The 10 Most Important Website Metrics to Track

The digital landscape has evolved significantly over the past years, with new privacy laws and algorithm changes shifting the focus on what website metrics really matter. In 2024, understanding how visitors engage with your website is crucial for optimising performance and achieving business goals. This blog will explore the ten most important website metrics you need to track using tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to improve user experience and gain visibility in search engines.

What Are Website Metrics?

When we refer to "website metrics," we mean website engagement metrics—data that provides insights into how visitors interact with your website. The most critical metrics shed light on how users find your site, what pages they access, and their actions on the site. Tracking these metrics helps you make informed decisions on website optimisation, marketing strategies, and user experience improvements.

How to Track Metrics

For most businesses, Google Analytics remains the go-to platform for tracking website metrics. However, transitioning to GA4 can feel overwhelming due to its new interface and features. By focusing on a few key metrics, you can easily understand the performance of your website. While tools like SEMRush can simplify the process, Google Analytics offers a free, robust solution for businesses to track essential metrics.

Updated Privacy Laws in 2024

Privacy regulations have significantly impacted data collection, with many users and devices opting out of tracking. This results in limited access to demographic and behavioural data for many websites. Despite this, it’s still possible to gather valuable insights by focusing on the following key metrics in GA4.

The Metrics That Matter in 2024

1. Traffic Source

Traffic source tells you where your audience is coming from, which is vital for evaluating your marketing efforts. GA4 identifies six primary sources:

- Direct: Visitors who type your URL directly or access your site via a saved bookmark.

- Organic: Visitors who find your site through unpaid Google search results.

- Paid: Visitors from paid ads, such as Google Ads or social media campaigns.

- Organic Social: Visitors from social media platforms, excluding paid ads.

- Referral: Visitors who arrive at your site through external links.

- Other: A catch-all category for traffic that doesn’t fit into the above categories (e.g., email campaigns).

Knowing your traffic sources helps you assess the effectiveness of your marketing channels. Ideally, organic, direct, and paid traffic should be the highest sources, depending on your strategy.

2. Top Pages

The Top Pages metric provides a list of your most visited pages within a specific time frame. It offers critical insights into the content users engage with the most, such as your homepage, landing pages, or blog posts.

Why it matters:
Identifying top-performing pages helps you optimise content that resonates with users. If certain blog posts or landing pages attract the most traffic, consider investing more in similar content or updating those pages for SEO.

3. Entrance and Exit Pages

Entrance pages are where users enter your site, and exit pages are where they leave. Tracking this data offers valuable insights into how users navigate through your website.

Why it matters:
If users are consistently exiting from a page without taking action (such as converting or moving to other pages), this may indicate an issue with content relevance or user experience. By understanding entrance and exit pages, you can adjust your content to guide users more effectively through your conversion funnel.

4. Pages Per Session

Pages per session refers to the average number of pages users view during one visit. It’s a useful metric for understanding user engagement on your site.

Why it matters:
A higher pages-per-session rate generally indicates that visitors are engaging with your content and exploring multiple pages. For example, if users visit more pages per session on your blog, it might suggest they're finding the content valuable, which could mean you should create more of it.

5. New Users vs. Returning Users

GA4 allows you to differentiate between new users (first-time visitors) and returning users (repeat visitors). This metric helps you understand your website’s ability to attract new audiences versus retaining existing ones.

Why it matters:
The ideal ratio between new and returning users depends on your business model. For an eCommerce site, returning visitors are crucial for repeat sales, whereas content-heavy or B2B sites might focus more on acquiring new users. This metric gives insights into the effectiveness of your retention efforts and marketing strategies.

6. Device Category

Understanding the device category of your users—whether they’re accessing your site from a mobile, tablet, or desktop device—is crucial for optimising user experience.

Why it matters:
If most users access your site via mobile, yet your mobile experience is lacking, this will negatively impact user engagement and conversions. Device data helps inform decisions on design and functionality improvements, ensuring your website performs well across all devices.

7. Average Session Duration

Previously known as "time on page," average session duration tracks how long users stay on your site. This metric can be analysed site-wide, by page, or by section.

Why it matters:
The length of time users spend on a page can reveal how engaged they are. For example, long session durations on blog posts suggest users are consuming your content, while shorter durations on landing pages may indicate friction in your conversion process. It's important to analyse session duration within the context of each page's intent.

8. Engagement Rate and Bounce Rate

Engagement rate measures the percentage of sessions in which users are actively engaging with your content. Conversely, the bounce rate shows the percentage of sessions where users leave without engaging.

Why it matters:
A high engagement rate signals that users are finding your site useful and interacting with it. On the other hand, a high bounce rate can indicate that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for or that your content isn’t holding their attention. Tracking these metrics helps you adjust content and layout to improve user engagement.

9. Event Tracking

In GA4, event tracking allows you to monitor specific actions users take on your website, such as:

• Clicking on external links
• Downloading files
• Watching a video
• Using in-site search functions

Why it matters:
Tracking events gives you insight into how users interact with elements of your site beyond just viewing pages. If your goal is to get users to download a whitepaper, tracking that download as an event allows you to see how many people are taking that action.

10. Conversion Events

Conversion events are actions that you’ve defined as key to your website’s goals, such as completing a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter.

Why it matters:
Conversion tracking is one of the most critical metrics for any business. By tracking conversions, you can directly measure the effectiveness of your website in achieving its primary goals. Additionally, creating custom conversion events in GA4 lets you tailor tracking to suit your business’s specific needs, whether that's generating leads or driving sales.

Conclusion

Tracking the right website metrics is crucial for understanding how users interact with your website and optimising its performance. In 2024, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) provides more powerful and flexible ways to measure engagement, helping businesses adapt to evolving privacy laws and digital trends.

Focusing on these ten metrics—traffic source, top pages, entrance/exit pages, pages per session, new vs. returning users, device category, session duration, engagement/bounce rate, event tracking, and conversion events—will give you a comprehensive view of your website’s performance. By tracking and analysing this data, you can continuously improve your site to better serve both users and your business goals.

Ultimately, the success of your website depends on your ability to track meaningful data, interpret it, and take informed action to enhance user experience and maximize conversion potential. With these metrics in hand, we help our clients achieve success. If you’d like to get your website reviewed, simply contact us today!