As a marketer and a website owner, Google Analytics has to be one of my favourite tools. I can’t believe how much insight Google provides to website owners for free.

Now when you start delving into Google Analytics it can be overwhelming as there is so much information. So here are the top 7 metrics I think every website owner should be reviewing.

1 – Bounce Rate

All traffic isn’t created equally. When you first start reviewing your website metrics it is easy to get excited by the number of sessions (which represents the number of visits to your site). However, there are lots of people who may come to your site for the wrong reason and then they quickly leave. These visitors will be counted as a someone who has “bounced”. According to Google Analytics, the bounce rate shows you “The percentage of single-page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page”.  

As a website owner, you want people to be interacting with your page. Therefore, you want your bounce rate to be reducing over time.

2 – Session Duration

Sessions Duration shows you how long someone stays on your site in one session. In most cases the longer someone is on your site the better. This could mean that they are finding multiple pages valuable, are reading your blog or really considering purchasing something you offer.

3 – Channels

Channels will show you broadly how people got your site. There are 9 channel categories: Direct, Organic Search, Social, Email, Affiliates, Referral, Paid Search, Other Advertising and Display. Channels is a great way for you to quickly see what marketing and advertising channels are driving traffic to your site.

4 – Referrals

When a person comes from another website to your website the website url will show up in referrals. Checking your referrals will allow you to see who has linked to you (I have been surprised a number of time), but also if you are someone who is using guest blogging as your marketing strategy or paying for a listing on a website then it is a great way to monitor whether it is driving traffic or not.

5 – All Pages

Do you currently know what your most popular website page is? If not, then you can quickly find out by checking all pages. Knowing your most popular pages is important as a website owner. Firstly, do your most popular pages match where you are aiming to drive your traffic? Is there any way you can optimise your most popular pages to help achieve your overall aims of sales, joining your email list etc.

6 – Landing Pages

As a website owner, it is easy to become obsessed with making the perfect homepage, but many people will come to your site via different pages. Monitoring the pages that people land on it important so you can make sure that you are optimising those pages and also ensure that you are leading your customers in the direction you would like them to be.  

7 – Exit Pages

Monitoring the exit pages will allow you to see where you are losing your visitors. It may be you are losing them at a point that makes sense, however, if you are losing lots of people on an important page (like a sales page) then that is a sign that you need to be improving that page.

There you have it – The 7 Google Analytic metrics that every website owner should review.

There are so many amazing metrics in Google Analytics, but by monitoring those 7 metrics you will gain further insight into how your site is used and what is driving people to your traffic. This insight should help you improve your marketing strategy as well as optimise the customer journey through the site.

I hope you have found this post useful. I would love to know in the comments below what is your favourite metric to review in Google Analytics.