16 Website Metrics to Track for Growth in 2023 and Beyond

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Jamie Juviler
Jamie Juviler

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Website metrics tell the story of how visitors are engaging with your site. But there are so many different metrics it's tough to know where to start, and which metrics can help with growth.

website engagement metrics being analyzed by two people using a laptop in an office

Do you want to know how many visitors you get or where they’re coming from? Is it more important to know how users find your site or what makes them bounce to another page of search results?

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Keep reading to learn the key website engagement metrics for a successful website in 2023. Hear what metrics website owners are prioritizing for the upcoming year, how to analyze, track, and improve your metrics, and more.

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Ultimately, the goal of your site is to turn visitors into leads and leads into customers, but the journey there can be difficult to understand without hard data. Fortunately, website engagement metrics are here to clear things up.

With the help of an analytics tool like HubSpot or Google Analytics, you can use engagement metrics to see where your site is capturing attention, and where you can make some tweaks to increase engagement.

You might find that a page is formatted poorly or that your CTAs are underperforming. On the flip side, your engagement metrics may reveal that your marketing and content strategies are crushing it on every level. Either way, you won’t know until you lift the hood and see the data — let’s do that now.

With so many website-relevant metrics available, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, especially if you’re just beginning. So, here are just 16 simple but important engagement metrics to inform your web strategy.

1. Page Views

Page views measure the number of times a page on your website is seen by a visitor.

Each time a page on your website loads in a browser counts as one page view. So, if a visitor loads a page, then reloads the same page, this would count as two page views.

Learn more: How to analyze, track, and improve page views

2. Average Time on Page

Average time on page measures how long visitors spend on a web page on average.

Time on page can be an excellent indicator of how engaging and effective your content is — the longer you hold visitors on a page, the better. Longer time on page also suggests that you’re attracting quality visitors who value your information. At the same time, shorter times generally indicate less interest.

Learn more: Analyzing, tracking, and improving time on page

3. Average Session Duration

Average session duration measures how long visitors spend per session on average. A session is a group of interactions with your site within a set period, typically one to two hours.

A session can be roughly equated to one person’s visit to your website. This could mean that person is viewing a single page or that they're exploring more of your site.

Learn more: How to track and improve session duration

4. Pages per Session

Pages per session is a calculation of the average number of pages a user views each session.

While your average session duration might be high, ask yourself — how are visitors using this time? Do they stick to one or two pages, or do they explore further? Pages per Session can answer these questions.

Learn more: Tracking and improving pages per session

5. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who load one page on your website, then leave without interacting with the page or visiting any other pages. Instead, they "bounce" off of your website and go elsewhere.

Learn more: Analyzing, tracking, and improving bounce rates

6. Traffic Sources

Traffic sources measure where your website traffic is coming from.

While the amount and types of traffic sources vary by analytics tool, some common ones are:

  • Direct: These users arrive at your website through a browser bookmark or by entering the URL directly into the browser bar. This term can also be a catch-all term for traffic with an unknown source. Issues with cookies, source codes, and more can lead to traffic labeled as "Direct."
  • Organic search: These visitors arrived at your website through non-paid results on the search engine results page (SERP). Most likely, they found your site through Google Search.
  • Paid search: These visitors arrived by clicking ads on SERPs.
  • Referrals: Referral traffic comes to your website through links on an external website.
  • Email: This traffic comes from links included in your emails.

Learn more: How to analyze and track your traffic sources

7. Social Referrals

Social referrals are referral traffic that comes from paid or organic social media.

According to 2022 Visual Objects research, social media is the top digital marketing tool for 67% of small businesses.

Every traffic source is useful to track. But because social media is so central to small businesses, you may want to track social media referrals specifically, because it’s a website engagement metric that tracks an important segment of your buyer journey.

Learn more: Tracking and analyzing social referrals

8. New Visitor Sessions

New visitor sessions measures the number of times a new unique user visits your site during a specific timeframe. If a user initiates more than one session during that time, they’re still counted as the same visitor.

Unique vs. New Visitors

A unique visitor is a person who visits a website one or more times but is only tracked once during a reporting period. This website metric shows how many total users visit your site during a specific period.

Important note: HubSpot doesn’t track unique visitors because this metric is based on user behavior and isn’t always reliable. A user may clear their cookies, use a different browser, or block cookies. Because their page views are still tracked, these actions will count toward multiple unique visitors for the same unique visitor. Read more here.

