6 Website Metrics That Matter Most to the Success of Your Business

How do you know if your website is helping your business succeed?

Website metrics help us know how our website is contributing to the health and success of our business – and what to do if it’s not.

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First, know what website metrics to measure.

Tracking numbers that don’t matter is common, especially when it comes to knowing whether your website contributes to your bottom line.

Monitoring too few metrics causes blind spots, and watching too many parameters causes distraction, indecision, and numbers fatigue.

Fortunately, by the end of this article, you’ll know what numbers are most relevant to your business’s success and how to access these numbers daily.

Next, use services to measure your website metrics.

Services like Google Analytics offers a lot of information about site visitors. However, you may need to use other services like Quickbooks, Xero, Stripe, PayPal, Shopify, or WooCommerce to measure website metrics like leads, sales, and financial measurements.

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Finally, see your measurements in one place.

Having all your important website metrics in one place gives you the superpower of clarity with convenience. Clarity allows you to make better business decisions while convenience saves valuable time.

Perk Brands provides our clients with a marketing dashboard to do this. Clients see all of their marketing and website metrics in one place, along with updates in their inbox. If you’d like to have a marketing dashboard for your business, contact us. We’ll set it up for you.

Now let’s get into what website metrics matter most to the success of your business.

The Six Website Metrics That Matter Most to the Success of Your Business

Use the section buttons in this table of contents to get more information on each website metric, like what to measure and how to improve your measurements.

Sales

Website sales revenue is the money your website creates for your business.

Costs

Website costs are the money spent on the website, including marketing.

Profit

Website profit compares your website’s sales revenue with site costs.

Traffic

Website traffic measures the number of people that visit your website.

Leads

Website leads measures how many people sign up for something on your site.

Acquisition

Website acquisition is the cost to get a visitor to, or action on, your site.

1 Website Sales

Measuring website sales revenue allows you to see how much money your website is creating for your business.

There are four fundamental measurements related to website sales revenue:

  • Total Sales Revenue

    Example: The website created $10,000 in sales this month.

  • Number of Sales

    Example: The website had 1,000 sales this month.

  • Average Revenue per Sale

    Example: Each sale averaged $10 of gross revenue.

  • Average Cost Per Sale

    Example: The cost of each sale averaged $2.

Over time, these measurements highlight trends and sales cycles. When you see them change, it means something else has changed. It is a signal to check your website’s performance or research outside factors like competition or customer behavior.

Even if you don’t sell online, you can determine if your website contributes to offline sales through polls, surveys, and in-person conversation.

How to Improve Sales Revenue:

Increasing sales revenue generally involves the three-pronged approach of increasing sales, average revenue per transaction, and repeat sales. Promotional pricing, added salespeople, expanded digital marketing, and accurate measurements are all methods to increase sales revenue.

Perk Brands helps small businesses increase sales with digital marketing and accurate and accessible website metrics. Let us help your business with marketing and metrics too. Schedule a call. When we meet, we’ll show you at least one new way to increase sales.

2 Website Costs

Website costs tally all of the expenses required to operate your website.

If your business only sells on your website, this number is easy to calculate. If you sell through multiple channels, it can be a little more challenging to figure out

When calculating website operating costs, be sure to consider these expenses:

  • Operational Costs

    Web hosting, management, & maintenance fees.

  • Creative Costs

    Design, images, copywriting, and ongoing content development.

  • Digital Marketing & SEO Costs

    Fees paid to improve visibility, traffic, leads, and sales.

  • Support Costs

    Website maintenance and customer service expenses

  • Product/Service Costs

    Your costs, plus merchant and delivery costs.

How to Improve Website Costs:

To improve website costs, in this case, means decreasing your website operating expenses. Some ways to spend less money on your site include reducing your hosting costs, automating portions of your digital marketing and support costs, and looking for ways to lower your service or product overhead. When reviewing these expenses, consider the impact on your customer. For example, if your website loads slower, or customer service is no longer available, that will impact sales.

Perk Brands offer enterprise-level web hosting and security at prices that small businesses can afford. If you’re paying to much for web hosting, contact us to see how we compare.

3 Website Profit

Website profit compares your website’s sales revenue with site costs.

Website Sales – Website Costs = Website Profit

Website profit is similar to calculating net profit. Net profit is the remainder of business income you can pay yourself and shareholders. Website profit is the remainder of website income that your business has available to use.

Knowing your website’s net profit shows you whether your site is helping with your business’s sustainability and shows you if shareholder compensation and website operating expenses are sustainable. If the sum of your costs is consistently higher than sales revenue, your website isn’t helping your business, and something needs to change.

