The 8 Most Important Conversion Rate Metrics You Should Be Tracking

The 8 Most Important Conversion Metrics You Should Be Tracking

There are thousands of conversion rate metrics you could track.

But which ones are really important? If your website isn’t hitting its goals, which ones should you pay attention to and work to improve?

The sheer number of metrics can be overwhelming, but in this piece, I’ll show you the eight most important conversion rate metrics. Measure and optimize for these, and you’ll start to see an uptick in how well your site does.

By the end of this article, you’ll know what to study, what to ignore, and how to improve your site’s conversion rates.

1. Traffic Sources

Surprised my first metric isn’t traffic?

Don’t be. Increasing traffic isn’t as important as a lot of people think when it comes to conversion rates metrics. What really matters isn’t how many people visit you, but how well those visitors help you achieve your goals.

And understanding where visitors are finding your site is key. There are three primary sources of traffic.

Direct visitors: These are visitors that come to your site by directly typing your URL in their browser address bar.
Search visitors: These site visitors find you through a search engine, usually Google.
Referral visitors: These visitors click through a link to your site from somewhere else, whether that’s another website, a social media page, or somewhere else.

Different types of traffic have different engagement levels. Since engagement is the #1 challenge for B2B marketers, it’s a good idea to track each traffic source individually and see which are doing best.

It is important to have a diverse number of sources for incoming traffic. If you’re getting all your visitors from one source, it can be risky.

For example, if all your traffic is coming from search and Google’s algorithm changes, you could lose all your traffic overnight. It’s best to keep your traffic diversified to protect yourself.

2. New Visitor Conversion Rate

The way a first-time visitor interacts with your site is very different from how a returning visitor interacts.

To improve first-time visitors conversions, you have to isolate this metric from the conversion rate metrics of your loyal or returning customers. See what they’re interested in when they visit the website for the first time and how you can improve that experience.

You only have a few seconds to grab the attention of a visitor, so take a hard look at your first impression and compare it to your competitors. What message are you communicating?

Think about what matters to you when you visit a site for the first time. Chances are, you’re looking for factors like usability (how well you can navigate it), clarity (understanding what the site’s all about), and value (finding the information you were looking for).

How can you make the first impression of your site clear, useful, and valuable?