Learn more: How to track new visitors

9. Returning Visitor Sessions

Returning (or repeat) visitors are users who visit your site more than once during a specific time frame.

Learn more: Analyzing and tracking return visitors

10. Device Type

Device Type measures the types of devices users visit your website with during a set period of time. This metric usually includes:

  • Device types (such as macOS mobile or Android tablet)
  • Number of visitors
  • Percentage of visitors per device

Learn more: How to analyze and track device type

11. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate (also called CVR) is the number of visitors who convert on your website. A conversion could be a completed web form, content downloads, trial sign-ups, or completed purchases.

Learn more: Analyzing and tracking conversions

12. Exit Rate

Exit rate is the average percentage of website visitors who exit from pages on your site.

Since no one stays online forever, every page will have an exit rate, but a 100% exit rate can mean that you have performance issues on your site.

Learn more: How to track and analyze exit rates

13. Top Pages

Top pages are the highest-value pages on your site. This term often refers to website pages with the most page views or conversions.

The top pages metric can help you quickly understand which pages have the greatest impact on your site and guide your strategy for updates and changes.

Learn more: How to track and analyze top pages on your website

14. Top Exit Pages

An exit page is the last page a visitor sees before leaving your site.

Some exit pages are natural drop-off points, but top exit page metrics can also reveal a need for site updates to create a better user experience.

Learn more: Analyzing, tracking, and improving exit pages

15. Revenue Attribution

Revenue attribution tracks site visitors from when they first land on a website to the point of purchase.

It tracks marketing, sales, and other activities until that user generates revenue. It also tracks how much income that user produces.

Revenue attribution is a great complement to conversion tracking. While conversion metrics track individual actions, like clicking on a CTA, revenue attribution follows visitors through the full buyer journey.

Learn more: Tracking and analyzing revenue attribution

16. Event Tracking

Events are actions that users take on your site, like downloading a resource, clicking a link, submitting a form, and playing a video.

Event tracking measures specific events — the unique actions you want visitors to take on your site.

Event tracking is important because each business has unique needs. While there are website engagement metrics that every website can use, there’s no "one" most important metric. Event tracking metrics can help you focus on the specific website actions that drive your business growth.

Learn more: Analyzing and tracking events

How Website Metrics Can Help You Grow Your Website [New Data]

Some businesses aren’t sure where to start with website goals. For example, you might want to reach 150,000 unique visitors for your website’s first year. But HubSpot research says that only 15% of websites have an average of 100,000+ unique visitors per month. Website engagement metrics graphic: Average unique visitors

So, how can you use website metrics to grow your site and business? Website engagement metrics don't just measure site performance. They're valuable resources for user experience, content optimization, and strategy.

Website metrics can help you:

  • Troubleshoot your customer experience
  • Highlight and address pain points
  • Focus on your best content

Metrics also offer useful benchmarks to compare your site performance with others in your industry.

For example, 46% of businesses surveyed in 2022 saw monthly site traffic between 1,001 and 15K. 2023 HubSpot research says that almost 50% of websites get 4-6 page views per visit. And almost 2/3 of websites have an average bounce rate below 40%.

Choosing the best website metrics for your goals is also important. The chart below shows the metrics that web analysts feel are most important in 2022:

Website engagement metrics graphic: Most important metrics

Metrics can help you create more targeted content, improve SEO visibility, and connect with top referrals. This data can help your business build productive partnerships. It can improve sales and help you find more opportunities for growth.

How to Track Your Website Metrics

For each key website metric, this section gives you the process for analyzing and tracking it in HubSpot. It also offers tips and resources for improving your results.

Before digging into the metrics you plan to measure, figure out the top questions you want to answer about your website.

  • Are you hoping to improve traffic or conversions?
  • Are you more interested in returning visitors or the newest members of your audience?
  • Do you want to make improvements or focus on growth?

Quickly tap into the questions your metrics need to answer. This can help you decide which metrics to prioritize as you begin the process of tracking engagement.

1. Page Views

How to Analyze Page Views

A steady upward trend of page views usually means successful SEO, marketing, and brand awareness efforts. Page views can tell you generally how popular your site’s pages are and how much traffic your site is receiving as a whole. That said, they’re not useful without other metrics to give more context.

High page views could result from a thriving ad campaign or SEO initiative, but it could indicate something negative. For example, users might be frequently reloading your pages — a sign of performance issues. Or they might be wandering around your site without a clear goal — a possible sign of poor navigation or site structure.

