How can you tell if all your SEO efforts are paying off after months of work and execution? One effective way is to keep an eye on your website statistics.

It’s important to keep track of your website analytics to evaluate its overall performance to determine if your strategies are working out for you or not.

Here are our top five website statistics you should evaluate on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Traffic Sources/Acquisition

As the name suggests, this particular statistic plays a key role in identifying the source from where your visitors come from. Your users can come from a variety of different sources be it any search engine like Google or Bing, or any social media channel like Facebook or LinkedIn.

The goal is to figure out where your visitors are coming from since they would generally fall into one of three categories: organic search, referrals, or social media. There is no specific breakdown for how many users should come from each source as it will depend on the type of marketing you’re doing. If you are running an intense SEO campaign, for example, it would be ideal if over 50% of traffic was coming from organic search.

Bounce Rate

This is the percentage of people who leave your site after only viewing one page. A high bounce rate could mean that your content isn’t relevant to what people are looking for, or it could be a sign that your site needs some work in the design department.

The marine industry is very competitive, so we suggest you keep your product or service page straight to the point. For example, if you are a boat rental you might want to ask yourself: is all the necessary information (boat specs, daily/hourly rates, pictures, etc.) for all your listed boats displayed clearly? Can users easily contact you? Do you have a call to action button? Asking yourself such questions can most likely help you figure out ways to reduce your website’s bounce rate.

Pageviews

This measures how many pages people view during their visit to your site. This can mean that the users are viewing multiple pages on your site or have reloaded the same page multiple times. In both cases, it will display under page views.

A low number of page views may indicate that your material needs to be improved or that your site is difficult to access. If it’s the latter, consider simplifying your navigation menu and making it more user-friendly. If you have a lot of content, you might also want to think about ways to categorize it so that people can easily find what they’re looking for.

Average Session Duration

This measures how long users spend on your site during a single session. The average time on a page for all sectors, according to the 2021 Digital Experience Benchmark survey conducted by Contentsquare, is 54 seconds. While meeting it does not always imply that your average time on a page is good, you may use that as a baseline.

The average time on a page is dependent on the service or product you are providing, so you can define your session benchmark on a case-by-case basis. For example, if you operate a yacht charter company, it’s reasonable to expect that it takes between 5 and 15 minutes for your clients to make their selection and book a reservation. As a result, we advise that you keep the benchmark duration to 5 minutes or less.

Conversation Rate

This is the number of people who take the desired action on your site, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. A low conversion rate could mean that your site isn’t designed well or that your content isn’t relevant to what people are looking for.

If you’re not sure how to improve your conversion rate, we suggest starting with a simple A/B test. This is where you create two versions of a page on your site and then track which version performs better. Based on the results of your test, you can then make changes to improve your conversion rate.

Help Improve Your Website Performance

Measuring your website’s performance is essential to determine whether your marine marketing strategies are working or not. By evaluating the key metrics we’ve outlined above, you can get a better sense of how well your site is doing and what needs to be improved.

If you need help improving your website’s performance, we’re here to help. Contact us today to learn more about our marine marketing services.