{"id":1128,"date":"2022-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T09:33:10","slug":"website-metrics-what-to-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/website-metrics-what-to-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Website Metrics: What To Track, Why They Matter &amp; How To Set Them Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Website Metrics are important to any business that has an online presence, however, these can be over-whelming to the small business owner who wishes to do it themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The purpose of any business website is to sell their wares. While there may be a lot of lovely scenery along the way, if you have products or services to sell, the end goal for all your online efforts, should be to turn traffic into customers. If you don\u2019t intentionally aim to convert, what would be the point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Website metrics are a form of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help website owners measure the success of their site as well as the marketing initiatives that lead traffic to it. We gladly share a list of some of the top metrics to measure (using <a href=\"https:\/\/analytics.withgoogle.com\/\" alt=\"Link to Google - Google Analytics\" title=\"Google - Google Analytics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Analytics<\/a>), what they mean and what you can do to enhance performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-rank-math-toc-block\" id=\"rank-math-toc\"><h4>TABLE OF CONTENTS<\/h4><nav><ul><li><a href=\"#top-7-website-metrics-to-track-improve\">Top 7 Website Metrics To Track &amp; Improve<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#1-number-of-users-sessions\">1. Number of Users &amp; Sessions <\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#2-average-session-duration\">2. Average Session Duration <\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#3-average-pages-per-session\">3. Average Pages per Session<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#4-new-vs-returning-visitors\">4. New vs Returning Visitors<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#5-bounce-rates\">5. Bounce Rates<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#6-organic-vs-paid\">6. Organic vs Paid<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#7-conversions\">7. Conversions<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"top-7-website-metrics-to-track-improve\">Top 7 Website Metrics To Track &amp; Improve<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"1-number-of-users-sessions\">1. Number of Users &amp; Sessions <\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Audience &gt; Overview<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures the amount of traffic (unique visitors) your website had and if any of those users whom returned during a selected time frame.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: By creating more relevant website content that would send traffic to the site i.e. Blogs, videos, adding more products, etc. Make use of social media and run paid search ads on Google.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-average-session-duration\">2. Average Session Duration <\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Audience &gt; Overview<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures the average time a visitor stayed on your website.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: By keeping visitors more engaged. Revise copy and visuals to make them more engaging.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-average-pages-per-session\">3. Average Pages per Session<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Audience &gt; Overview<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures the average amount of pages a visitor visited in a single session.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: By adding interesting content and adding Call To Actions to encourage click-throughs to other pages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"4-new-vs-returning-visitors\">4. New vs Returning Visitors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Audience &gt; Overview<\/strong>, (click to compare the two)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures how hard your marketing campaigns are working to bring in new visitors and lure back previously interested parties.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve:<\/strong> To increase new traffic focus on awareness and growth by widening your target audience on all your marketing campaigns. Add more new products, improve pictures, and create more attractive content to encourage visitors to return.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"5-bounce-rates\">5. Bounce Rates<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Audience &gt; Overview<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures how many visitors came to a landing page but didn\u2019t click through to another page. It was either not what they anticipated, or something else put them off.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: By checking your loading speeds and upgrading hosting if required, refresh your content to make it more engaging, include Call to Actions on your landing pages and\/or refine your audience targeting on Google.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"6-organic-vs-paid\">6. Organic vs Paid<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Acquisition &gt; Channels &gt; All Traffic<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures on which channels traffic is clicking through from.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: If Organic Search is low, improve your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/top-on-page-seo-factors-for-a-website\/\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za Blog - Top On-page SEO Factors to Include when Building your Website\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Top On-page SEO Factors to Include when Building your Website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on-page SEO<\/a>, invest more time and effort in social media, create newsletters, write blogs, consider getting an influencer, and collab with other small businesses. If Paid Search is low, but the results are good, consider investing more money on Google Ads and social.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"7-conversions\">7. Conversions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Where<\/strong>: You will find this metric under <strong>Conversions &gt; Goals &gt; Overview<\/strong> (set your own goals)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In a nutshell<\/strong>: Measures set goals where a visitor interacted with the website by completing a purchase, clicking through to a number of pages (i.e. visitor was engaged), form completions, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Improve<\/strong>: By including great call to actions, adding simple forms, reviews, live chat, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tracking the results of everything you do online can help you adapt and enhance your website performance. This way your aren\u2019t just shooting online sales pitches into the abyss, but actively improving your tactics month-by-month and working towards an improved end goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Domains.co.za offers startups and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sme\" alt=\"Link to Wikipedia - Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - SMEs\" title=\"Wikipedia - Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - SMEs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SMEs<\/a> the tools to take a business online safely, reliably, and affordably, with excellent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/domain-registration\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Register Domains\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Register Domains\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">domain names<\/a>, incredible <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/web-hosting-south-africa\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Web Hosting\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Web Hosting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">web hosting<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/ssl\/domain-validated-ssl-certificates\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Domain Validated SSL Certificates\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Domain Validated SSL Certificates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">domain-validated<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/ssl\/organization-validated-ssl-certificates\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Organization Validated SSL Certificates\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Organization Validated SSL Certificates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">organization-validated SSL Certificates<\/a>, and even have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/websitebuilder\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Website Builder Add-on\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Website Builder Add-on\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Site Builder<\/a> as an inexpensive highly user-friendly, professional website builder. Our packages are scalable to help growing businesses at every interval. Our Sales and Support teams are well-equipped to offer advice and support when needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We hope this article is of great help to new website owners with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/wordpress-hosting\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - WordPress Hosting\" title=\"Domains.co.za - WordPress Hosting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WordPress<\/a> or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/websitebuilder\" alt=\"Link to Domains.co.za - Website Builder Add-on\" title=\"Domains.co.za - Website Builder Add-on\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Site Builder website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Website Metrics are important to any business that has an online presence, however, these can be over-whelming to the small business owner who wishes to do it themselves. The purpose of any business website is to sell their wares. While there may be a lot of lovely scenery along the way, if you have products or services to sell, the end goal for all your online efforts, should be to turn traffic into customers. If you don\u2019t intentionally aim to convert, what would be the point? Website metrics are a form of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help website owners measure the success of their site as well as the marketing initiatives that lead traffic to it. We gladly share a list of some of the top metrics to measure (us <a alt='Website Metrics: What To Track, Why They Matter &amp; How To Set Them Up' title='Website Metrics: What To Track, Why They Matter &amp; How To Set Them Up' href='https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/website-metrics-what-to-track\/' class='moreElipsis'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1009],"tags":[1551,1773,1552,1549,1546,1550,1547],"class_list":["post-1128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-domain-tips","tag-conversions-are-important","tag-duration-of-a-website-visitors-session","tag-organic-search-vs-paid","tag-returning-visitor-statistics","tag-understanding-website-metrics","tag-why-bounce-rates-matter","tag-why-user-amp-session-numbers-are-important"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1128"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3415,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128\/revisions\/3415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.domains.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}