If you are responsible for managing your business' website, chances are high that you use visitor behavioral data (e.g. collected by Google Analytics) to measure your website performance, and ultimately, the return of your website. Visitor behavioral data is great when reporting on unique visitors, page hits, traffic sources, navigation, exit pages, etc., and very useful when wanting to improve visitors' experience in terms of e.g. number of clicks needed to complete an operation.
But reliance on visitors behavioural data fails when trying to measure (and improve) the effectiveness of a website. The effectiveness of a website is based on visitors' success when trying to fulfill the objective(s) at mind when visiting the website. And while visitors' success might be revealed using behavioral data (e.g. did the visitor go through with the purchase), this can at best only be speculative as behavioural data cannot provide you with visitors' various objectives in the first place.
True measurement of website effectiveness should be based on visitor attitudinal data obtained via a web survey when visitors are on your website. In general businesses choose one of the following strategies when implementing a website effectiveness program:
- Ad hoc survey (one-off survey measuring the effectiveness within one time period)
Pros: Easy to implement
Cons: No comparative data - Trend survey (continuous survey measuring the effectiveness)
Pros: Monitor the website effectiveness over time
Cons: No industry comparative data - Trend and benchmark survey (continuous and standardized survey measuring the effectiveness of your website and others within your industry)
Pros: Monitor the website effectiveness, both over time and compared to benchmark for your industry
Cons: None
We recommend strategy 3 as comparative data - both trend and industry benchmark - are crucial when determining how effective your website is.
