into account – for example, when one and the same visitor refreshes a webpage, it is counted as a separate page view.

If your number of page views is low, you should consider updating the content, adding eye-catching headlines and engaging text. Regularly adding new content to the website should also help.

Visit length

The visit length metric indicates the quality of a website quite well. The more engaging and interesting the content, the longer the visitors stay on a webpage. The longer the visit, the greater the likelihood of it bringing about profit.

It is also important to keep track on pages keeping the visitors the longest. For an online store, spending more time on product pages is best. Visitors staying too long on the front page might indicate that moving on to interesting content has been made difficult or confusing.

Number of new and repeating visits

Two parameters are distinguished – new visits and repeating visits. A visit is considered to be a new visit when the visitor arrives to the page from a unique address not used for previous visits for a certain period of time. A visit to the page originating from the same address and occurring within a specified timeframe is considered a repeating visit.

The number of new visitors is a good indicator of the effectiveness of the changes made to the page. For example, if the number of visits increases after updating the website design, it shows the impact of the change has been positive. If, however, the number of new users has been on a steady downward trend for an extended period of time, this indicates the need to freshen up the page or update its content.

Bounce rate

The bounce rate metric shows the number of visitors who come to the website but move on without looking at any subpages or taking a closer look at the site. The higher this number, the greater the likelihood that the visitors have not found any content or information piquing their interest on the website.

In this case, it is always possible that a particular visitor has ended up accidentally on this website, but it may also indicate that the design of the website is not user-friendly or is difficult to use. Boring design or content failing to catch the eye is also quite often the reason for leaving.

Conversion rate

You can use the conversion rate to measure the success of your business activities – it shows how much profit your visitors bring. For example, the more of your visitors complete a purchase, download content, subscribe to a newsletter or fill out a form, the higher your conversion rate.

Conversion rate benefit can be assessed per parameter. Depending on the type of your offering, low conversion rate level may be caused by a poor location on the website or confusing design.

Exit page

You can also view information about the pages used by the visitors to leave the website at the end of their visit. This helps you to better understand on which pages the visitors decide to move on and why their sessions tend to end on those specific pages.

A high rate of visitors leaving via a particular page may indicate a broken subpage the visitor cannot use for navigating to other pages.