More and more B2B buyers are starting their search/research online and they look to product provider websites for content. Hence it is becoming ever more important for you to track and optimize the usability and usefulness performance of your sites.
How can we quickly identify any usability issues without going through extensive lab testing? And even if we are open to lab testing, what areas of the site should be testing? One way is to track some key web metrics to identify areas of concern. I have found the following four metrics to be some of the most important metrics to track to identify usability issues for B2B sites: (I am sure there are others)
Product page Call to action Click-through-rate:
Measurement = (Total clicks on Call to actions on Product Pages) / (Total visits to the product section)
Why this metric: Here we are trying to measure how effective is the content of the product page in convincing the visitor that the product is right for their needs
Average time spent on Product page:
Why this metric: This metric can help us understand if the visitor is engaging with the content on the product page. For example, if the average time spent on your product page is 30 second and you know that there is no way anyone can consume the complex content in that short of a time then it could be simply because the visitors found the page or content not very useful or usable.
Lead Funnel Completion Rate:
Measurement = (Total visitors who completed a conversion funnel) / (Total visitors who started the conversion funnel)
Note – Here we are trying to see how clean and clear are the conversion funnels on the site. This is THE most critical metric that we can track on the site.
Homepage bounce rate:
Measurement = (Total one Page visits to the Homepage) / (Total visits to the homepage)
Note – I hesitated in putting this metric- even though it is important. Why? Well because many companies will focus on trying to fix this performance first. Even though it is an important area of Site that must be fixed, it is NOT the first area that must be addressed!