And a lower page view count isn’t necessarily bad. If you want users to follow a specific path, fewer page views could mean they’re converting efficiently without loading many pages.

Context is key when looking at raw page views. That’s why, while a good place to start, page views shouldn’t be the only metric you take into account.

How to Track Page Views

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics. You can adjust the date range and frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly) at the top of this page.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Select Page Views from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: page views chart over one month in HubSpot dashboard

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Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Views. The total will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Total.

website metrics: total page views tracked in HubSpot

How to Improve Page Views

There are many ways that you can improve page views. Some solid strategies include:

  • Promoting related content in the sidebar
  • Adding internal links
  • Writing eye-catching headlines
  • Improved site navigation
  • Increasing post frequency

More resources for increasing page views:

2. Average Time on Page

How to Analyze Average Time on Page

Contentsquare's 2022 Digital Experience Benchmark report says that the average time on page is 54 seconds. While that's a good benchmark, meeting that standard doesn't mean your average time on page is ideal.

Like page views, average time on page is also contextual. Ideally, you want visitors to spend more time on your product pages and blog posts. To increase the time users spend on these pages, you can add more relevant content to them. Making your content easy to read and understand and capturing your target audience are other top strategies.

But on landing pages, higher time on page could hint that there are barriers to conversion. For instance, content and CTAs could be confusing. See our guide to landing page design for pointers on improving this part of your site.

How to Track Average Time on Page

To track average time on page for your website overall, follow the steps below:

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Select Time on page from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: time on page tracked over year in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart for a column view of your data. If you’re viewing this information for the first time, you may need to click Edit Columns to add Time on Page to your results. The average will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

 

Website engagement metrics example: Time on page columns, HubSpot

To track average time on page for individual page or post, follow the steps below:

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Marketing > Website > Website Pages or Blog.
  3. Click on a post page or post.
  4. Scroll to the box labeled Page metrics to see the Time Per Page View.
website metrics: average time on page for individual blog post tracked in HubSpot

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How to Improve Average Time on Page

Improving average time on page is all about giving visitors a reason to stay longer. If you create a great experience, visitors are likely to spend more time on your website. You can help persuade readers to stay by:

  • Meeting search intent
  • Embedding multimedia content
  • Optimizing page load times
  • Creating unique content
  • Offering value to users as they exit

3. Average Session Duration

How to Analyze Average Session Duration

Like average time on page, average session duration measures how long users usually spend on your website. It’s calculated by dividing the number of sessions over a set period of time by the total amount of time all users have spent on your site in that period.

Website metrics formula: Average session duration

Since users who spend more time on your website are more likely to convert, you want to focus on increasing this metric.

Session durations can also offer a clearer picture of your audience engagement. This is because a session describes the complete experience on your website, not just a page-by-page analysis.

How to Track Average Session Duration

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources, Topic clusters, UTM Parameters, Device types, Countries, or Browsers tab.
  5. Select Avg. session length from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: average session length tracked over multiple years in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Avg. Session Length. The average will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: average session length tracked by device in HubSpot

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How to Improve Average Session Duration

Improving your navigation, content, and visual design can promote longer sessions. Meeting search intent is also essential for longer sessions and time on page.

HubSpot customers: You can improve your pages for search intent using HubSpot's built-in SEO tools.

4. Pages per Session

How to Analyze Pages per Session

The pages per session metric shows that visitors want to explore your content. It can also show you which users are most likely to convert. You can also use this metric to follow visitors’ conversion paths. Use this metric to learn where visitors land on your site, and what pages lead them to the exit page (more on that later).

But lower pages per session isn’t always a bad sign. For instance, blogs with lengthy articles should expect fewer pages loaded per session. For long-form content, session duration and time on page might be more useful metrics.

How to Track Pages Per Session

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources, Topic clusters, UTM Parameters, Device types, Countries, or Browsers tab.
  5. Select Page views / session from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: page views per session tracked over years in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Page Views / Session. The average will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: page views per session tracked by traffic channel in HubSpot

How to Improve Pages Per Session

If your Pages per Session count is low, add more prompts to explore your website. This can help users move from highly trafficked pages to other parts of your site to boost this metric.

