6 Important Metrics You Should Be Using to Monitor the Performance of your Small Business Website

Measuring a small business website can be difficult.

Is my website converting visitors? Is it effectively directing traffic to sales pages? Am I appearing in relevant search rankings?

Smart business owners need to ask all of these questions. Unfortunately, most small businesses can’t afford to hire a dedicated web development professional, which is why small business websites tend to be extremely under-optimized.

Want to optimize your small business website and increase your performance? Today, I’m going to explain the 7 most important metrics you should be using to monitor your small business’s website:

6) Domain Authority

Domain Authority, or DA, is a popular metric developed by Moz. Domain Authority is a 100-point scoring system which assesses the strength and authority of a website.

It’s a logarithmic scale, so growing your website from 20 to 30 is a lot easier than growing it from 70 to 80. Domain Authority takes a number of different metrics into account, including backlinks, the authority of linking domains, and the quality of on-page content.

Like most SEO metrics, Domain Authority isn’t perfect. However, it is one of the most ambitious and all-encompassing scoring metrics in the industry.

You can easily measure your Domain Authority at Open Site Explorer. Just type your URL into the search bar on that page.

5) Backlink profile

Backlinks are the primary way in which Google assesses the authority of your website. If you have lots of backlinks from websites with strong online authority, then Google will assume your website is also trustworthy.

Unfortunately, backlink building is also one of the most difficult parts of SEO. Good backlinks aren’t cheap or easy to find.

Before you try to build your backlink profile, you should assess your existing profile. Use Open Site Explorer to get a free in-depth analysis of your website’s backlink profile.

That analysis not only counts your backlinks, but it also tells you where those backlinks are coming from, how many backlinks you’ve accrued over the last 60 days, and how many different root domains link to your site.

One handy trick is to use Open Site Explorer to identify your competitors’ backlinks, then try to emulate their backlink profile to equal or beat them in search rankings.

4) Content readability score

Most small business websites have sales copy, blog articles, and other writing on various pages.

Unfortunately, most people won’t read this content if it’s too long or complicated. On the internet, you have to dumb down your writing. And that means using short sentences and simple wording.

You can check your content readability score in Microsoft Word. Copy and paste content from your website into a blank Microsoft Word document. Then, click the Microsoft Office button > Word Options > Proofing > Select the “Check grammar when spelling” > and under “When correcting grammar in Word”, select the “Show readability statistics” check box.

This gives you a few different scores, including your Flesch Reading Ease test and Flesch-Kincaid Grade level test. Ideally, your Flesh Reading Ease test should be between 60 and 70 and your Flesh-Kincaid Grade level test should be between 7 and 8.

That doesn’t mean you’re dumbing your website down to appeal to seventh or eighth graders. It just means you have to write differently for online audiences.

3) Almost everything on Google Analytics

If your small business website doesn’t use Google Analytics, then you’re missing out on one of the easiest website analysis tools available today.

Google Analytics monitors nearly everything that’s important about your site, including:

-Organic visits from search engines

-Direct visits from people typing your URL into the search bar

-Bounce rate

-The amount of time visitors spend on each page

-Incoming search terms visitors use to find your site

-And much more

Google Analytics is a treasure trove of valuable information about your site. If you’re not already using it, then you need to start today. It’s easy to setup at google.com/analytics

2) “The Big Four” social interaction metrics

A few years ago, you could have ignored social media and still managed a successful small business website.

Today, that’s no longer possible. Today’s successful small businesses typically need some type of social media presence.

Many people recommend looking at the “Big Four” metrics of social media, which are:

-Facebook Likes

-Google+ Follows

-LinkedIn Followers

-Twitter Followers

Obviously, businesses in some industries will rely on different metrics. Businesses which cater to a younger crowd will value Instagram followers more than LinkedIn followers, for example.

Analyze your social media accounts and determine how you can expand your business’s outreach to a wider audience.

1) Site loading time

Your site may be the best website ever. It may have high PageRank, awesome content, and a 90+ Domain Authority score.

But none of that matters if your site doesn’t load very quickly.

Fast loading times are key for small businesses. When customers visit your site, they may also be visiting ten other of your competitors’ websites at the same time. They want to quickly learn why they should choose your small business.

If your site takes longer than 4 seconds to load, 85% of visitors will click the ‘Back’ button. Today’s internet users are impatient and demanding.

You can calculate site loading time using a number of different websites and tools. Try this speed test to quickly monitor loading times.

So you have slow loading times. What can you do?

Well, the most effective thing to do is switch to a new web host – especially if you’re using a cheap web host on a shared server. If you don’t want to go through that hassle, then you’ll need to reduce the amount of information on each page or use a website caching tool to prevent visitors from frequently reloading the same information on each page they visit.

By taking all of the above metrics into account, you can analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your small business’s website. Want a more thorough analysis? Call Renew Marketing today for your free consultation.