Website metrics are an objective way to measure what is working and what isn’t when it comes optimizing your website performance and marketing efforts.

Whether you have a webmaster that tends to the ongoing performance of your website and runs paid advertising campaigns or not, there are website metrics you should track and evaluate each month. These metrics help you make informed decisions so you can drive business growth and improve the users experience on your site. Yet, it can be overwhelming to determine what metrics are most important when it comes to supporting attainment of your business goals.

Back in the 1990s, websites were primarily hyperlink-based sites that were measured by only page views and visits.¹  Fast forward to today, and you realize that websites serve many more users, are more personalized, interactive, and able to generate new leads interested in the services and products you offer. In fact, statistics show that 71 percent of businesses had a website in 2023, and 29 percent of business is conducted online — yet 21 percent of business owners report low website traffic issues with their website.²

Thus, if you are frustrated with your website traffic and conversion rates, you are not alone. This is another reason why not only monitoring website metrics is important, but using the data to create positive change.

Top Website Metrics to Track and Review

“Website metrics are objective, data-based, numerical measurements of your website performance.”¹ The tools available to you and/or your webmaster for such data come from Google Analytics (free) and various other paid tools such as SEMrush. This data reflects the performance of your website as well as the specific behavior of visitors to your site such as where they came from, what content they viewed, and various actions they may have taken on your site. These actions can be interacting with a bot, making a phone call, watching a webinar, entering their information into an online form, or something similar.

Below are the top metrics to review, why they are important, how to measure them, and overall key performance indicators (KPIs) or goals for each. Each are helpful; however, when it comes to business growth specifically, the most important thing to monitor is your conversion rate since it directly reflects how effectively your website is turning visitors into new patients/customers (or achieving key business goals such as booking a consult, or making an inquiry). Secondly, understanding where your most valuable traffic is coming from (traffic source) is incredibly important.

1. Visits (Sessions)/Unique Visitors: Website visits or sessions is the total number of times users visited your website (if one person visits your site multiple times, each visit is counted separately). Unique visitors are the number of unique people (usually identified by their IP address or a cookie in their browser) who access your site. Thus, website visits can include multiple sessions by the same person, while unique visitors represent the distinct number of people visiting your site.
   • Why It’s Important: Increasing traffic suggests that your marketing efforts are attracting more potential patients. It indicates the reach of your website.
   • How to Measure: You or your webmaster can access Google Analytics or other similar tools to monitor this metric. Monitor overall visits, unique visits, and trends over time.
   • Goal KPI: Aim for a monthly increase in traffic of 5-10 percent. For a new or growing practice, reaching 2,000 to 5,000 unique visitors per month is a good benchmark.

2. Traffic Sources: Traffic sources refer to the various ways visitors find and access your website, such as direct traffic (entering your URL into their browser), organic search (such as a query on Google), clicking on your link from another website (referral traffic), clicking on your link from social media (social traffic), or through paid ads you are running (paid search traffic), email links (email traffic), display ads from banner or video ads (display traffic), or other direct campaigns you are running.
   • Why It’s Important: Understanding where your traffic comes from allows you to identify which channels are most effective in driving visitors to your sight so you can allocate resources effectively. It is best to have a range of traffic sources rather than relying on any single channel.
   • How to Measure: You or your webmaster can access Google Analytics or other similar tools to monitor this metric.
   • Goal KPI: Typically, organic (non-paid) search should account for 40-60 percent or your traffic. Aim for a balanced mix with at least 20 percent from direct traffic and 10-20 percent from referrals.

3. Bounce Rate (or Engagement Rate under Google Analytics 4 updates): The bounce rate measures the number of website sessions that lasted fewer than 10 seconds, led to no action/conversions, and had fewer than two total website page views. It is reported as a percentage of all visitor sessions.¹
   • Why It’s Important: A lower bounce rate indicates that visitors find you content relevant to what they are searching for and encourages further exploration on your site. This is crucial for patient engagement.
   • How to Measure: You or your webmaster can access Google Analytics or other similar tools to monitor this metric.
   • Goal KPI: The goal varies by source but you can target a bounce rate of 40-55 percent for most pages. For critical pages like appointment scheduling, contact us, or service descriptions, aim for less than 40 percent.

