Who gets more clients? A studio with 1,000 visits or a studio with 50 visits. Find out in the article. And on top of that, we'll add tips on metrics worth tracking.
Practice doesn't lie: the number of visits doesn't matter that much
Do you think the more visits the better? Then you will be surprised. Visits are fine, but more important is their relevance. Even fewer visits can sometimes bring better results.
Tadaa, here's an example from practice. Two architectural studios. Two websites. Guess who gets more clients through the website:
- Studio A: monthly traffic of 1000 unique users.
- Studio B: monthly traffic of 50 unique users.
Did you guess Studio A would win? Wrong. The result is a tie. Both studios get exactly one client per month. And that's despite the fact that A has 20 times more visits.
What could it be?
Studio A may have more visitors. But less RELEVANT. People may wander to the site for a successful article or advertisement. That's nice, but it's probably users who don't want the service.
Which numbers reveal more?
Visits are the first number you see. And it's sure to please. But they don't tell the whole story. Focus on the numbers that really tell you how well the site is performing.
- Conversion ratio
Keep track of how many people you need to reach per client = conversion rate. As a practical example shows:
- Studio A must reach 1000 people to get 1 client -> this is 0.1 % conversion ratio.
- Studio B must reach 50 people to get 1 client -> it is 2 % conversion ratio.
The second website has lower traffic, but it doesn't have to be ashamed of it. In terms of conversion rate, it wins outright.
Tip: Keep an eye on conversions by traffic, too, so you know which channel brings in the most clients.
- Average time on page
Getting people on the web is one thing. Keeping them is another. Key to success. Time on page is determined by a number of elements: loading speed, content, structure and design. In short, everything, even the details.
But beware, longer is not always better. It's not necessarily the interest behind 120 seconds, but also confusion and chaos. So don't jump to conclusions and try to understand why people on your site do what they do.
You know, the “engagement” metrics include bounce rate = how quickly the user leaves the page or number of pages per visit?
To functional web?
Quality of visits > number of visits
Even a thousand visits may not mean anything. And fifty visits can bring a client. The difference is not in the quantity, but in properly targeted visits. The moment you have people coming to your website who are actually looking for what you offer, the numbers start to make sense. You just need to read them in context, not in isolation.
One of the new metrics worth tracking is the search performance of your social media posts. Search Console can measure this for Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube; details are summarized in the article about Measuring Social Media in Search Console.
A sudden spike in the impressions and clicks chart may not be a measurement error. If it coincides with the date of one of the anti-spam updates, which Google runs several times a year, are likely the result of these updates. We explain how to verify this in a separate article.
