Pages per Session might not be the most glamorous or earth-shattering metric out there. But there are some key lessons to learn by tracking this metric.
This week on Metric Stack, we'll look at the humble Pages per Session - and add a couple power-ups to help you extract insights that could potentially change your business for the better.
Let's dig in:
What is Pages per Session?
Pages per Session tracks the average number of pages viewed per user session. In other words, this metric maps the percentage of sessions where users explore more than just a single page on your website. Here’s the formula:
Pages per Session = Total Page Views / Total Sessions
Just in case you need a refresher, a page view counts the number of times a page is loaded or reloaded. And a session is a period of time during which a user is active on a website.
Bonus tip: there’s an FAQ section on the Pages per Session MetricHQ definition page with information specific to Google Analytics - check it out.
What is a good Pages per Session benchmark?
Based on 2021 benchmark data from Contentsquare, the global average Pages per Session across all industries is five. This means the average user session consists of around five pages loaded.
Be aware that Pages per Session varies by industry. Because this metric is all about user intent - and that differs from industry to industry. Take a look at the chart to find the Pages per Session benchmark for your industry. Heads up - if you're B2B, it's much lower:
Why should you care about Pages per Session?
Look, when tracked in isolation, you’re not going to learn a whole lot from this metric. I’ll address a couple other metrics you should track along with Pages per Session for true, actionable insight.
But let’s not write off Pages per Session.
This metric gives you some crucial information all on its own: it gives you a glimpse at user behaviour. And if you’re been following the Metric Stack Newsletter for a while, you already know how important it is to gather and act on customer behaviour patterns.
Pages per Session can act as a report card for your website’s performance, user experience, and level of interest/engagement with the user.
More importantly, a low Pages per Session can be an early warning sign that your website isn’t converting as much as it could, due to factors that could be easily under your control. Factors such as: strong copy, clear CTAs, defined relationships between the pages and sections of your website, and a well-defined flow across all stages of the customer journey being represented on your website.
Metrics that supercharge Pages per Session
There is always strength in numbers.
Well, in this case I mean both literally and figuratively: learn lessons from your Pages per Session data, then convert those lessons into actions by supplementing your data with other metrics.
Average Time on Page fills in crucial information that’s hard to infer from Pages per Session alone: time. With the help of benchmarks, you can observe if customers stay for longer than average on your website (usually a good thing).
Conversion Rate is your ultimate goal in most cases, measuring the number of website visits that result in qualified lead capture. A high lead conversion rate is another indicator that all that time spent on multiple pages of your website is valuable and convincing to your website visitors.
So there you have it.
The golden trio of web analytics: Breadth of exploration, duration spent, and conversion from casual visitor to qualified lead.
How do you keep track of these three metrics and all the other metrics that are mission-critical?
Let PowerMetrics do it for you! Build a dashboard in minutes, with instant metrics: pre-built data connectors that make it easy for anyone to start tracking metrics. No code, no messy spreadsheets, free forever.