Designing and developing a sound Internet marketing strategy are always going to be a challenge. The metrics and criteria to measure the effectiveness of these strategies constantly change. Google has changed its algorithm thousands of times over the past decades. On average, the search engine comes up with a new algorithm at least three times a day. How can you ever keep up with that?
You need to arm yourself with knowledge. You can pursue a master’s in business analytics. You’ll have the academic background to analyze and measure marketing strategies. You need to update yourself about how people behave on the Internet. You need to learn about these five basic metrics, which are the foundation of a sound Internet marketing strategy:
Unique Visitors
These refer to the number of unique people who visit your website at a given period. Returning web users are not counted. Each visitor is counted once. Every device or gadget has a unique address. This is used to track a person’s activities on the Internet. This metric is the best indication of web traffic. The higher it is, the more web users become aware of your website. Your expectation for how this number will grow should depend on how large your company is, what industry you belong to, and the amount of content posted on your website.
Page Views
Your visitors will hopefully click through a number of web pages once they land on your website. This metric refers to the total number of pages that visitors click on at a given time. Sometimes, the page views are higher than the unique visitors. While this isn’t ideal because you want more people to know about your website, this is an indication that they find your content engaging. They stick around to browse through the site.
Search Engine Traffic
Web users will primarily come from clicking a link on Google’s results page. This metric refers to how many times search engines refer web users to your site. It gives you an idea of what Google thinks about the content that you create and post. If search engines refer web users to your website, it means that you are doing a good job at creating and optimizing quality content.
Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate isn’t good. This is one of those few times when you want the number lower. Generally, a percentage lower than 40% is considered good. You might want to try being in the low 20s. Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who immediately leave your site even before they click on any link. This means that your web visitors don’t like what they see on your website. They leave because you have not impressed them.
Conversion Rate
This is the percentage of web users who are persuaded to take action such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. Usually, it is your website’s content that makes them do it. The conversion rate varies depending on the industry, but you might want to have at least a 5% conversion rate or higher.
Of course, the number of comments and shares a particular post on your website has are also good indicators of marketing success. There are very obvious metrics that show that a marketing strategy is effective. But if you want to be a bit more analytical about your strategies, look into these five key indicators of marketing success.