Some useful prompts you can add include:

  • Offers
  • Related posts recommendations
  • Inline links to product pages

5. Bounce Rate

How to Analyze Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate means your website is performing poorly. There could be several reasons for this:

  • Navigation may be confusing
  • Content doesn’t match visitor intent
  • CTAs are not obvious (or way too obvious)
  • Something may be broken on your site

In a survey by Top Design Firms, 42% of consumers said they will leave a website because of poor functionality. High bounce rates can also mean that your site doesn’t offer enough content-wise or design-wise to hold attention.

If your site is experiencing a high bounce rate, home in on the individual pages with the highest bounce rates. Then, compare them to pages with lower bounce rates. This is a good way to see what’s working with your visitors, and what you can improve or remove.

How to Track Bounce Rate

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources, Topic clusters, UTM Parameters, Device types, Countries, or Browsers tab.
  5. Select Bounce rate from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: bounce rate tracked over time in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Bounce Rate. The average will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: average bounce rate of website pages tracked in HubSpot

How to Improve Bounce Rate

Reducing bounce rate means that you need to analyze what causes visitors to bounce. Then, next steps might include:

  • Setting external links to open in new tabs
  • Improving page load time
  • Optimizing meta descriptions

For a more in-depth look at best practices, check out this guide to reducing bounce rate for any platform. Check out more tips here if your site is on WordPress.

6. Traffic Sources

How to Analyze Traffic Sources

Every business has a different strategy to draw visitors, and this includes traffic sources. It’s useful to see how your traffic sources change over time. For most businesses, organic search traffic is the largest traffic source. So, improving it can also boost other sources like email and referrals.

Also, consider which traffic sources convert best. According to research by FirstPageSage, organic and email traffic sources have the highest average conversion rates. Organic has a 2.6% conversion rate and email has a 2.4% for B2B businesses. If this is true of your business as well, then focus on increasing organic and email traffic.

Phil Vallender, Director at Blend Marketing and HubSpot Elite partner, notes how traffic sources pair with other metrics, like conversion.

He says, "I will always look at sessions, traffic sources, and conversion rates before anything else. When working to improve any of these metrics, many more engagement metrics become relevant and interesting, as they reveal where and how I can improve the customer experience."

How to Track Traffic Sources

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources tab.
  5. Select different metrics from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to compare multiple sources' data.
website metrics: sessions tracked by traffic sources in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart to see the raw metrics based on each source.

website metrics: sessions, conversion and bounce rate tracked by traffic sources in HubSpot

How to Improve Traffic Sources

Improving traffic sources depends on which sources you want to improve. If you want to improve direct traffic, check that any redirects are properly set up. If you want to improve email traffic, consider A/B testing.

For more best practices, check out our guide to diagnosing and fixing traffic drops.

7. Social Referrals

How to Analyze Social Referrals

Social referrals can come from paid or organic social media. It's a good idea to separate these two types of social media and to track social media links with UTM codes whenever possible.

HubSpot customers: HubSpot's social publishing tool automatically adds this tracking if there is a campaign associated with your post.

With consistent data, you can start measuring your social referrals. First, check how much traffic is coming from each referral source page. Next, check to see how these referred users engage with your websites. Then, track conversions and goal completions from these users.

This metric can help you see how your social media performance is impacting your website. It can also help you measure the user experience between your top channels.

Think about how your website and social media channels work as an ecosystem. Each social media channel is unique and satisfies different user needs. Your social referrals can show you which content is most interesting to these different segments of your audience.

How to Track Social Referrals

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources tab.
  5. Scan the chart to see how social referrals compare to other traffic sources for your website. You can also compare this data with historical data.
  6. Scroll down to the table below the chart to isolate organic or paid social metrics.

How to Improve Social Referrals

Use your analysis to create the best social media strategy for website referrals. Choose the right content for each platform and develop content that's relevant to each audience. You may also want to collaborate with partners and influencers on social media to increase your social referrals.

8. New Visitor Sessions

How to Analyze New Visitor Sessions

Like page views, look for a consistent upward trend in your new visitor sessions. It's also a good idea to track how this number changes after design changes, SEO updates, and marketing plays. A stagnant or decreasing number of new visitors is a sign that you might need to reassess your strategy.

How to Track New Visitor Sessions

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources, Topic clusters, UTM Parameters, Device types, Countries, or Browsers tab.
  5. Select New visitor sessions from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: New visitor sessions tracked over time in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled New Visitor Sessions. The total will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: total new visitor sessions tracked by traffic sources in HubSpot

How to Improve New Visitor Sessions

Increasing new visitor sessions means looking closely at your analytics. Instead of general solutions, look to your data to find solutions that draw targeted new users.

