It’s the first thing you do in the morning – before brushing your teeth, before breakfast, even before going to the bathroom; you grab your iPhone and check your website stats to see how much traffic, sales, and/or ad clicks you’ve gotten while sleeping. It may be more or less than you anticipated, but either way, there is always room for improvement. Right?
If you want to increase the number of people who visit your site and who actively purchase your products or return to read your blog posts, you first need to analyze your website to see where it needs improving. Here are 3 foolproof ways to accurately measure website performance.
Check your speed
If your website’s pages do not load fast enough, Internet users will not hesitate to abandon the wait and find another website to fulfill their need immediately. If this happens, then you’ve most likely lost a potential customer forever. Basically, the speed at which your website loads will affect your overall website performance.
Comments
If you have a website, you most likely have a blog or other area where people have a chance to leave comments. But they don’t. Why? It probably has something to do with any combination of the following:
- No one is reading your content
- Your content is boring and unoriginal
- It’s too difficult to leave a comment
- Your overall website design just stinks
If you’re not getting any comments on your content, it’s time to improve website performance by getting some honest feedback. Take advantage of a website consultant who can give you advice about improving your website and consider using a blog writing service to give your readers fresh, engaging content that will help drive traffic and improve upon visitor engagement.
Google Analytics
If you’re not using Google Analytics to measure website performance you’re really missing out on this amazing, free tool that uses an abundance of data to analyze the following…
- Site visits and page views (this will tell you how much traffic your site is getting)
- Pages per visit (this will tell you how many different pages your visitors are visiting on your site. For blogs, this would be a smaller number because the reader is seeking out specific information. However, for websites that sell a product or service, this number would be higher as the customer is expected to navigate the site looking for information and how to make a purchase)
- Bounce rate (this is the average time spent viewing your site before a visitor bounces to a new site)
To set up your free account, visit google.com/analytics.
While it takes a significant amount of time and dedication to maintain a successful website, don’t let your efforts be in vain. By analyzing your website’s performance using the tools and methods listed above, you can take a fresh approach to improving your website and its content to make more sales and win over more readers.
Jennifer B is a professional freelancer writer who has written hundreds of blog posts for her clients. When she’s not writing blog posts, she writes fiction and tends to the little, lovable, maddening dictators in her life.