You can also convert this number into a percentage or margin. Doing so allows you to see profit trends over time. The formula for calculating profit margin is:

Step 1: Website Sales – Website Costs = Website Margin
Step 2: Website Margin/Website Sales * 100 = Website Profit Margin

Here’s an example:

10,000 Website Sales – 6,000 Website Costs = 4,000 Website Margin
4,000 Website Margin/10,000 Website Sales * 100 = 40% Website Profit Margin

How to Improve Website Proft Margin:

Increasing revenue or reducing costs (or both) increase net profit margin. One option to explore is increasing the price of your products and services. Another option is to review and lower the costs of your website, marketing, and support expenses. Both options require research and thought, but we can help you find ways to do this without sacrificing the quality of service to your customer.

Being able to see your sales, costs, and profit together in one place will change how you run your business. It allows you to make better business decisions with less work. Get your marketing dashboard set up.

4 Website Traffic

Website traffic measures the number of people that visit your website.

The number of people visiting your website is an early indicator of potential website leads and sales, making it possible to forecast leads and sales after establishing enough historical data.

There are four key metrics related to measuring website traffic. These are:

  • Total Traffic

    The total number of people who visited your website.

  • Paid Traffic

    The number of people who visited your site through a paid channel, like from an ad.

  • Non-Paid Traffic (Organic)

    The number of people who visited your site through a no-cost channel, like a search results page.

  • Returning Visitors vs. New Visitors

    The number of visitors who have been to your site previously compared to first-time website visitors.

How to Improve Website Traffic:

Increasing website traffic requires increasing visibility to people who may be interested in the content, services, or products on your website. Some faster methods of increasing visibility are by paying for search, social, or display ads that link to your site and increasing the number of social posts that link to your website. Some longer-term strategies include making your website more search engine friendly (the industry term is SEO or search engine optimization) and by increasing the quantity and quality of content on your website.

Perk Brands help our clients increase website traffic using all the methods above and more. If this all seems overwhelming to you, schedule a call with us, and we will lay out a plan to increase your website traffic.

5 Website Leads

Website leads measure the number of people that offered their contact information in exchange for something of value to them.

Monitoring the number of leads your website produces helps forecast website sales. Leads are generally people who have an interest in your content, services, or products but aren’t ready to commit to spending money. This stage is a natural part of building a relationship. Very few people that visit your site will purchase on the first visit, but when nurtured well, many leads will eventually buy from you.

What to measure:

  • Total Leads

    The total number of leads your website forms create.

  • Number of Leads By Form

    The number of leads created by each form on your website.

  • Traffic vs. Leads

    The number of people who visit your site compared to those that become a lead.

  • Sales vs. Leads

    The number of people who purchase on your site compared to those who become a lead.

How to Improve Website Leads:

Increasing leads on your website requires having a lead generator. A lead generator is a non-monetary exchange between you and your site visitor. Lead generators require awareness (website traffic) and value (something your visitor wants or needs). The more value you provide, and the more traffic you create, the more leads you will generate.

Perk Brands help our clients improve the number of leads their websites create by following a proven method that fills the gap between information your visitors want and information available on your site. If you’d like more leads from your website, schedule a call with us.

6 Website Acquisition

Website acquisition costs calculate how much money you are spending to get a person to visit or take a specific action on your website.

Four acquisition metrics to measure are:

  • Cost per Visit

    The cost to acquire each website visit.

  • Cost Per Lead

    The cost to acquire each website lead.

  • Cost Per Sale

    The cost to acquire each website sale.

  • Lead to Customer Ratio

    The number of leads for each sale made.

The cost of acquiring a visitor, a lead, and a sale give you insight on whether you’re over, under, or accurately spending to attract customers. If the cost to get a person to take a specific action costs more then the value of that action, adjustments need to be made.

Calculating acquisition costs are the sum of all expenses required to create an action, divided by the number of people who acted. For example:

$500 Spent/1,000 Visitors = $0.50 Cost Per Visitor

How to Improve Website Acquisition Costs:

Lowering your website acquisition costs is accomplished by spending less and increasing action. Increasing action requires understanding your audience’s behavior. Analytic tools, heatmaps, and other visitor monitoring services on your website show you how visitors are interacting with your website – and provide great insight into how you can improve your site to increase action.

Perk Brands helps our clients use tools and services that help understand what visitors are doing on their sites and how to improve their experience. Improving a visitor’s experience leads to higher engagement and lower acquisition costs. Schedule a call with us to see how we can lower your website acquisition costs.

Having your website metrics in one place helps you make better business decisions.

Stop wondering if your website is contributing to the success of your business. Bring all your sales, marketing, and website metrics into one place with a marketing dashboard so you know for sure.

Get Metrics, an online marketing dashboard and mobile app, to see your business, sales, and marketing metrics in one place. Select a Metrics plan that works for you, then set it up on your own or let us take care of setting it up for you.

You’ll have the measurements that count at your fingertips and in your email, so you can make business and marketing decisions with clarity and confidence.

Questions?

Call now or schedule a call – no charge. We’d enjoy hearing more about your business and answering your questions. Let’s talk about how a marketing dashboard can make business decisions easier and your business more successful.

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Perk Brands is a website, SEO, and digital marketing agency in Birmingham, Alabama. We help businesses create revenue by focusing on their mission, message, marketing, and metrics.

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