Web Metrics: The Basics

As this blog will focus on search engine optimization, web metrics, and related topics, it is logical to start at the beginning. In this post, a simple question will be explored:

What are web metrics and why should people attention to them?

In short, web metrics allow individuals or organizations with web properties to understand more about what is happening when users visit the sites. While in no way comprehensive, the video below produced Volusion—a company that specializes in solutions for ecommerce sites—outlines five basic web metrics that everyone should know:

Using these five metrics as a framework, we can dive deeper into each one to help form a general understanding of some of the core web metrics that make up web analytics.

1. Visits:

Number of Visits is simply that: how many visitors—new and returning—are coming to a particular site. In isolation, this metric can help site managers understand a very big picture view of a website’s popularity over time. It can also help companies identify cyclical trends and compare the traffic in a given week or month against data from previous periods in a website’s history. For example, a site might find that certain periods of the year bring in a high volume of traffic than others. Site managers might also be able to show how a website has increased—or decreased—in popularity over a certain period of time.

2. Page Views:

Page Views, as the name suggests, tracks the number of times visitors who show up to a certain page on a website. The benefit here is that site owners can understand which pages on their website are the most popular. Depending on the business objective of a website, this can be very insightful. For example, let’s say a site is focused on offering investment advice for young professionals. The Page Views metric will help managers identify content and format trends that their visitors are the most interested in.

3. Traffic Sources:

The Traffic Sources metric tracks for where visitors to a site are coming from: Did visitors come directly to the site by typing in the web address? Did they come from a Google search? Did they come from a link in an ad or Internet video? Did they come from a news article about the company?

Knowing the answers to these questions can help, of course, track the effectiveness of communication campaign efforts as well as observe sources of traffic that grew organically.

4. Referring Keywords:

Referring Keywords are the specific key words that are directing traffic to your website. Let’s again look at the example of an investment help site for young professionals. This metric might reveal that “how to invest in stocks” and “growth stocks” are two keyword combinations that are driving traffic to the site in high numbers. The site owners can then optimize for those keywords in order to result in even more traffic.

5. Bounce Rate:

The Bounce Rate shows how many visitors are coming to the site, looking at just one page, and then leaving.According to Google Analytics, “There are a number of factors that contribute to your bounce rate. For example, visitors might leave your site from the entrance page if there are site design or usability issues. Alternatively, visitors might also leave the site after viewing a single page if they've found the information they need on that one page, and had no need or interest in visiting other pages.”

Naturally, as with any thoughtful analysis, all of these metrics mean nothing without first defining a clear set of business objectives and then using web metrics as a way to answer important questions you might have about the performance of a web property. Jim Stern, a management consultant and evangelist for web analytics, stated in an insightful interview that web analytics allows us to answer key questions: “How many people show up to your website? What do they do when they get there? Do they accomplish their goals? Do they accomplish your goals?” 

The benefit to using and understanding web metrics is really quite simple to understand: web metrics can help individuals and organizations understand what is going on with their web properties. This information can then be communicated and acted upon, resulting in increased accomplishment of business objectives.