Have you ever wondered how your website performs, but don’t feel like your website provider’s analytics give you a good picture of your data? Maybe you want to know where users face the biggest challenges of navigating your website or what pages lead users to take the next step. Let’s take a look at ways we can improve our website!
Install Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Your website provider likely has website data, but it’s probably elementary. User counts and page view counts are great metrics to see! But maybe you want to see your website’s engagement or conversion metrics. This is where Google Analytics 4’s event data can be robust.
Using event-based analytics, you can see how users interact with your site and generate custom reports that help make better decisions around your content and website structure. You can also track conversions that matter to your staff. This enables clear decision-making and opportunities to optimize your website beyond big guesses and popular trends.
Run Routine Visual Audits
Have you ever visited and website and felt frustrated? How often has it been your own church’s website? Whether you’re trying to purchase products or find information about a product or event, it should be easy for your end users! The best way to do this is by auditing your website for visual improvements. Crawl your website and attempt to complete tasks you expect a user to do online. Was it easy or did you hit roadblocks?
Try out different experiences, like filling out a virtual connect card or online giving, to get a bigger picture of what it takes to complete these next steps. If you find these tasks challenging, why should you expect your members, and especially guests, to feel any different?
Want to increase your audit results? Try these tasks on both mobile AND desktop! This will give you a big picture of how users navigate your website!
Use SEO Tools
Now that you’ve been reviewing your analytics in GA4 and running visual audits, it’s time to take it to the next level. Using SEO Tools, we can audit our website for technical opportunities! Tools like SEMRush and Screaming Frog allow you to dive deeper into more technical issues your site may have. Once you’ve scanned your site, you can take on the challenge of making these fixes. If you use church-focused website providers like Subsplash or The Church Co, you can send these errors to their support team for corrections.
Additionally, tools like Google Search Console enable you to fix issues that prevent your site from being crawled and indexed by the search engine. Start by verifying your website as a domain property and submit your website’s sitemap. You can then see how Google shares your website with users across the internet.
Get Professional Consultations
If this feels like an overwhelming task, you are not alone. Many site managers don’t realize the importance of these elements. When you are seeing results and errors, it is easy to be disheartened.
This is the space where I love getting to serve churches. Building relationships with church staff and breaking down these technical issues is where I aim to help the most. If you want to take your website’s impact further, I would love to help you! Let’s start improving your website’s user experience so we might engage our community for the sake of Christ!