While with some internal analysis and external research, it’s fairly easy to pinpoint the best ways to attract Gen Z renters or understand the most important apartment SEO strategies to implement, it’s much more difficult to identify which website analytics are the most important to pay attention to. This is especially true for those of us who are not web experts or tracking whizzes. 

When it comes to web analytics, there’s a whole slew of options you can track; many having very similar titles and functions. This makes it really difficult to differentiate and choose which to focus on. While, as a marketer, I will always encourage you to track everything you can, I know that the reality of busy days doesn’t always allow for that. So I’m going to simplify. 

Here are the top four web analytics my team always tracks for our multifamily clients as well as our own website:

1. Bounce Rate

Definition: The percentage of visitors who enter a web page and immediately leave rather than viewing more pages.

In my experience, bounce rate is the first thing to start tracking. I recommend that apartments pay attention to this number before some of the other popular metrics, such as new visitors, because if the majority of new visitors are leaving the page very soon after arriving, then it doesn’t matter how many new visitors you have. 

Here are some statistics to give you a gauge for bounce rates in the multifamily industry:

• The average bounce rate for an apartment website’s homepage is 35%
• The average bounce rate for a property details page is 55%
• The average bounce rate for a contact page is 51%
• 70% is considered to be a high bounce rate

While having a high bounce rate doesn’t always mean something is wrong, it can be a sign that you need to revisit your web pages and possibly make some improvements. These improvements can range from changing the page headline, to making the navigation menu clearer, to using more compelling imagery. We also recommend making sure you have a few of your most popular amenities listed on your homepage with a Call-to-Action button leading to your amenities page with more detail.

Bounce rate is something you can easily track with the Google Analytics tool on a daily basis. It’s also a metric that you can quickly see improve or worsen, depending on changes you make to your website. This makes it easy to test and identify what changes your target audience likes.

2. Unique Visits 

Definition: The number of people that visited your apartment website over the selected time period.

When it comes to this category of web analytics, it can get pretty confusing because there are so many terms that seem and sound very similar; unique visits, visits, page views, etc. 

I recommend you focus on unique visits. An association our brains understandably make when it comes to processing analytics is: number of visits = number of new people on your website. However, that’s not always the case. A potential renter can visit your apartment website five times within one week, and by tracking normal “visits” it will seem like more new people are visiting your site than in reality. By tracking unique visits specifically, you will have a more accurate idea of the number of new people visiting your site each week. 

That being said, if you track unique visits, the analytics for page visits can be helpful because it will show you if potential renters are visiting your website multiple times within a certain period of time. 

As a general reference, the average unique visits per week for a small to medium multifamily property website is 2,000 and a large is 5,000.

3. Avg. Time on Page

Definition: The average amount of time users stay on a specific page. 

Your bounce rate is often aligned with the average time on page in that if your bounce rate is high, then the amount of time users spend on your page will likely be very low and vice versa. If you are able to lower your bounce rate, you will also often find that the average duration of time spent on your website increases. 

This metric is important to track because it’s critical for increasing your lease rate to know if potential renters are actually spending any significant amount of time on your page to both learn about your property and become intrigued enough to contact you. 

I’ve found that an average of eight minutes for a homepage and five minutes for an amenities page is a good basis to aim for. 

4. Avg. Page Load Time

Definition: The average amount of time users stay on a specific page. 

While this metric has nothing to do with user behavior, it can severely impact user behavior (i.e., your other metrics such as bounce rate and time on page). 

Due to the fact that we live in a world of immediacy, especially when it comes to technology, people aren’t as patient as they used to be. If your page load time is longer than 15 seconds, users may not want to wait and end up exiting your website before the page even loads. On top of that, a long page load time is often connected to the idea that a website is outdated and therefore, so is your property. 

While this isn’t a metric that is often talked about by marketers, I believe it is highly important. By adding this to the list of metrics you’re tracking, you will know  when it's time to get with your web developers about speeding up the load time. 

At the end of the day, a lot of web analytics are interconnected. Again, while I recommend that you track as many components of your apartment website and user behavior as you can, the above four are “the musts” as I’d like to put it. They’re a great place to start and can help you make significant improvement to the traffic and leads your receive.