The main marketing objective for most businesses would be to increase revenue. Increasing website traffic is a key metric to measure if a business is on the right track to reach the objective, but only measuring the amount of traffic is too vague and broad to determine the quality of traffic. Before a business can turn website traffic into conversions, they need to determine if the traffic they are receiving is qualified. The following metrics can help to determine the quality of traffic the website is receiving:
Bounce Rate
A “bounce” occurs when someone visits your website and leaves without interacting further with your site, Neil Patel, 2021. A high bounce rate can indicate that your website is failing to attract quality visitors which can ultimately impact conversions and sales. A lower bounce rate suggests that a website is attracting and retaining (and even converting) quality traffic. This outcome can lead to increased conversions and sales.
Amount of returning visitors
Returning website visitors are those visitors who have viewed your website before, and they are coming back to learn more, explore, and (hopefully) convert. It’s highly unlikely that a person will take a strong call to action such as making a purchase or filling in a lead form unless the brand is already trusted by the visitor. According to Monster Insights (2020), the statistic shows that returning visitors will have a 75% higher chance of making a purchase than a new visitor. Returning visitors indicate that people are truly interested in your product or service offerings, and want to gain as much information as possible, before taking in the next step in the sales funnel.
Demographics
Who is your ideal client or customer? Please link this with our blog: how to define your ideal target audience. Use the analytics provided and determine if the demographics match your customer or client profile. If not, the targeting parameters of your paid media campaigns need to be adjusted. The messaging and creative assets used also need to portray the demographics of your ideal buyer’s persona. So, what if the above metrics all indicate that the website traffic is qualified, but little to zero conversions take place? Then you need to dive into the reasons why your website is not yielding the desired results.
Is your brand trustworthy and credible?
Brand awareness is a marketing objective that often gets overlooked or is seen as a vanity metric. It’s also difficult to measure brand awareness effectively, but if a brand is not well-known and not positioned correctly, the business will not receive the sales or leads they are aiming to generate. Brand awareness equals trust and credibility. According to Rain Group’s Top Performance in Sales Prospecting, it takes an average of 8 touch points to get an initial meeting or conversion with a new client or customer. Brand awareness contributes to the amount of touch points needed to generate the sale.
Is your website designed to meet the needs of potential clients or customer?
What is your website’s loading speed? Is it a seamless process to find what potential clients or customers may be looking for? Is your website mobile responsive? That’s where UX design makes a change the game! User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. Your website should address the pain points that your potential client or customer is facing.
If a website is receiving high amounts of website traffic, but the traffic is not converting, there can be several reasons why those visitors are not converting. It’s important to understand the needs of your client or customer and that your website is a user-friendly portal to assist with those needs.
For a complete digital audit on your website, as well as recommendations, get in touch with us.
Sources:
https://neilpatel.com/blog/bounce-rate-analytics/
https://www.monsterinsights.com/proven-ways-to-increase-your-returning-visitor-rate/
https://www.rainsalestraining.com/blog/how-many-touches-does-it-take-to-make-a-sale
