SMB Marketing Challenge: Understanding Website Vital Signs

While working with a new client this past week, I did a routine examination of their website’s Google Analytics. We were looking to understand how to improve monthly lead production. A number of underlying factors contribute to this common complaint, so we decided to get a baseline of just how healthy their website was performing.

A simple exercise anyone can perform is to check your website’s vital signs – the key metrics that reveal healthy and unhealthy performance levels. Here’s what I found out about the health of this client’s website.

Healthy Vital Signs

• Traffic grew by 25% on a 30-day comparison – that’s a sign of steady growth
• Organic traffic is a healthy 30% of total traffic (369 of 1236) and grew by 32%
• They surpassed 1,000 visitors – a good start that will steadily increase over time
• 42% of traffic is “Direct” – click-thru traffic from some effective email campaigns

Unhealthy Vital Signs

• The number of pages/session is below 2 (home page plus occasional 2^nd page)
• Average session duration is well under 1 minute (weak user engagement)
• Their bounce rate is high at 76% (this should be down around 50% or less)
• The number of return visitors is only 10% (this should be a ratio of 25% to 30%)

Here is a screenshot of a 30-day analytics comparison:

The Diagnosis

Their SEO work is driving a strong level of organic traffic to the site. However, there are only one or two high ranking keywords and they drive traffic strictly to the home page. When visitors arrive, the content on the home page is not engaging them. Occasionally, they view one additional page or simply click-away after viewing just a single page (this is a bounce).

The low number of return visitors supports the diagnosis. There is little compelling content to bring visitors back to the site and encourage them to continue their journey. This client appears to have solved the first challenge of inbound marketing. They are beginning to get found. However, their site is failing to convert their traffic into a healthy volume of quality leads to drive future sales.

The Prognosis

An understanding of website vital signs will lead to actionable insights and ideas. They tell you what’s working and what’s not working. In this case, I advised my client of two great opportunities for improving their website lead production.

1. Bring more qualified traffic to the site by adding new SEO terms on pages with rich content to improve user engagement (i.e., pages/session and session duration). Develop a content strategy based on the target buyer persona and appeal to his/her pain points.

Then educate the buyer with content that describes the business value of solutions. A quick content audit revealed gaps in content targeting various stages of the customer journey. By themselves, product and service descriptions will not drive engagement and lead conversion.

2. Increase the lead conversion rate with a low barrier Call-To-Action (CTA) or two. Some possibilities for early-stage content offers include a newsletter subscription, a gated eBook, an online assessment, or an interactive calculator.

Cross-link interior pages and posts to encourage more page views while directing visitors to conversion points with CTAs. Relying on a ubiquitous “contact us” or “request a quote” conversion form will not work for early-stage buyers.

Performing a Website Health Check

You can perform your own website health check by diving into Google Analytics and looking for symptoms of unhealthy performance. Just be careful as you can easily get lost in the weeds. You may overlook some obvious clues for quick performance improvements.

One easy way to get started is with this website performance calculator. It allows you to quickly estimate your traffic volume, lead conversion rate and the dollar value of your website’s pipeline contribution.

Another way is to request a 30-minute website health check. This focused session will drill down to the most important vital signs and provide actionable information for optimizing website performance.

There are also numerous information sources on the web that help to get a basic understanding of Google Analytics. It’s a powerful tool for measuring, monitoring and managing the health of your website. And your website is the cornerstone of your digital business.