And if you’re a non-profit business, your success depends on your ability to continue serving your audience and functioning.
Achieving either of these things takes money. And like many businesses, you see the benefits of having a website in your attempt to achieve your giao.s
But since your website needs to further your organization’s goals in some way, it needs to be successful. In order to know if it’s successful or not, you need to measure it’s performance.
But how do you measure website performance?
If you could know how your website was performing, you’d know…
- Which sources of website visitors are yielding the best results, letting you know whether to focus on social media, email, Google AdWords, or some other way of getting the word out
- Which pages on your website are most important, giving you insights into what your audience really wants to hear and what you need to say to successfully close deals
- What’s not working on your website so you can improve it and do even better in the future
…And so on.
In fact, the benefits of knowing how to measure your website success are too many to list. Yet in my experience, most business owners simply measure their website’s success in a very loose way.
“Yeah,I got a lead through it recently, I think.”
“Eh, it hasn’t really done a lot for me.”
Each of these 100% real statements reveals a secret: website performance isn’t measured so much as it is felt.
But you don’t look at your bank account as a feeling. You want to know exactly how many dollars and cents are available for your to spend. (Otherwise you’re doomed.)
Fortunately, there’s a way to measure your website’s performance. Instead of feeling if your efforts are being a success or not, you’ll know with certainty whether your website is delivering a profitable, positive return on investment for you.
And you’ll also be able to start seeing where your problems most likely are and how to improve them.
Introducing user Journey maps
In my work as a content strategist, it’s my job to create user journey maps. These are documents which track the progress of users through your website, app, or brand in general.
For websites, a user journey map reveals:
- Where your users are coming from
- What they do when they’re on your site
- What they do after visiting your site
When combined with user data, your user journey map can show you the exact cost of getting your users to each stage in their journey.
But creating a user journey nmap isn’t easy. (That’s why companies come to people like me to do it.)
However, you can begin to do with a little bit of thought and care.
Creating Your First user Journey Map
How do you begin your user journey map? Start with the following:
Knowing this basic user flow, you’re able to plan additional details.
For example if you want someone to make a purchase through your site, you need to give them a place to purchase. That means ecommerce software.
If you’re running a more expensive product or service business, you’re probably not making the sale right away. In that case, you’ll need a way for users to submit contact information so you can follow up with a sales call.
That means adding forms and probably some email automation. You might end up with something like this:
That’s a simple map. Then start to fill in more details by answering these questions:
- Where are your users coming from?
- Are there better sources of traffic than others in terms of users?
- What pages do users view when they visit our site?
Of course, you need to have the right technology implemented to answer these questions. A tool like Google Analytics will show you you most of the questions above.