Do You Use Reliable Key Performance Indicators?

There are lots of advanced analytics tools which help you to measure your website’s performance accurately in real time. However, it often turns out that online markets cannot see the forest for the trees, given the large amount of data that they have to analyse. As a result, many do not use the right key performance indicators (KPIs) and this results in lower efficiency of marketing campaigns and ongoing efforts, wastes and poor overall performance. It’s time to get not only accurate, but also valuable performance measurements.

Focusing on Website Visits

For many, the ultimate goal in search engine optimisation is to achieve the highest ranking on Google for the particular keyword. This isn’t a performance measure, however. The right question to ask is what this position has brought you and more specifically how many unique organic visits to the respective webpage it has produced.

Landing page organic visits are perhaps the most important of all KPIs when it comes to SEO. You should use similar indicators for social media marketing too. Instead of focusing on the rate of sharing of a Facebook post, for example, you should measure how many direct visits to your website it has brought. The same applied to all of the content which you post across the different social networks.

Measuring Conversion

The key performance indicators in this category are undoubtedly the most important because they show how many customers and how much revenue your online marketing efforts actually produce. The first thing which you need to define is what action taken by visitors to your website defines conversion. For e-commerce website, this is obviously a sale. If the website’s purpose is to gain subscribers, then the number of completed subscription forms should be your conversion indicator.

The next step involves using metrics which will give you a more detailed picture of the behaviour of visitors on your website. Abandonment rates are a fine example. Marketers should have a clear idea of the shopping cart or subscription form abandonment rate on their website. You will also benefit from measuring “the side activities” of visitors on your websites such as the number of enquiries sent and the number of downloads of content which you offer, be it guides, user manuals or product catalogues.

Consistency Is Essential

Is your website attracting a steady number of visitors over a period of time or does traffic fluctuate considerable? Time-based metrics are designed to give you an insight into the consistence of your site’s performance. It is vital for you to measure the number of unique organic and paid landing page visits per day, per week and per month. The same applies to all other types of visits and to the conversion metrics too. Modern analytics tools analyse the data for you and present it in the form of graphs. The data is invaluable for figuring out what factors cause abnormally big drops or increases in performance.

Finally, you should always remember that identifying the right key performance indicators is just the first step in a long process. You have to use the data to identify weaknesses in your online marketing and eliminate them. You have to make timely improvements too.