Really interesting post.

It would be great to know how these changes have impacted the site’s stickiness, online giving, or other similar metrics. 

I’m guessing the new site is doing much better, but would love to see the stats.

Thanks for the question, Melody.

Give2GiveHope is a baby non-profit (just over 2 years old), 100% staffed by volunteers who all have ‘day jobs’, and we’re still “learning the ropes” to all that is involved in running/marketing a non-profit.

It’s difficult for us to give hard facts on impact as we don’t have well established trends to be able to compare against.  Let me explain what I can…

The changes Katya suggested were implemented August 13, 2011.

I looked into our google analytics - which we began capturing in Sept 2010.  If you compare year-to-year, our traffic is acutally down comparing the month of Sept 2010 to Sept 2011.  But pageviews are up 23%, pages/visit are up 50%, new visits up 12% and time on site is up 47%.

If I compare more recent traffic (say 6 weeks before to 6 weeks after) everything has gone down except for new visits (+14%).

Part of this can be explained by the cycle of our annual activities and what we’ve experience this year - our first ever furndraiser at a school in May, our second annual mission trip in late June/July, our first event fundraiser that just got occured last Saturday, etc.  So we haven’t really established any sort of good ‘benchmark’ to be able to firmly say that the changes we made to the site had “X” affect on our traffic or giving.

Additionally, as a full-time webmaster for a hospital (Give2GiveHope is what I do in my “free” time), I have some very real world exposure to the fact that when our marketing team runs billboards, TV commercials, radio commercials, Google AdWords, and print pieces (direct mail postcards or newspaper ads) about a service the hospital offers, we see a HUGE increase in web traffic and ‘actionable’ activities (making an appointment, scheduling a visit with a doctor, etc.).  And when those other supporting marketing pieces disappear the web traffic plummets.  It’s been demonstrated time after time, that web is just a piece of the pie and without those other parts of the media mix, we really have a difficult time showing results.

Since Give2GiveHope is new, small, and lacks the kind of marketing budget a hospital does, the improvement and changes to our website aren’t supported with those other pieces of the puzzle (TV, radio, direct mail, billboards, etc) so it’s hard to put a hard “ROI” on the changes we made given our lack of benchmark and lack of other-channel marketing support.  Needless to say, Katya’s advice was solid - and without a questions “spot on”.  Even as a webmaster, it’s good to have some ‘outside’ eyes to point out areas you can improve on design and function… we all have a tendacy to live in our ‘bubble’ and we become so familiar with our cause or product that we don’t see things the way the “public” sees them.

For example, the “childlike” font that was used on the old version is actually a font built on my daughter’s handwriting.  Very cute and sentimental to me, but not conveying the professionalism that our organization needs to - as pointed out by Katya.  I was endeared to it, but Katya was right -  not the impression I want to send out.

So, even though our traffic has decreased since the changes were made, should I have kept the font?  Without a question - no - it wasn’t adding anything to the website, and may have actually had some negative affects. I look at the other changes we made the same way… is organized and clean better than cluttered and confused?  You bet… even when traffic hasn’t increased…  So at this point, I’m personally measuring my ROI on the ‘quality’ of the impressions I’m giving instead of the ‘quantity’ of impression made… might be a little skewed, but given we have little else to benchmark against at this point, it is what it is

Very well done Katya!  It’s good to see that pageviews and time on site have increased.  I’d be curious to see if donations or email subscribers increased after the changes.  I guess the only addition I would have made is point an arrow to or have a person pointing to/looking at the donation link.  Readers tend to follow visual cues and are more likely to take action.  Good job!

Hey Katya, great work. It makes sense to keep a website clutter free. Offering visitors too many options is not good as it can be confusing for them on what action to take.
I like Torys idea in the comment section about drawing attention to the donation link.