How Analytics Can Help You Fix Your Website’s Flaws

You know your nonprofit’s website gets visitors. But do you know the following:

• How did they find your website?
• What parts of the website did they visit?
• How long did they stay there?
• Do you know which pages made visitors bounce?
• Do you know why they left those pages?
• Do you know why these types of things are important?

We’d tell you why, but it’s a secret.

Just kidding!

It’s important because a nonprofit’s website is where visitors learn about its cause, mission and all the work it has accomplished. It’s also a platform where many financial transactions occur, such as membership purchases, renewals, donations and more.

Nonprofits need to squeeze everything they can out of every dollar. But the result is many end up treating their websites like an expense when websites should be treated like an investment.

Surprisingly, only about 52.9% of all websites use Google Analytics, and the number may be lower for nonprofits, which are often understaffed.

By giving websites the short shrift, nonprofits risk losing visitors and those visitors’ dollars. Often times, nonprofits aren’t aware of this “slow bleeding,” and thus don’t understand why:

• Web visitors leave (bounce).
• Purchases get abandoned
• In-person visits drop.
• Revenue is lost.

Luckily, there is a way to fix these problems and locate other ones: Google Analytics. A solid analytics plan can tell you:

• How many people read and reacted to your messages.
• How much time visitors spent on certain pages.
• Webpage bounce rates in comparison to standards.
• If checkout conversion rates are higher or lower than they should be.
• How visitors navigate from page to page, and where they get lost (this process is called a Website Path Analysis).
• Where your visitors are coming from (i.e. various social media platforms, or from email campaigns or from ad campaigns).
• How your website operates on mobile devices versus desktops.
• The search terms people use to find your website.
• How many people visit your site when you post something on social media.
• How to maneuver people into your sales funnel.
• How to calculate ROI.

Conclusion

Although anybody can use Google Analytics, it takes a person who is certified in Google Analytics IQ (Individual Qualification) to harness the full potential of this powerful tool. For that reason, and because your website is so important to your organization, it is recommended that you get your website analyzed as soon as possible.

Tags: analysis, analytics, development, web