Have you ever wondered what pages are viewed most on a churches website?
Millions of pageviews occur each month to the iMinistries server, so I hopped onto Google Analytics and reviewed the data to find out.
The Process
I searched for the types of pages that most churches on our system have on their website, identified a key word in that title, and then saw how many unique pageviews those pages with a particular word or phrase had over a 6 month period. It’s not rocket science. But, it helps paint a pretty good picture of what’s being viewed.
Examples:
- I’m New/New Here – it would be listed as just New Here
- What we Believe/Beliefs – it wold be listed as What we Believe
- Statement/Statement of Faith – it would be listed as just Statement
The reason for choosing unique pageviews is to see what visitors looked at the first time they checked out your site. This might also help evaluate what’s most important to display on your church or ministries home page.
[Click for Larger]
Are you using Google Analytics?
What did you find?
Do you need to change your strategy?
Bryan Chalker says
Bryan, this is a terrific infographic. Google Analytics is such a wonderful tool for fleshing out the real intent and visitor information for church sites. Every ministry seems to want to “shotgun” their events or content on the site, without much thought of a targeted method. GA (other other competent analytics) needs to be looked at, at least monthly, for more than a few passing minutes. Taking an hour or two, to mine the data a bit would help give piece of mind to all the ministries on staff, and provide a bit of guidance on what is working, and what needs more emphasis.
Bryan Young says
Thanks for the compliments. You are absolutely correct. Every church and ministry should tailor their website for what the analytics tell them. It is tempting to look at other (larger) churches to see what they do and just replicate that. The problem with this model is that it tells their story and not yours. You’ve got to start somewhere, but with evaluation of analytics, your site should begin to mold to how your congregation and community is using your website.
VietChristian says
Great information. Thank you.
Bryan Young says
No problem.
Patrick Allmond says
I love deep analytics like this. You should also do some heat map experimentation to see where the mouse and eyeballs go. Is it always to the upper, left or is it to these topics? I talked about some other ways to get some good analytics here: http://allaboutfocus.com/ocpra/#
Bryan Young says
Patrick,
We have studied and do recommend studying heat map analytics as you suggest above. Thanks for reminding everyone of this. It is very informative to see what is getting clicked on and this sort of data shouldn’t be overlooked. Making sure users actually click on what you intend them to click on can help in deciding placement of links and the overall design of the website. Thank you for sharing the link, too.
Patrick Allmond says
My pleasure. Wasn’t trying to be too self-serving 🙂 But I just did a presentation on this at a local PR conference so the video/hangout was on the top of my mind. I’ve added you guys to my RSS manager.
Meredith Gould, PhD says
Also helps to have tabs that clearly indicated the content visitors will find. I know this seems like news from The Duh Department, but it isn’t, alas. Far too many church websites include tabs or headers or sub-heads that aim to inspire rather than inform. Let the nav bar be dull, not the site design. Too often it’s the other way around.
Full disclosure: I’m the founder and lead moderator for the Twitter-based church social media (#ChSocM) chat. Spend a lot of time RT’ng your stuff! You and your readers are most welcome to participate in the chat on Tuesdays, 9PM ET.