Running a website to keep it in the ranks can be tedious work. While utilizing the best tools to get you through so much data, you need to keep implementing the most efficient ways. When you’re running a business, you’re not just competing for recognition and profitability. It’s also to see who cares better about keeping the performance at the highest level in your company’s different areas.
Similarly, tracking website metrics should be a regular practice if you want to keep things running as smoothly as possible. At the same, website tracking includes being subjected to end-user laws, especially when gathering personal data to get insights on web traffic. You want to keep things clean to prevent Google from banning your website.
The Best Ways To Track Web Activity
Your website has many areas that you must track. These metrics make it easier for you by providing figures to make decisions based on what you see on various tools.
1. Monitor Traffic
Traffic pertains to the number of website visitors at a specific period. It also helps you identify where these visitors are from and how well your content, campaign, or ads are faring. Web traffic is the indicator if your website is growing in organic traffic, if visits are slowing down, or if nothing has changed.
Traffic results will tell you what course of action to take next. As an example, creating fresh, relevant content on personal finance may give you a spike, and linking to an unstable website may also cause your visitors to think hard. If website visits are weakening, you must look into other metrics influencing the decline. Using website visitor tracking tools can provide deeper insights into your visitors’ behaviour, helping you identify the pages they engage with most and areas needing improvement. A traffic checker tool will also help determine the number of unique visits you get and how well you’re able to pull new traffic into your website.
For the most part, website owners would want to see repeat visits increase. It’s a good sign that you’re building a following that will help support you and your website.
2. Track Backlinks
Link building is one of the best ways to improve traffic on your website. At the same time, when you’re linking to high authority sites, their traffic trickles to yours as well. However, it’s imperative to check backlinks for several reasons. For one, using a backlink tracking tool will help your website avoid getting a bad reputation which can lead to penalties. It could also get your website indexed if you’re adding low-quality links to your website. Checking your backlink will also help you detect negative SEO spamming methods pulled by competitors to get your website banned by Google.
3. Look Into Messy Coding
Those that make use of specific web functions for customer interactions may change suddenly. Unexpected events can jeopardize operations, resulting in a significant amount of downtime that can cost your business the sales conversions you need. It may also affect other areas of the site, such as memory and information processing. The infrastructure of your hardware will need some looking into immediately before your website breaks.
Coding must start clean, and simple, and keep the simplicity consistent for others who will also be working on them later. Clean codes make it easy for others to use various apps and tools because they’re easier to read. Visitors will always come back to a user-friendly website.
4. Tweak Page Content
Keywords rule the content of your website and you can track keyword difficulty when using an analytics tool. High-value keywords make the competition difficult, and many others will be competing for rankings by using them.
The trick is to choose keywords that have low competition but will be powerful for your site. Plan your keywords and keyword variations that people most likely search for. Remember to use relevant ones that are best for your brand.
You can also change the positioning of the most relevant parts of your content.
Many types of landing pages may influence the visitors to get to your website. If you’re managing an eCommerce website, you’d want your product pages to rank high at the search engine page results. The higher the rank, the more exposure, and the more chances of sales conversion. Often, what you place at the top part of the page influences the ranking.
There are two parts to a web page:
- Above the fold – the upper half of the page.
- Below the fold – the lower half of the page where visitors scroll down.
To put it simply, visitors pay the most attention to the upper part of the web page. Take the time to create content with the appropriate keywords from the title to the description and product highlights. Create simple and short direct-to-the-point descriptions. Use anchor texts to guide readers, and encourage them to go to the lower half of the page where the BUY button is usually placed.
5. Perform Loading Speed Tracking
One factor that can impact site visitors is how quickly it loads. The time it takes for users to access your website should take no more than three seconds. Any longer, and they will quickly change their minds to a competitor. Poor use of CSS and JavaScript, low-quality hosting, and stuffing widgets and plugins can impact websites’ loading speed.
To check for speed, you can use a reliable speed checker tool by simply entering your website’s URL to test every page. Get the data on load time and other supporting information on page size and requests.
You will want to utilize page speed optimization which is one of the basics of SEO. Using this loading technique will help save time by preventing images at the bottom half of the page from loading. Another way of checking for speed is to experience loading your website from different mobile devices to find out where it’s not loading at its best. It’ll help you target which to optimize.
6. Check Website Navigation
Navigational ease also accounts for the traffic your website receives and the following that sticks to it. Your visitors should be able to get the information they need in as little as three clicks. Users do not follow a specific route even while looking for what they need, which is why there should be nothing to hinder them from getting around.
Navigation is a major part of your site’s functionality. When it’s easier for users to find an online form, register for an account, or a newsletter, there’s a higher chance they’ll come back and buy a product from your shop.
When creating a menu of the site pages, use simple terminology and icons that are easy to understand. Limit the number of website menus to seven, and outline the order of the website navigation. It’s also important to test the navigation on mobile devices so that you can view it from another user’s perspective.
7. Auditing Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is another metric that you’ll need to assess in Google Analytics. A bounce is when the visitor lands on one of your pages and then leaves without going through the website. Website owners need visitors to explore the website more. If they don’t find the website interesting or engaging, chances are, they’ll quickly leave. The following rates will tell you what to look out for:
- Near-Perfect = 25% -30%
- Excellent = 26% – 40%
- Average = 41% – 55%
- Below Average = 56 – 70% (may not be alarming depending on the type of website)
- Very Low = over 70%
You can start auditing the bounce rate of your website by executing the following:
- Compare bounce rates at different periods.
- Use Google Analytics to compare the bounce rates to other websites.
- Analyze the bounce rate per page and then by channel to determine the type of content that influences the likelihood of bounce rates.
8. Watch Traffic Sources
Tracking your website performance also includes knowing how visitors are finding your website. It will give you an insight into which traffic type gives you the most visitors to form a strategy on how to duplicate the same positive results best. Again, this metric is found in Google Analytics.
As mentioned, there are different types of traffic:
- Organic Traffic – Traffic coming from search engines when users are searching for a particular subject. Google pulls out the websites with SEO-optimized pages and lists or ranks from top to bottom. It’s a primary source of traffic that brings more exposure to websites.
- Direct Traffic – This type of traffic strongly indicates a following because visitors who have taken a liking to a particular brand or business will find ways to come back. Traffic can come from the following:
- By typing the URL at the address bar.
- From clicking on links included in an email, SMS, or from within chat messages.
- Clicking on a site that you bookmarked.
- Social Traffic – Traffic coming from social media and the type that social media marketers use to bring traffic to a particular page or website. Social media networks where users typically flock are great traffic sources, depending on how shareable your content is.
- There are also a few ways to boost the traffic and social media reach of your website. You can republish your content as full articles and links to different third-party sites that have a significant amount of following. Sharing photos and images is also a great way to engage your audience that may be interested in viewing content coming from a separate website.
- Referral Traffic – Traffic that comes from viewing other websites. It could come from linking to other websites or by writing guest posts. When your websites are managed well, and websites start linking to yours, you may not have to depend on other traffic sources. Websites that keep linking to yours are also a strong indication of how your website is doing.
Utilizing all types of traffic sources gives your website more chances of exposure. You can explore various ways to strengthen and make each type of work better for your website.
In Conclusion
Website owners use metrics to track the performance of their websites. The data collection by Google Analytics helps with management, planning, and strategizing to improve figures. At the same time, users use the tool for cross-referencing to track areas influenced by another, like the number of traffic and where it is coming from. These common practices form the essential testing and monitoring processes when fine-tuning website rankings’ intricacies. While it may seem overwhelming, taking one step at a time is the best approach to tracking a growing website successfully.
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