Your website’s primary purpose is to generate conversions in the form of leads. Measuring how well your site does this is an important part of optimization. Today we’re going to go over which metrics you should be looking at and what they mean for a dealership’s online presence.

What’s a good conversion rate? The generally accepted number is 1.5%, which means that out of every 200 visitors, 3 of them will submit a lead. It’s best to look at this number as a rough guideline, as it can vary up and down pretty widely based on a number of factors.

When looking at your overall numbers of conversions, compare how much you’re spending per conversion versus how much you’re making. That, more than the 1.5% number, will tell you how well you’re doing.

Your website’s bounce rate is a good at-a-glance metric to consider. A bounce is when a visitor comes to your site and leaves without interacting. Anything between 41-55% is average.

If you find out that you have an exceptionally high bounce rate, chances are that the cause would be something a first time visitor would encounter. A slow loading time for your landing page, poor design, or a misleading URL can all be the culprit.

You should also look at where your traffic is coming from. There are three basic sources: direct, search, and referral. Direct sources typed your site into their browser. They wanted to see you and specifically you. Search visitors arrived via a search on Google or one of the other search engines. Referral visitors found you from a link on another site, such as an advertisement, a link in a review or blog, or in a news story.

Bounce rates are likely to vary among these three sources. If you see a lot of direct traffic bouncing, that’s a bigger concern than, say, referrals.

Look at the number and types of interactions that you are receiving. A bad number in relation to your conversions could point to your calls to action not being obvious enough, or they could be too far away from a casual browser.

The simple conversion metric of 1.5% is meant to be a ballpark guideline. To truly understand what your site is doing and how to do it better, you should keep these other factors in mind. Track them, and you will know how to optimize your site for a conversion rate that will make other dealerships jealous.

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Author Justin Robinson-Prickett

Justin Robinsion-Prickett is a content writer from Los Angeles with over a decade of experience in the auto industry under his belt. When not working, he enjoys fencing, re-editing dialogue in old movies to remove articles, and playing with his two dogs James Westphal and Dr. Kenneth Noisewater.

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