4. Average Session Duration: This metric indicates the average time visitors spend across your website prior to ending their session.¹
   • Why It’s Important: Longer session durations suggest that users are engaged with your content, which can lead to higher conversions, such as appointment booking or form completion.
   • How to Measure: You or your webmaster can access Google Analytics or other similar tools to monitor this metric.
   • Goal KPI: Aim for an average session duration of two to three minutes. For pages with a lot of content, such as blog posts, more than three minutes is ideal.

5. Conversion Rate: For a weight loss practice, the conversion rate generally refers to the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as scheduling a consultation, signing up for a weight loss program, completing a questionnaire, watching a webinar, or requesting more information.
   • Why It’s Important: A higher conversion rate indicates how well your site achieves your business objectives. Monitoring this important metric helps you determine the effectiveness of your calls to action and identifies areas for improvement.
   • How to Measure: Your conversion rate can be set up in Google Analytics for your site or other similar tools.
   • Goal KPI: While you always want a higher percentage, for appointment bookings or other lead generation initiatives, aim for a conversion rate of 2-5 percent. For any e-commerce (i.e. nutritional retail sales), a strong benchmark is 1-2 percent.

If you are running paid digital marketing campaigns, the following metrics are important to review with your webmaster each month. This will help accurately monitor the return on your investment and allocate available marketing funds most effectively.

1. Cost Per Click (CPC): This metric is the average cost of each click on your ads.
   • Why It’s Important: The CPC indicates the cost-effectiveness of your paid advertising. This allows you to manage your budget while driving targeted traffic to your site.
   • How to Measure: Divide your total ad spend by the number of clicks generated from those ads.
   • Goal KPI: Your KPI can vary greatly depending upon your competition, geographical area, and target audience such as weight loss surgery, anti-obesity medications, or medical weight loss. In general, it often ranges between $2 to $7 for weight loss keywords.

2. Click Through Rate (CTR): This metric tells you what percentage of people clicked on your link out of everyone who saw it.¹ It can help you estimate how many impressions you need in order to get someone to click on your ad.
   • Why It’s Important: CTR measures the effectiveness of your advertising in attracting “clicks.” These “clicks” reflects the relevance and appeal of your messaging.
   • How to Measure: Divide the number of clicks by the number of ad impressions and then multiply by 100 to get your percentage.
   • Goal KPI: Your KPI can vary greatly depending upon the platform you are running your ads on as well as the ad type/content. For healthcare and fitness, the average CTR for a display ad is 0.59 percent and for an online search is 6.15 percent.³ Strive for a CTR of one percent to eight percent.

3. Cost Per Lead (CPL): This metric measures the average amount you spent on advertising in order to achieve a single lead (potential new patient).
   • Why It’s Important: CPL helps to ensure that your marketing spend is generating valuable leads and a cost you can sustain.
   • How to Measure: Divide the total marketing spend by the number of leads generated during the reporting period.
   • Goal KPI: Your KPI can vary greatly depending upon your competition, geographical area, and target audience such as weight loss surgery, anti-obesity medications, or medical weight loss. In general, while the goal is as low as possible, it often ranges from $35 to $100 or more in the field of medical and surgical weight loss.

Finally, the world of website analytics is undergoing significant changes with Google’s recent shift from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). One of the most notable changes is the enhanced ability to track user journeys across devices, enabling more accurate measurements of metrics like conversion rates and user engagement. It also offers more robust privacy controls, aligning with data privacy regulations. This can affect data collection and reporting. This makes it even more important to track website metrics with your webmaster and maximize the use of available Google Analytics so you can make decisions that benefit your business, your budget, and the patients you serve now and in the future.

Source(s):

1 https://www.semrush.com/blog/website-metrics/

2 https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/website-statistics/

3 https://cxl.com/guides/click-through-rate/benchmarks/