intelligent measurement

Key performance indicators for non-profit websites

December 3, 2008 at 9:21 pm Leave a comment

i’m just back from my first Web Analytics Wednesday (that’s their logo above), held here in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’m interested in web analytics (as I’ve written about before) as it is can be a key component in measuring communications activities today.

The focus of this get-together was on Key Performance Indicators – and in particular KPI for non-profit websites. Here are some of the KPI suggested:

– Bounce rate – number of persons visiting only one page compared to number of people visiting more than one page or vice-versa

– Length of visit (time) – compared to same time last year/month/week

– Depth of visit (number of pages) – compared to same time last year/month/week

And quite some interesting KPI for search:

– Number of visitors using search

– Average number of searches per visit

– % of zero search results (my favorite -high % means people don’t find what they are looking for!)

These are all interesting IKP to think about in monitoring website usage – it also is a good addition to the standard measures usually looked at (e.g. number of visitors and page views).

As we discussed during the get-together, some of these IKP need to be taken in the particular context. Take for example “depth of visit” (average number of pages viewed per visitor). A lot of pages viewed can be both positive and negative. It can mean that someone is really doing some in-depth browsing – or it can mean that someone doesn’t find what they want and is clicking everywhere on the site. A solution was suggested by the WAW moderator, Jmarc Vandenabeele – combine both depth and length (time) of visits. If you have short visits with a lot of pages viewed it could be negative (sign that visitors are clicking on many pages in a short time to find something) whereas long visits with a lot of pages viewed could be more positive.

Glenn

Entry filed under: Web metrics. Tags: web analytics wednesday.