Website analytics is the process of analysing the behaviour of visitors to a website and is a great tool to help you improve a website.
It is also a complex tool that can often be misused or misinterpreted however when used correctly it can inform changes that can transform the user experience.
Let’s go through some misconceptions we often hear when it comes to website analytics.
1. Everyone lands on our homepage first
The homepage of your website is very important, as it serves as the central hub of your site and showcases everything that you do.
However, user behaviour shows that people search for the information they want through a search engine, and then access your site on the webpage with the specific information they are looking for. This is not always the homepage.
Out of the ten highest-traffic websites in UL, only one has its homepage as the top landing page.
While your homepage is important, it is equally important to identify where users are arriving at your website. If you know this then you can focus on those pages for optimisation.
2. A high bounce rate is bad
A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a webpage and leave the site without visiting another page on the site.
Context is very important when looking at bounce rates. Depending on the goal of the page, you should be looking to generate a high or low bounce rate.
If a web page is designed to help users navigate to different parts of the website, then you would be hoping for a low bounce rate. This would show that users are clicking on links on the page. An example of this would be a page showing the courses on offer.
If a web page is designed to inform users of something specific, then a higher bounce rate isn’t a bad thing. A high bounce rate would indicate that the user is finding the information they want and leaving the website. An example of this would be a course page.
3. People should be spending a long time on our website.
Our websites should be tailored to help users move through them seamlessly, finding the information they need in the place and format they expect to find it.
If you see that people are spending a long time on a webpage does that mean that they are engaged, and it is doing its job? Here again, context is important.
If the webpage is informative and requires a lot of reading, then of course the longer they are on the page the better. However, if a page that is used to guide a user has a long dwell time, then maybe the user is lost and cannot figure out what to do next. This can often lead to a poor user experience (UX) which will directly affect how your website performs on Google searches.