Dental Marketing Secrets: 10 Most Important Website Metrics to Track in 2019 and Beyond

Website metrics are ever changing, or at the least, every year comes with a trend you need to implement to increase conversion, retain buyers or better your site’s ranking, among other similarly important goals.

So, what are some trends you need to keep an eye on this year?

We know that search will evolve due to the updates in the tools and services aimed at streamlining it. The increased use of mobile and voice search (by consumers) has made perfecting these search platforms a priority for site owners.

Search aside, optimizing conversion rate has also been a matter of concern for the website-owning merchant because it is central to sales and revenue generation. Monitoring this data ensures you measure the effectiveness of your tactics and make tweaks to improve your rates.

Below is a list of metrics to watch in 2019 and the future.

• Optimize Mobile Search

Customers are using the Mobile search on the daily because their smartphones are the closest things to them. We’ve even heard of cases where mobile traffic makes up half of the entire traffic of a website. So, if you are not thinking about optimizing your mobile search, then you should start right now! It is vital aspect of your website tracking efforts. Here’s The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Tracking.

Wouldn’t you want your site to be user-friendly across all sorts of mobile devices, without forgoing images, some content and other features that also matters to its ranking?

And with Google working to streamline voice search, you’ll need to work on your mobile search rankings to make the most (increase traffic) out of it.

• Expand your subscriber base to retain users

Growing your subscriber size in one way to pull more traffic to the content in your website. Having users subscribe to your content ensures they receive an alert every time you launch a new campaign, release new content or even a product.

Subscription increases retention leading to increased traffic. It is a tactic that has played a unique role in the growth of some of the largest websites we know.

Social media and email remain the most popular ways to keep subscribers on the know. They allow you to create campaigns that pull more users to your site. And while growing a subscriber base is a time taking and involving process, its significance is realized later when profits begin to flow in.

• Check the Devices viewing your site  

With mobile search becoming a bone of contention, it helps to keep track of the type of device visiting your website. This is critical in ensuring you optimize your pages to suit multiple platforms if need be. This metric also allows you to track the number of your email subscribers who view your site via the various platforms.

Tracking the devices visiting your site has inspired the need for Responsive Design and AMP, which has become an essential requirement for sites seeking better ranking. Site owners now want to improve their presence across all platforms to meet the needs of all customers.

Google Analytics can allow you to see computer (IP address), mobile (IMEI), and tablet user number of any visitor. It also shows the specific device that in use which may help you when targeting particular niches.

• Monitor your Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is a meaningful website metric to monitor when looking to generate revenue to your online store. A desirable conversion rate indicates a well-optimized website that attracts and keeps users. The secret to higher conversion rates is creating quality content and pages that inspire users to take actionable steps and start taking steps that lead to a purchase. User experience matters because conversion can be hindered by factors like slow loading pages, wrong pages, and broken links.

Optimize your landing page to ensure all these elements work in harmony to transform more users to buyers.

• Scrutinize site for error pages and fix them

For users, nothing is annoying than hitting a link and eagerly waiting only to end up in an error page. This means the end of the road for them because navigation has been hampered. Scrutinize all pages to spot and fix all the error pages to land your users in places that can lead to conversion.

Use resources like Screaming Frog to go over your website page by page, and fix any error pages that require redirection. The best websites are scanned once a week to ensure everything is okay.

• How fast are your pages loading? Increase the Speed

On July 2018, Google updated its search speed making mobile search speed a factor when ranking sites, forcing multiple websites to upgrade accordingly. Every second matter when it comes to page loading speed because it improves user experience. A slow loading page can hamper user-friendliness, and cause a visitor to leave for other sites.

You can check your page loading speed using tools like the PageSpeed Insights and Google Lighthouse. They also help you know the factors slowing your loading speed.

To create quick loading pages that will keep traffic flowing in, you can use AMP. By increasing internet speed, you can increase user-friendliness and trigger more retention.

Final Remarks,

So far, these are some of the key metrics you shouldn’t ignore this year and beyond if; increasing traffic, recording higher conversion rates, and generating more revenue are some of your goals.  Still, I can’t stress enough the importance of mobile ranking and mobile search and what they can do to your website. If you have been ignoring these two metrics, then you will soon find yourself dropping gradually in Google’s ranking.

Remember, the online market is full of upgrades and changes that may be detrimental to those who ignore, yet very profitable to savvy site owners who are quick to put in their time, effort and money to make them. The success process for websites is natural and continuous; you attract, convert and—if you are good enough—retain customers. And all these things are achievable only by meeting user demands. You get each process correct and everything else into place to form a popular, profitable website.