If you want to understand the performance of your content, you must measure it. However, some metrics matter more than others. Often content marketers get buried in these content analytics. The secret to B2B website performance metrics is focusing on those that matter most — metrics around traffic and conversions.
In this post, we’ll look at 10 of these metrics you should have your eye on and why.
B2B Website Traffic Metrics
Traffic means everything to content. If no one is visiting your site, they won’t see your content. Since that’s the whole point, these traffic metrics should be on your radar.
1. Organic Traffic and Sessions
Organic traffic is the number of users visiting your site from organic search. This is critical and different from other traffic sources like direct traffic (when someone types in your website URL), third-party referrals (backlinks, social media), or paid search.
It’s a measure of how well you rank for key search terms used by your audience. Increasing organic traffic is critical to attracting new users. In fact, research supports that organic sources have the highest average conversion rates at 2.6 percent for B2B companies.
Organic sessions are another key element. Google defines a session as “the period of time a user is actively engaged with your website.” A session can consist of viewing multiple pages or interactions. What can you learn from this information? Sessions can tell you how your audience interacts with your website.
Shown Above: DivvyHQ Analytics (example screen)
2. New Visitor Sessions
New visitor sessions measure the unique individuals that spend at least one session on your site. It’s different from unique visitors because they are “new” to your site. Look for trends in these numbers and how they change after optimizations around design or SEO. Stagnation here is a sign that you may need to reassess your strategy.
3. Traffic Cost
Traffic cost offers you information on what it would cost to run paid ads based on keyword rankings and their value. It’s a calculation of the number of organic clicks received for each keyword multiplied by the average CPC (cost per click) for it.
It’s an important metric to monitor because you can estimate the ROI of your SEO efforts.
Platforms like SEMrush automatically calculate this. In the platform, you would input your domain and click search. Then click on “organic research” to see this dashboard.
You can also do it manually using Google Search Console and Google Ads.
4. Keyword Rankings
How you rank organically is pivotal to website traffic. You’ll want to monitor all the keywords you optimize for in your content. SEMrush or other SEO tools make this easy. You can see how it works in the screenshot below on SEMrush. You’ll be able to pinpoint which keywords drive traffic. This data helps you develop a more effective content strategy.
5. Top Landing Pages
With this metric, you can determine the pages users land on organically most often. These pages will usually rank well for specific keywords. By viewing the top ones, you can prioritize which ones need more optimization and distribution. For those at the top, analyze why they perform so well. What makes them so unique and compelling for users? Then replicate that with others.
B2B Website Conversions Metrics
Conversions in this conversation mean a user’s action that creates a lead. That typically refers to an online form submission. For example, the form could be to download content (top to mid-funnel) or one that indicates they would like a demo or quote (bottom funnel).
These conversions are the ones to track and should be part of your foundation of B2B website performance metrics.
6. Goal Completions
First, you need to have goals. 😉 More specifically, goals need to be set up in Google Analytics. Goals are defined paths in which a site visitor completes a desired action like submitting a form or clicking a button.
For example, we have a variety of goals set up on our website for things like scheduling a demo, starting a free trial, and subscribing to our blog. In most cases, the actual goal completion happens, or is triggered, when the visitor lands on a thank you or confirmation page.
So we, obviously, want to be able to track the number of goal completions that happen in a given time period. When someone schedules a demo on our website, that’s a solid marketing qualified lead (MQL). So we track them religiously.
7. Conversion Rates
Conversion rates offer lots of insight, but there are caveats. You may be bringing in a lot of traffic, but few conversions. That could be a traffic quality issue. You’ll need to look at what the disconnect might be.
Other issues could be barriers to conversions, like having a zillion required form fields. Do you really need all that contact data? Likely not, if it’s a top-of-funnel conversion, like an eBook download. Keep form fields to a minimum to mitigate against this hindrance. You want to see this metric improve, but it won’t do so without working on conversion paths and understanding the customer journey.
8. A/B Testing
A/B testing allows you to experiment with variants of a page to see which performs better. Creating these should be a regular part of your B2B content marketing. The pages need to have one specific variant. Otherwise, you won’t know which change was the most impactful. Common ones include:
- Calls to action (CTAs)
- Slight differences in body copy
- Header images
- Headlines
Learn from A/B testing what is most compelling and make that a part of all future landing pages.
9. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate calculates the percentage of visitors who load one page on your website, then abandon your site. They “bounce” off your website and head to another one.
A high bounce rate is bad news for landing pages. It can often mean there’s a disconnect between what a user thought would be on the page but isn’t. Bounce rates that are high can also be because of confusing navigation, hidden CTAs, content quality is poor, or functionality is poor.
Look at those pages with high bounce rates and determine where and how you can optimize. Does the design need a refresh? Is the UX (user experience) terrible? Is the content dated and in need of a revamp?
10. Exit Rate
Exit rate is different from bounce rate. Exit rates identify all exits on a page, not just those that leave after one page.
Exit rates offer critical details about a user’s journey on your site, especially when making conversion optimizations. If a page has a high exit rate, consider making adjustments to push users further down the conversion funnel.
Key Takeaways
These B2B website performance metrics help you determine if your website successfully attracts and converts users. Your website is your most important digital asset. Measuring its impact will always be fundamental to driving content marketing success.
For more great content on metrics, check out these other great posts:
- 7 Content Marketing Metrics You Should Be Tracking
- 7 Key Metrics to Track When Measuring Your Content Engagement
- 10 Killer Metrics to Identify Your Best Performing Content
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