Ways to improve your new visitor numbers can include:

  • Design changes
  • SEO or marketing strategy updates
  • Generating more backlinks
  • Promoting highly targeted content on social media
  • Working with influencers to attract new audiences

Strategies for improving new visitors can also focus on strategy. For example, if your website doesn't include a blog, you may want to add a blog to your business website to boost unique visitor numbers.

More resources:

9. Returning Visitor Sessions

How to Analyze Repeat Visitors

Returning visitors to your website are important. This is because they can show you the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, branding, and content strategy

Return visitors can also give you insights into:

  • Your most loyal customers
  • The products your customers like best
  • Content that's most helpful

Segmenting your return visitors can be useful if you're still building buyer personas for your business. It can also help you get a clearer sense of your customers' top needs and pain points.

But if you're looking at website engagement metrics, it's also important to compare new and returning users. Comparing your new and repeat visitors gives you a sense of how "sticky" your website is. It helps you answer the question — do first-time visitors find enough value that they want to come back again?

It can be tricky to maintain an ideal ratio of repeat to new visitors. You want to balance a flow of net new visitors at the top of the funnel with a steady audience of returning users.

Aim for a repeat visitor rate of 10% (meaning one in 10 visitors is a repeat visitor) to 30%. Anything lower than 10% probably means your site lacks enough value to retain new visitors. Anything higher than 30% likely means you’re not bringing in enough fresh traffic to grow your base.

How to Track Repeat Visitors

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Sources, Topic clusters, UTM Parameters, Device types, Countries, or Browsers tab.
  5. Select New session % from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: new session percentage tracked over a year in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled New Session %. The average will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: average new session percentage per traffic source

How to Improve Ratio of Returning to New Visitors

If your ratio of repeat to new visitors is low on new traffic, you can focus on organic search optimization and campaigns for new visitors.

If you want to improve your returning visitor numbers, turn your attention to email and overall site quality. This gives a more positive first impression and encourages return visits. Strategic retargeting ads can help you target the best prospects in your returning user audience.

Suzanne Bull, Director of Content and Communications at Cambridge Education Group (Digital), said, "We’ve looked at improving pages with a high number of new visitors. By providing better links to more Top-of-the-Funnel content on these pages, we’ve seen an improvement in conversion rates.

Visitors can take a clearer journey through content they’ll value, building trust and keeping them engaged to the point that they inquire."

10. Device Type

How to Analyze Device Type

Device-type metrics can help you improve the customer experience for visitors. Whether they're using a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer, Mac or PC, this data can give you a clearer picture of your users' wants and needs.

Besides using this data to refine your buyer persona analyses, this information is essential for your website design. Responsive design principles can help you make your website look great on any device.

But the site design process includes many details and decisions. This means that some mobile users will see a hamburger menu instead of a button with your CTA. It may mean an infographic that fills the tablet screen instead of being quick and easy to scan on a desktop monitor.

Device types can impact conversion, buyer journey flow, and more. Besides tracking your most popular device types, be sure to check other metrics like bounce rate or CTA clicks. This comparison can help you see how device type is impacting your numbers.

How to Track Device Type

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Device types tab.
  5. Scroll down to the table below the chart to see more metrics by device type. You can also click into device type metrics to get operating system information and more.

Website engagement metrics example: Device and operating system, HubSpot

How to Improve Device Type

Mobile devices generated over 54% of global traffic online in 2021. Some websites or industry audiences might just convert better on a desktop. But device type can have a big impact on user experience. So, if you notice higher bounce rates or lower conversion, it's important to take action quickly and test your ideas.

Device type tracking can also help you measure what users are prioritizing at different points in the buyer journey. Try to analyze page-specific data to measure how top pages perform by device type.

Then, use this data to run testing for different UX and content changes. For example, if a blog post has higher numbers for desktop than mobile, you may want to test breaking the text into shorter sentences and paragraphs.

More resources:

11. Conversion Rate

How to Analyze Conversion Rate

Since you’ll probably have multiple points of conversion, you can compare CVRs across different CTAs and landing pages.

For underperforming CTAs, you may need to tailor the offer or placement to better align with the surrounding content. The conversion may also be too difficult or confusing, in which case you should remove friction for the visitor.

You can also break down conversion rate into different subtypes, including visitor-to-lead CVR, lead-to-customer CVR, and visitor-to-customer CVR — this detailed information gives more insight into where your funnel excels or needs improvement.

