Pages per Session Importance in Google Analytics
Pages per session statistics are another great aspect of the free Google Analytics tool. This is feature, like many others, allows you to see how effective your website is for your target customers. Learning the ins and outs of Google Analytics is important for anyone with a website. However, the tool can be quite overwhelming at times.
Thankfully, Portside Marketing is a Google Certified Partner. This means that we meet and exceed specific requirements that allow us to better serve our clients. Our staff is proficient in search engine optimization and improving website statistics. We can help you increase your pages per session rates as well as many other Google Analytics metrics.
What is the Pages per Session Metric?
The Pages per Session metric shows you how many pages each visitor views during one session on your website. This statistic tracks traffic from all sources including Google search, social media, or other links. It allows you to see how engaged your visitors are with your website. The analytics tool records every page load during a visitor session to show you exactly how many pages are being viewed.
A higher pages per session rate indicates your website visitors are interested in the content of your website. Greater interest leads to a greater chance of meeting the goal of your website. For some, this may be collecting information, while others may have a goal of getting users to call their office, or purchase a product or service.
Improving Pages per Session
Website design is a key component of having high pages per session rates. Your website should be nice to view, load quickly, and be easy to navigate. Users, especially mobile users, want websites to be clear and quick to get them the information that they need. If your website takes too long to load or if it’s too cluttered then they move on to the next search result.
However, reducing the load time and increasing the click-ability of your website helps improve pages per session. Depending on the type of website you have, you may consider using “related stories” or “similar products” links. This encourages visitors to interact with additional pages on your website. Using links like these is called organic recirculation.
Looking Deeper into Pages per Session
Another statistic you’ll want to keep an eye on is the page depth statistic. Page depth is related to pages per session in the way that it tells you how many sessions result in a specific number of page views. For example, you may see that 10,000 sessions have two page views, while 5,000 sessions have three page views.
This allows you to see where the bulk of your visitors fall. It also allows you to brainstorm solutions to increase page views and increase click-ability. This may include creating more engaging content or making links to other areas of your website more enticing. A good way to do this is to think about what brought them to your website. You can then make it easier for them to see similar pages through careful linking.
Reaching Goals and Keeping Customers Happy
A brilliantly designed website funnels visitors towards the end goal. Think about what you want to accomplish with your website. Do you want visitors to view a video, make a purchase, provide you with information, or contact your office? Goals can vary from company to company and page to page. The ultimate goal is to help your visitors reach the destination you want them to reach. Make it as easy as possible for them to reach the goal. For some websites, visitors may accomplish the goal with few page views. This is also great. Keep in mind that success is different for different sites.
If you focus solely on pages per session rather than a combination of statistics you may actually end up turning visitors away. Some websites have the goal of generating as much ad revenue as possible. Requiring users to click to a new page too often can drive down the user experience. This is seen most often with websites that require a new page for each slide of a slide show, or articles that are broken down into very small sections. If you break content down into small pieces then visitors quickly get discouraged. To provide a quality visitor experience you want to avoid this click-bait tactic as much as possible.
Getting Help to Improve Your Website
All of the statistics on Google Analytics should be viewed together. It isn’t beneficial to rely on just one or two metrics because you won’t get the whole picture. Each report option provides valuable information about the user experience. Use this information to determine where your website can use additional work.
Portside Marketing can help you improve the function and content of your website. Our expert staff is highly proficient at creating high quality content and improving site statistics. We help you create a user friendly website that gets the results your company needs. We work with website owners to increase website performance as well as search engine optimization.