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Understanding your website’s key metrics means working smarter, instead of harder. When you gain a thorough understanding of what metrics you should be tracking, you gain the keys to optimizing your strategy.

Done right, website metrics show you who your visitors are and how they interact with your site. This simple set of behaviors show you the real picture, so you don’t have to make decisions based on assumptions.

Tony Soares, Director of SEO and Web at White Shark Media, shows us the ins and outs of understanding these vital pieces of data. In three easy steps, Tony will help you get the most from your website metrics.

Thanks for watching, see you next time!

Video Transcription

Hi everyone. I’m Tony Soares from White Shark Media, and today we’re going to be going over how to better understand your website’s metrics.

Before Moving Forward You Must Your Establish Goals

Your goals and your needs will dictate what you need to focus on. Remember, there are no inherently good or bad metrics. So establishing these goals first will help you with the overall health of your website.

For example, if you’re an e-commerce website like Amazon, your goal is to keep your visitors on your website as long as possible, having as many pages per visit as possible with a lower bounce rate. On the other hand, if you’re an informational website like Yahoo Answers, their goal is to answer your question and have you be on your way. So they’re looking for a low time on site, lower pages per visit, and a much higher bounce rate.

Establish Benchmarks So You Can Measure Your Own Growth

There are three easy ways to establish your benchmarks. One, take the year-over-year data to see what has changed between last year’s efforts versus what you’re doing this year. Two, if you don’t have a year’s worth of data, you can take an average of your existing months and use that as your benchmark. Or three, if your website’s brand new, set it up, let it run for your first month, and then use that as your benchmark.

Now Is The Time To Make Changes To Your Website

Tailor your content and your usability to help improve the metrics that you know will help you achieve your goals. If you’re an e-commerce website, add more content, make more relevant pages, and suggest other pages where people can go to check out more products just like Amazon does.

If you’re an informational website, try to provide the best answers so that visitors don’t have to go to another page on your website or another website to find what they’re looking for.

Congratulations! Now You Can Tailor Your Strategy To Fit Your Needs

Once you’ve made your adjustments, give them some time. I’d recommend about a month before changing anything else. Then all that’s left to do is rinse and repeat until you’re happy with your website’s performance.

So that’s it. Remember to align your metrics with what you want your website to do and not the other way around. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. See you next time.