Visits aren’t everything…

It seems all too often that we hear from companies that are confused by their site metrics. What tends to be a common problem is that the site visits are very high but the resulting revenue generated from the Web site is minimal, or at least, less than inspiring. What can exacerbate this issue is the sheer size of investments on Pay-per-click ads (Adwords) or other significant traffic generating tactics in which companies tend to engage.

The unfortunate issue underlying these problems is a common misconception – that site visits and high traffic volumes will automatically equal success. The truth is, without a reason to stay and browse a Web site, all the traffic in the world may not necessarily generate any revenue at all. And, when you take account of the budgets being spent on attracting traffic you find a serious disconnect between the overall investment and the resulting return. 

While it’s true that high site traffic is a plus, it certainly isn’t everything. What tends to get overlooked when companies investigate their metrics are the bounce rate, time on site, and average pages per visit. These metrics tend to indicate an overall engagement on the site, and if these numbers are poor it means that nobody is staying on the site long enough to convert. 

To better illustrate, imagine a Web site that gets (for example) 2,500 visits per month. Now, if the bounce rate is high (anything over 40% is cause for concern – over 50% is a serious issue) then of that 2,500 possible visits there could conceivably be only half of those visitors staying on the site. Imagine then that those 1,250 visitors are only looking at 1 or 2 pages per visit and spending less than 2 or 3 minutes on the site. What you’d likely find is that even with those 1,200+ visitors staying on the site, they’re still not finding what they’re looking for and they simply exit – a situation that results in very few online conversions. 

Now, imagine that you’re the owner of this Web site and you’re spending a modest budget on Adwords each month. It’s not unheard of for companies to be spending in the 10s of thousands on Adwords, but let’s just wave a magic wand and pretend that this company is only spending a few thousand each month. If the spend was, say $5,000, and the bounce rate was 50% or higher, this company would have simply wasted $2,500 on useless traffic. Now, for some companies, maybe a waste of $2,500 is no big deal, but for most, we’d imagine that this would raise eyebrows. Now, whether that investment is $2,500 a month, or even $25,000, the lesson to take from this example is that no matter the dollar value, it can ultimately be squandered business capital if there isn’t even a chance of a return. 

So then, what is a company to do? How do you ensure that the monthly spend isn’t going down the drain? 

The answer to this question can take many and various forms. In the realm of Web and online marketing, there seems to be an unending menu of possible solutions. The first thing that a company can do is to start gauging more metrics than just visits. The aforementioned bounce rates, time on site and pages per visit are key statistics that will easily indicate whether marketing dollars are being spent wisely or wastefully. If your bounce rate is high, while the pages per visit and time on site are low, it may be a good idea to investigate different avenues and tactics. Perhaps a company needs to simply take a closer look at appropriate keyword terms and phrases, or maybe there is a significant need to revisit the Web site messaging, layout and presentation. 

Whichever the case, don’t let your marketing dollars simply vanish into thin air. Just imagine the returns you could see by simply retaining 50% more traffic on your site. Keeping an eye on more than just site visits when you look at the Google Analytics dashboard is the first step to identifying possible weaknesses, and will likely save your company money in the long run.