3 KPIs You Need to Measure Every Month

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This old business adage is as true today as ever, but now far easier to put into practice. With a free tool like Google Analytics, you can determine the effectiveness of your website and online efforts through ongoing measurement of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
If you are new to web analytics and go into a tool like Google Analytics blind, you will likely be overwhelmed by the amount of data you encounter. For this reason, you need to start with three to five KPIs and measure these consistently (probably monthly).

The KPIs you ultimately choose to gauge your online projects should coincide with your business goals, but here are three essential KPIs that relate to practically every business and will give you a good head start on the analytics front:

1. New vs. Returning Visitors

According to your business goals, you either want to consistently bring in new visitors to your website or encourage people to keep coming back after their first visit (or a healthy mixture of the two).
The New vs. Returning Visitors report will show you the makeup of your website audience in regards to these goals.

Suppose your primary goal is returning visitors, and you see that most of your web traffic comprises new visitors. In that case, you know that you need to put some elements in place on your site to encourage people to keep coming back to the site. An enticing email signup offer so you can consistently push your message to their inbox and give them reasons to revisit your website.

2. Traffic Sources Organic Search

All marketers want to learn the actual intent of their customers, and that can be measured online by what search terms brought visitors to your website. The Organic Search report shows you what people actually typed into search engines to find and ultimately come to your website!
It is an essential and often surprising report, and you can find some great ideas for new content, blog posts, and maybe even products/services.

3. Top Landing and Exit Pages

Whatever page a visitor lands on first when they come to your site is called a landing page. The page from which they leave your site is called the exit page. Looking at the Top Landing and Exit Pages is extremely important in providing your visitors with the best user experience on your site. Perhaps one of your blog posts or product pages is a Top Landing Page – one that you wouldn’t have anticipated.
Your next question should be, “Is this page appealing, and does it drive customers to the next step I want them to take?” If the answer to this question is “no”, you may need to redesign the page to drive more actions from your site visitors.

In addition, learning which of your pages visitors exit from most frequently can lead to a redesign of those pages or a strategy to capture information before they altogether leave your site.

Begin your web analytics program with these three KPIs, as well as two to five more that fit your business goals. You will get incredible insights into your customers, what they want from you, and how you can better serve them through your online efforts. As always, to maximize your efforts, it’s a good idea to entrust your analytics to an expert.

Check out our Services page to learn more about how MyBizMarketer can use your monthly data to help you increase profits and grow your business as never before.