A thorough reassessment of your e-marketing actions is the starting point to ensure the success of your website. To know how to direct your actions, here is a list of 8 questions you can ask yourself to evaluate your website's performance.
The advantage of a website is that it is not static. You can assess its performance and then take action to improve it.
Note: If you have real objectives for your website, it is important that you are able to answer each of these questions, as they are fundamental metrics that form the essential basis for marketing action.
How many leads or sales has your site generated?
This is usually the number one goal! In a professional context, the mission of a website is often commercial. It should gather leads and generate sales. This is the key to its return on investment.
You can go further by distinguishing between direct sales (sales that occurred on the site) and indirect sales (a sale that did not happen via the site but where the site played a crucial role).
Has your site's bounce rate decreased?
A true indicator of the quality of your content, the bounce rate lets you know if visitors find what they are looking for when they arrive on your site. On a professional site, a good bounce rate is below 50%. Beyond 70%, it needs improvement.
You will see that the bounce rate varies according to the pages and their functions. For example, it is logical for a blog post to have a high bounce rate because visitors often arrive directly from Google with a specific query. Once they have read the page, they leave. This increases the bounce rate even though the page may be of quality.
Has your site's traffic increased?
A quantitative indicator this time, the number of visits. It is often said (rightly so, in my opinion) that a site's traffic is correlated with the activity of its business. In other words, if the site is active because resources are being invested in it, it suggests that the business is in good health.
Has your search engine ranking improved?
What about your ranking on Google? Have you gained positions on your key queries?
For this, don't waste time typing your keywords into Google, as search results are personalized and could mislead you. There are dedicated tools to track your rankings.
Are social media shares more frequent?
Shares on social media are an excellent indicator of the trust and interest that users have in your site.
What is your site's loading speed?
Run a test on GTmetrix and see the results. If you are below the 70% mark, consider improving your site's loading performance.
Above 90%, you are doing very well!
Has the number of inbound links to your site increased?
Another quality indicator: inbound links (backlinks). They allow Google to assess the trust users have in your site. The more inbound links you have, the more legitimate your site is considered.
When was the last update of your website?
To ensure your site is performing well, you should regularly update it with content. If the last update was over a month ago, it's high time to get back to writing :)