How to Track Conversion Rate

There are multiple ways to track conversion rates in HubSpot. Let's outline them all below.

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Select Page view to submission rate, Page view to contact rate, or Page view to customer rate, or CTA rate from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how it's changed over time.

website metrics: page view to submission rate tracked over year in HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart to see each of these metrics based on each page. The averages will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: average conversion rate subtypes for website pages in HubSpot dashboard

How to Improve Conversion Rate

There are many possibilities for a low CVR, which means there are dozens of ways to improve it.

Bull, for example, said that Cambridge Education Group (Digital) is focused on improving their visitor-to-lead CVR: "With HubSpot analytics, we’ve been able to identify pages where views are high but conversion is low and made significant improvements to rates by improving CTAs on the page. This has encompassed looking at the CTA design, position on page, and copy."

Wellers Partner Chris Thompson says his company is also focused on CVR. "More focus will shift to our conversion rate, specifically our visitor-to-lead conversion rates as well as our visitor-to-client conversions. We are going to bring on new personnel to help write conversion-based content related to our top-performing posts, and further design work around our calls to action."

For a better understanding of all the ways you can improve CVR on your site, check out our guide to conversion rate optimization.

12. Exit Rate

How to Analyze Exit Rate

According to HubSpot research, almost 67% of websites have an average bounce rate of 40% or less.

At the same time, only 11% of websites have an average bounce rate of 60% and above. So, if your overall website bounce rate is above 60%, you may want to do some troubleshooting. A bounce rate of 0% is also a concern, and if you see this on your site it might be a sign of technical issues.

To begin analyzing, separate your metrics by page type (such as landing pages, blog pages, etc.). This can give you an idea of whether your high or low bounce rates are coming from user behavior or site performance.

Next, look at the average bounce rates for each group to see where you might need to make site updates. A high bounce rate can mean UX issues on a blog page, but it could be the right rate for a landing page.

How to Track Exit Rate

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Select Exit rate from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how this metric changes over time.

Website engagement metrics example: Exit Rate, HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Exits Per Pageview. The total will be listed at the bottom in the row labeled Report Total.

website metrics: exits and exits per pageview tracked in HubSpot dashboard

How to Improve Exit Rate

You can try to prolong your visitors’ sessions as much as possible, but everyone has to leave your site at some point. Bounce rates are useful because they help you understand how visitors use and interact with your site.

So, spend some time tracking this data and you can use it to find problems you might not know that your users are having. Then you can improve your website experience and conversion funnel with this information.

13. Top Pages

How to Analyze Top Pages

Top pages are another metric that's useful for problem-solving. For example, say you're trying to figure out which blog posts are best for lead generation. If the top blog post for leads is the same as the top post for page views, you can logically assume that page views drive lead generation for that post.

But what if the second-to-the-top post for leads isn't in the top ten for page views? In that case, you might want to analyze the ratio of leads to page views to rank your top pages for leads. Then, you can analyze those pages for the strategies your audience is responding to.

It's also important to track whether top pages are relevant to your business niche and goals. While it's great to get high traffic on your website, if that traffic isn't converting, it's not contributing to business growth.

How to Track Top Pages

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics. Select the date range you want to analyze.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Scroll down to the table below the chart and scan the column for the category of top pages you want. You may also want to click Edit columns to select the types of data you want to compare for each page on the list.
  6. Click Export at the top, to the left of the Save Report button. Then, sort your spreadsheet to analyze your top posts.

How to Improve Top Pages

While tactics to improve page views, time on page, and other metrics can boost top pages, more advanced strategies can also help. For example, topic clusters and historic optimization are both approaches that HubSpot uses to improve top pages.

14. Top Exit Pages

How to Analyze Exit Pages

While exit rate is important, it's also a good idea to analyze top exit pages. This metric shows you the percentage of users who exit on this page during the session. So, your top exit pages can show you which pages quickly answer user queries. With a closer look, top exit pages can also highlight:

  • Broken links or formatting issues
  • Unmet user intent
  • Thin or irrelevant content
  • Site structure errors
  • Whether the page is performing as intended

How to Track Exit Pages

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Analytics Tools.
  3. Click Traffic Analytics.
  4. Select the Pages tab.
  5. Select Exits from the dropdown menu in the upper left of the chart to see how this metric changes over time.

