Website Success:

Analytics

Web analytic tools are now within reach of even the smallest nonprofit. Tools are free, providing feature rich analytics providing critical visitor behavior knowledge. Visitor behaviors often differ from nonprofit boards of director and graphic designer expectations and beliefs. More often than not, the focus is on the graphical imagery of the nonprofit website rather than critical written content and call-to-action deliverables.

1. Who are they? Clues to your visitor’s identity can be gleamed from referring URLS, referring agencies, search engines, marketing/fundraising campaigns, and websites that send you traffic and driven toward targeted landing pages.

2. How did they get there? Knowing your visitor’s point-of-origin will give you valuable insight as to your highest traffic channels.

3. What are they looking for? Visitors coming from search engine queries provide a list of keyword searchable terms used to meet their need for answers.

4. Where are they landing? The current belief that your homepage is where everyone starts is a false interpretation. You might be surprised when reviewing your website data for top entry pages.

5. Where are they bouncing? Bounce rate metrics give you a clear picture on what pages are not giving what visitors wanted and driving them away.

6. What are they viewing? Your web analytics reveal the top viewed pages and which ones have the highest traffic. You may find out that donors spend a good amount of time viewing your about and program pages prior to donation follow through.

7. What are they telling you? Analytics can help you understand what really drives visitor actions providing a clearer picture of your website up and down performance metrics.

8. How does your website keep meeting visitor expectations? By segmenting your data over different criteria, you can see not only developing trends, but also not so noticeable visitor habits.

9. How does your nonprofit website make the necessary changes? Knowing important visitor profiles will help you evolve your nonprofit.org site which better meets content expectations with a clear call-to-action that is easily accomplished.

10. How does your nonprofit website stay ahead over time? By applying best practices for visitor behavior and actions you can tell what visitors are seeking not just what they found.