Know your Website: 5 statistics to keep an eye on

You’ve built your new Website or you’ve written your last check to your Website developer. It’s a beautiful thing and now you’re ready to see the traffic start streaming in. So did you get what you paid for with your sweat equity or hard-earned cash?

Knowing how your site is performing and whether you’re getting a return on your investment is just as important as getting there.

Getting site statistics is (almost) as easy as setting up a free Google Analytics account (You’ll have to put the tracking code in the right places on your site). And you don’t have to be a statistician to understand how well your site is performing. Seeing trends in the data - Google is really good with graphs - can be very beneficial in helping you make decisions about your site.

Here are a few basic statistics to watch to help you monitor how well your site is doing:

1. Average Pageviews. How many pages are your visitors looking at before they click away to another site? Average pageviews gives you a clue. If you’re providing ways to get to related content on your site, that number should increase. If it doesn’t, it’s time to take a look at your site’s layout/design or appropriately targeted content. If you find that you’re getting 2-to-4 pages a visit you’re doing well. More than 5? Good work! Less than 2? You might want to make some changes.
2. Time on Site. If visitors spend a long time on your site, it may mean they are engaged with your content. If it’s not as long, working to make your content more compelling could help. This statistic can sometimes be misleading, though, because visitors sometimes leave their browsers open while doing other tings.
3. Bounce Rate. A measure of your site’s first impressions. It’s the percentage of single-page visits. This could mean visitors didn’t find what they thought they were looking for. A lower bounce rate is preferable. If your visitors are mostly going to a page that has your IDX or other listings search in a frame, your bounce rate may be high (people search and leave) but your time on that page may be higher, too. Monitor your bounce rate. On days when it’s lower - 50% or less - figure out what you added that kept your visitors’ attention that day and add more of it!
4. New vs. Returning Visits: This is a measure of the percentage of people visiting your site for the first time (new) or those that are coming back (returning). A high number of new visitors means your being successful at driving traffic to your site. But you’ll eventually want new visits to level off, or even fall, as those new visitors become return visitors who are engaged with your content or come back through other sources such as RSS, email, links, or social bookmarking.
5. Traffic Sources. Are you getting most of your traffic through search engines? Is quite a bit being brought in by your email newsletter? Which sites that link to yours drive traffic your way? Knowing where you traffic comes from can help you make decisions about your site’s keywords, determine whether you want to strike up a relationship with site owners that are driving a lot of traffic your way or revamp your marketing and advertising.

Getting folks to your site, keeping their interest and having them return time and again is important, but turning those visitors into leads is the Holy Grail.

So don’t forget lead capture!