Powerful website copy can drive conversions and engage your audience. But how do you know if it’s doing this? And how well? An experienced website copywriter will tell you that monitoring key metrics using tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar is vital to creating a more compelling online presence that captivates your visitors and drives your business forward.
Here’s a breakdown of the metrics you should keep an eye on and what each of these metrics will tell you when evaluating the success of your website copy.
Key Metrics to Measure a Website Copywriter’s Success
- Bounce Rate and Time on Page
Your website bounce rate shows you the percentage of visitors who leave your website after having viewed only one page. High bounce rates suggest that your copy isn’t meeting your visitors’ expectations or that it isn’t engaging them. Conversely, a low bounce rate and a longer time on page suggest that your content is relevant and interesting to users.
Work with your website copywriter to re-evaluate if the copy on your webpage addresses your target audience’s specific needs and if you’ve structured it in a way that captures their attention.
- Conversion Rate
This critical metric tracks what percentage of visitors take a desired action on your site, like submitting a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase. A high conversion rate indicates that your copy persuades users to take the intended action.
If your conversion rates are low (Wordstream says the average is about 2.35%), consider A/B testing a few variations of the page (more on that below) to see where you can improve. A top website copywriter will understand what elements drive behavior and have hands-on experience addressing friction, social proof, perceived effort, and loss aversion.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures the percentage of users who click a specific link or call to action button. It assesses how well your copy entices users to explore further or respond to a CTA, providing valuable insights into its effectiveness.
Sometimes, improving clicks can come down to the words you use in the CTA or the button’s color. Other times, it’s related to where the button is on the page. Sometimes it isn’t even the CTA that impacts clicks – it can be the messaging, the deal, or even unmanaged expectations, like if they click through from social media expecting one thing and the page gives them something different.
Work with a strong website copywriter to help you improve this.
- Scroll Depth
Analyzing scroll depth reveals how far users scroll through your webpage’s content. A deeper scroll suggests that your copy keeps users engaged, while a shallow scroll may indicate disinterest or a lack of captivating content.
If you see a shallow scroll, take a feather from a website copywriter’s cap and use the inverted pyramid. This writing method will help you get to the point quicker and tell the reader why they should be interested in reading more.
- Heatmaps and User Recordings
Heatmaps visually represent user interactions, showing where visitors click, scroll, or hover most frequently. User recordings provide video insights into how users navigate through your website. These tools can help you identify user behavior patterns and areas for improvement.
Heatmaps are a clever way of bringing multiple metrics together in one – giving you and your website copywriter a clearer view of the bigger picture.
A/B Testing and Website Copy Optimization
A/B testing involves creating two variations of the same webpage, each with different copy and / or design elements. Using a tool like Google Analytics or a custom A/B testing platform like VWO, you can randomly show these variations to different users, tracking and analyzing their interactions.
This data-driven approach helps you identify which elements generate higher user engagement and conversions, allowing you to optimize your copy for maximum impact.
To conduct successful A/B tests, you must first identify specific variables to compare. These can include different headlines, CTA button text, copy length, images, or the tone of voice used in your content. By focusing on one variable at a time, you can measure the impact of each change and gain insights into what aspects of your copy are most influential in driving user behavior.
During your A/B test, use the metrics above to track each variation. By comparing these metrics for each version, you can determine which copy elements drive more positive user responses. You can then adopt the more successful versions as the new standard and test further iterations to refine and optimize your website copy over time.
Partner with an Expert Website Copywriter
By continuously monitoring the performance of your website copy and actively adapting it with your learnings, you can make data-driven decisions that improve user engagement, achieve higher conversion rates, and better accomplish your business objectives.
Contact Tailored Ink to see how our expert website copywriting team can support you.