Website engagement metrics example: Exit pages, HubSpot

Note: Scroll down to the table below the chart and find the column labeled Exits. You may also want to click Edit columns to select the types of data you want to compare for each page on the list. Then, click Export at the top, to the left of the Save Report button. You can sort your spreadsheet to analyze your top exit pages.

How to Improve Exit Pages

There are many strategies to make sure your top exit pages are performing the way that you want them to. Useful places to start include:

  • Finding the right placement for CTAs
  • Updating CTA messaging
  • Improving and optimizing content
  • Tracking page speed
  • Building buyer personas to meet user needs

You may also want to use a Website Grader or learn some technical SEO skills to quickly notice and fix minor site performance issues.

15. Revenue Attribution

How to Analyze Revenue Attribution

Since a customer can have hundreds of interactions with a brand before ever making a purchase, understanding the customer journey is difficult. That's where attribution modeling comes in.

Attribution modeling lets you measure what channels and assets are creating sales opportunities. This will offer hard evidence that your marketing team and organization as a whole needs to invest in and amplify similar resources in the future.

Christina Kay, Vice President of Marketing at ResellerRatings, also says that this type of attribution can help you think of the relationship among common website metrics and to your bottom line:

"Tracking and measuring revenue in particular will help you think of your funnel and give a full view of your website’s goals. That’s because using revenue as an engagement metric combines a lot of the metrics mentioned above."

For example, a dip in revenue may point to decreasing order value as a result of increased bounce rate and abandonment rate on a web page where lots of widgets, images, and videos have been added.

How to Track Revenue Attribution

To track attributed revenue for all asset types and channels on your site, follow the steps below:

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Reports > Reports.
  3. Click Create Report in the top right-hand corner.
  4. Under Create Reports from Scratch, select Attribution.
  5. Scroll down to Revenue, then select Which parts of web traffic are driving revenue over time?
  6. Click Next in the top right-hand corner.
  7. Customize your report with chart types, attribution models, campaigns, and more.

To track attributed revenue for an individual page or post, follow the steps below:

  1. Log into your HubSpot Account.
  2. Navigate to Marketing >Website > Website Pages or Marketing > Landing Pages or Marketing > Website > Blog.
  3. Click on a post page or post.
  4. Scroll to the box labeled Page metrics to see the Attributed Revenue.

website metrics: attributed revenue of individual blog post tracked in HubSpot

Image Source

How to Improve Revenue Attribution

Attribution reports help show which pages and channels drive the most conversions. This can help you optimize your budget and efforts.

To increase generated revenue, you can create more content related to topics or formats that have the highest attributed revenue. Other strategies are investing in channels with the highest attributed revenue or promoting and optimizing web pages that users view most before becoming a customer.

This post includes formulas that can help you calculate web traffic to increase revenue.

16. Event Tracking

How to Analyze Event Tracking

Event tracking can help you discover what people are interested in or ignoring on your site, where they're getting stuck or abandoning the customer journey, and what they want or care about that's persuading them to convert.

For example, you may identify a form where a large percentage of visitors abandon your site. Analyzing that form may reveal a broken link or another reason that's causing visitors to drop out of the funnel. You can fix this issue to increase conversions.

Matthew Wood, Head of Digital at Karman Digital and a HubSpot Diamond Partner, stressed the importance of this metric.

He said, "When we look at both new websites and the performance of our current clients’ websites one of our main focuses is behavior flow and events tracking. We want to know how the users are moving around the website, what are they clicking on, and where are they dropping off? Since we have spent time and money getting the user to the website, keeping them on it and getting them to the right pages is just as important."

How to Track Events

There are many ways to create custom events in HubSpot. This user guide to creating custom behavioral events has detailed instructions.

website metrics: event completions tracked over time in HubSpot

How to Improve Event Tracking

To increase event completions on your site, find problematic events and then investigate and remove any barriers that are preventing visitors from taking the intended action.

This HubSpot academy course will show you how to track behavioral events. This can help if you’re not sure how to track an event that’s unique to your business.

Are your visitors engaged?

Building a website is a challenge — getting people to your website is even tougher. After completing all that work, you’ll want to see something come out of it, namely conversions and sales.

Website engagement metrics will tell you how well you’re accomplishing this next step. These analytics are simple and actionable. They point you to where engagement issues might be so you can address them.

A web strategy isn’t much without engagement metrics. So, if you haven’t started crunching the numbers, now’s the time.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

analytics

Topics: Web Analytics

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