What KPIs do you need to track to measure your website's performance?

How do you know if your website is really helping you achieve your goals? Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the perfect tools to answer this question. Platforms such as Google Analytics or SEMrush allow you to collect an impressive amount of data on your site.

But don't panic, you don't have to analyze them all! Tracking a few key metrics will help you refine your marketing strategy and improve your site overall.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE RIGHT PERFORMANCE INDICATORS?

First, you should know that there is no list of KPIs to monitor that is optimal for all websites. The right metrics will vary depending on your business goals and industry. Let's look at an example of an online store. This company could have the goal of increasing its number of sales and its monthly revenues. In this case, it would be relevant for them to regularly monitor their conversion rate and the average purchase amount.

Determining the right KPIs for your business is a strategic process that can be started by asking yourself the following questions:

• What are the goals of my website? Do I want to sell products, receive requests for quotes, build your newsletter subscriber list?

• What do users need to do before taking action?

By monitoring the right metrics, you'll be able to produce reports that measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, help you better understand visitor behavior, and allow you to adjust your website and strategy to get more results.

4 MAIN CATEGORIES OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS TO MONITOR

In this article, we will provide an overview of the main performance indicators. Feel free to explore your tool's dashboard to discover other data relevant to your business.

1. Traffic and Audience

The metrics in this category allow you to know who is visiting your site and where they are coming from.

Number of users: This is the total number of visitors who landed on your site during a specific time period. This metric is useful for tracking your growth, but also for checking if your marketing efforts are paying off or if the time of year is influencing your traffic. You can also track this data for a specific page, which can be particularly useful in the context of a promotional campaign.

Demographics: With analytics tools, you can find out who is visiting your site. How old are these people? Where are they located? What language do they speak? Compare this data to that of your target audience to see if you're attracting the right audience. You can also use it to adjust your tone, visuals, or offers to people who are currently visiting your site.

2. Acquisition

Acquisition KPIs show you how visitors get to your site. This identifies your most effective channels.

Source of traffic: There are several ways to get to your site. Google Analytics tells you if your visitors arrived directly by typing the URL, via a search engine search, through social networks, a newsletter, another website, a paid advertisement or an uncategorized source. By analyzing this data, you can choose where to put more energy into your most popular channels.

3. Engagement

These metrics measure how interested and engaged visitors are in your content. The more users navigate through your site or return on several occasions, the more likely your chances of conversion increase.

Bounce rate: This is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing a single page and interacting with it. This data can give you valuable insights into your content. If the bounce rate is high, it can indicate a technical problem, lack of a clear call to action, content that doesn't meet visitors' expectations, or doesn't convince them to take the next step.

Average time spent on a page: This KPI tells you whether people are actually viewing the content of a given page. The longer the average duration, the more it suggests that the content is relevant and engaging. It's also a good way to identify the pages that hold attention, and those that need to be reworked.

Number of sessions per user: How many times do people visit your website on average? Do they visit it only once or do they go there several times? Tracking the evolution of this KPI over time is especially useful if you're using strategies like sending newsletters or advertising campaigns that retarget potential customers. This will help you know if your efforts keep consumers coming back and if they're really re-engaging them.

4. Conversion

Conversion KPIs tell you if visitors are converting. In this context, conversion doesn't necessarily mean a purchase! It can also be subscribing to a newsletter, downloading or making an appointment. What you consider a conversion will vary depending on your goals.

Conversion rate: This is a percentage obtained by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors then multiplying by 100. Tracking this KPI is essential, as it helps you concretely measure the effectiveness of your pages, calls to action, or ad campaigns. It also allows you to identify friction points in the user journey and optimize the steps leading to conversion.

As you can surely understand, performance indicators are not just numbers. They are important data for the growth of your business. If you choose your key KPIs with your goals in mind, you'll be able to analyze them to find out what's working, what can be improved, and where you should invest your efforts. It can also help you better manage the financial side of your digital strategy, by assessing the return on investment (ROI) of your campaigns and comparing the results with the cost of your marketing efforts.