Website conversion rate optimization is often at the forefront of every developer's and designer's mind.
And yes, conversion rates do say a lot about your website. But there are also many other metrics to analyze and improve if you want your website to be successful in getting sales or promoting your business. Consider measuring these metrics to get a better idea of how visitors are actually using your website:
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Time spent on your website
If you're selling products on your site, or trying to give visitors information about your business and services, you probably want them to spend enough time on your site to really absorb and look through everything. There could be many reasons visitors don't spend much time on your pages, and they may still be clicking through things — and even ordering — without spending much time. But, especially when a website is fairly new, visitors sticking around longer will probably mean better conversion rates and actual purchases or sign-ups.
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Traffic sources
In terms of marketing, seeing where your traffic comes from can be a vital piece of information. Are visitors finding you through organic searches? Are they linking from social media? This can give you an idea of where to aim your SEO efforts, and where there may be room for improvement.
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Bounce rate
A bounce rate measures how many people exit your website immediately after opening it. This is good for getting a sense of how many people are immediately turned off by something on your site. It may offer insight into issues related to the actual layout and design of your landing page. Even if they found you through a search or link, they didn't bother to click on anything, and you need to find ways to keep them on your site longer.
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Click-through rates
Your conversion rate may tell you how many visitors do a certain thing on your site, such as make a purchase or sign up for a service or newsletter. But click-through rates can tell you how many people are clicking on certain things. Unlike a conversion rate, this could show you what parts of your website are heavily used. You may have a lot of visitors making purchases; are any of them reading your site's blog?
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Pages per visit
Similar to click-through rates, page per visits will tell you how many different pages on your site visitors click through each time they visit. If visitors are only going on your homepage, or only clicking on one other page, ask yourself how you can get them to look through your website more thoroughly.
