5 tips to improve website performance

Your website may attract visitors. It may generate leads and make sales. Still, do you know which pages or channels contribute most to your business?

Tracking your website’s performance helps you see what’s working and fix what isn’t. Dozens of dashboards aren’t always useful. Clear goals, reliable analytics and a few key metrics are often all you need to make sure your website is getting results that match your business plan.

Here are five things you can do this week to start improving your website’s performance.

1. Define what success means

Chris O’Shea and Louis-Daniel Bernier, both Senior Business Advisors with BDC’s Advisory Services, often see clients make the same mistakes when it comes to online sales. 

“Selling online doesn’t always mean packing and shipping a product,” notes Bernier. “You may be selling an experience, an appointment or access to an expert. Start by defining how customers should use your website.”  

In other words, before looking at your website’s data, decide what you want your site to achieve.

Your objectives may include:

• generating quote requests
• booking appointments
• collecting contact information (be mindful of Canada’s anti-spam legislation)
• completing online sales
• encouraging repeat purchases
• reducing customer service requests

Actions that support these objectives are called conversions and they generally fall into two categories:

• Macro conversions: Actions tied directly to a business result, like completing a purchase or requesting a quote.
• Micro conversions: Small actions that show interest, like viewing a product page, downloading a guide, or joining an email list.

Identify the macro conversions that matter most to your business first, then the micro conversions that show visitors are moving toward those outcomes. Your definition of a conversion will depend on what you want customers to do. Not every website needs to complete a transaction.

Regardless of your goals, this approach helps you focus on traffic quality, not just visitor numbers on your website. A smaller group of interested visitors can be more valuable than a large audience that takes no action.

Calculate your conversion rate

Once you’ve defined your conversions, calculate your website’s conversion rate:

Conversion rate = Number of conversions ÷ Number of visitors × 100

For example, if 500 people visit a product page and 20 complete a purchase, the page’s conversion rate is 4%.

The conversion rate is a metric you can use to compare results over time.

2. Connect behaviour with sales

Combining information from your analytics tool and your sales platform gives you valuable insights and helps you connect behaviour with transactions. For example, a page may receive a lot of traffic but generate few purchases. Another page may attract fewer visitors but have a much stronger conversion rate.

“Your e-commerce platform tells you what people buy. Your analytics tell you how they behave. You need both to understand performance,” says Chris O’Shea. 

Your web analytics tool should help you see:

• where visitors come from: search engines, social media, email campaigns or referrals
• which pages they visit
• how long they stay
• what actions they take
• where they leave your site
• whether they return

Your sales or e-commerce platform can tell you about:

• orders
• products
• refunds
• average order value
• customer purchase history
• repeat purchases

O’Shea recommends starting with the data: “Look at repeat purchases, repeat visits and how people use the page. These signals can show you where opportunities exist and where customers encounter problems.” You don’t need to track every interaction. Focus on the behaviours that connect directly to your objectives.

3. Measure performance and profitability

Traffic and sales tell only part of the story. One channel may attract many visitors but produce low-value orders, while another may bring fewer visitors who spend more, return more often or generate stronger margins.

To understand whether your website supports profitable growth, monitor a focused group of business metrics. 

Five useful e-commerce metrics

Conversion rate

The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or submitting a form. A rising conversion rate may indicate that your site is attracting the right visitors and making it easy for them to act. A declining rate may signal problems with your offer, content, purchasing process or website performance.

Average order value

The average amount customers spend per purchase.

Average order value = Total revenue ÷ Number of orders

You may be able to increase this amount through product bundles, related-product suggestions or minimum purchase thresholds for promotions.

Operating margin

The operating margin is the amount remaining after you subtract the costs associated with making and selling a product or service. Your website can generate sales without making enough profit. By reviewing margin alongside revenue, you can avoid investing in growth that doesn’t strengthen your bottom line.

Return on investment (ROI) 

The return generated by the money you spend on a marketing campaign or other investments. This metric lets you compare channels and decide where to direct your marketing budget. Consider the full cost of the activity: advertising, technology, content, discounts and staff time.

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

The total value a customer may create over the course of their relationship with your business. 

“Many businesses focus on increasing sales, but customer lifetime value is just as important. The question isn’t only what a customer buys today. It’s what they may buy over time,” notes Bernier.

O’Shea agrees: “A common missed opportunity is retention. Businesses may concentrate on making the first sale without creating a plan to bring the customer back.”

Customer lifetime value can help you understand if it makes sense to spend time and money on getting new customers or if it is better to work on retaining existing ones. It shifts your attention from one-time transactions to long-term relationships. 

4. Track search and AI visibility

People increasingly search by asking full questions. Some also rely on artificial intelligence (AI) tools that summarize information instead of presenting a list of links. “People aren’t always searching with a few keywords anymore. They’re asking questions. Your content needs to provide clear, conversational answers” says O’Shea. 

This change doesn’t make search engine optimization (SEO) irrelevant. It makes structured and helpful content even more important, because it supports both traditional and AI-driven search. What does this kind of content look like on a website?

It means using:

• one clear theme for each page
• descriptive page titles and meta descriptions
• logical headings and subheadings
• simple navigation and page categories
• accurate alternative text for images
• short, direct answers to common customer questions
• natural language that reflects how customers speak
• links between related pages and topics
• complete product descriptions

Product descriptions also need enough detail to help customers make decisions. Very short descriptions may leave important questions unanswered. Write conversationally and explain:

• what the product or service is
• who it’s for
• the problem it solves
• important features and benefits
• what customers can expect
• what they should do next

When assessing search performance, look beyond rankings. Monitor:

• which search terms bring visitors to your site
• which pages attract engaged visitors
• which questions your content answers
• whether visitors take the expected next step
• where visitors hesitate or leave
• whether organic traffic leads to conversions

These signals can reveal pages with high traffic but low conversion. They can also help you identify useful topics that deserve clearer or more complete content.

5. Review, test and improve

Your website is not a one-time project that you can build and leave online without further work.  Customer expectations and technology continue to change, so it’s important to keep up. A regular review schedule can help you spot problems and opportunities:

• Every day: Review sales, orders, conversion rate and active advertising campaigns.
• Every week or two: Review traffic trends, acquisition channels, top pages, abandoned carts and unusual changes in visitor behaviour.
• Every month: Review margins, customer lifetime value, repeat purchases, marketing return on investment and product performance.

The right schedule will depend on your sales volume, resources and marketing activity. If your business has frequent online orders, you may need to review results more often than a business with a longer sales cycle.

Start with one priority

You can hire specialists to support analytics, marketing or website development, but you still need to evaluate recommendations and understand how everything fits together. As O’Shea cautions, “Outsourcing may make sense, but handing everything to a third party and hoping for the best is not a strategy.”

Improving your website doesn’t require a complete overhaul. Choose one business goal, identify the conversion that supports it and track the results. Small, consistent improvements based on reliable data can help you support your business’s long-term growth.

Next steps

Not sure where your website stands? Use BDC’s free website assessment tool and get a detailed report about different improvements you can make.