Are educational web pages successful? How do we know?

Measuring educational web content's success can be challenging. Whether you are doing this to improve the content, or for annual or grant reporting, ELT and the Extension web team are here to help with three steps to get you started!

1. Define "Success"

"Successful" web content means different things to everyone. Extension teams may need to think creatively about what successful web content means to them, and be realistic about what a web page can really do (and measure). 

In general, a single web page or even a series of web pages can strive to increase awareness and understanding in your viewers. Setting your "success" goals at behavior change--a common Extension goal--is probably not realistic for a web page, but a web page can be a key entry point for engaging viewers in deeper learning later!

Here are some examples of success criteria or goals some teams might have for web content.

• Viewers learn what they need to know from the page
• The page is easily found in Google searches
• The page is viewed by a lot of people
• Viewers say the content is helpful by submitting page feedback
• Viewers take an engagement action on the page, like following your team on social media, or subscribing to a newsletter
• Visitors are advocates for the content by recommending it to others

2. Decide on what to measure

This can be a difficult thing to do when you don't know what tools or metrics are available. This is where the Web Team comes in handy. Can you describe what you would like to measure? Then we can help.

For example, here are some ideas based on the goals above:

• Percentage of visitors responding positively to a prompt saying they learned what they needed to know from the content
• Google search ranking of page/site for desired search terms
• Number of visits/views of the page
• Average rating of the page using an embedded star rating widget
• Percentage or number of visitors taking action on the web page, such as clicking a specific link or button
• Percentage of visitors responding positively to a prompt asking if they would recommend the content to a friend or colleague

3. Set up measurement tools, note your baseline

Although many metrics can be found on the comprehensive Extension web analytics dashboard, some teams have different needs. We can add Qualtrics surveys and page rating boxes to pages, if needed, or just help you walk through the comprehensive analytics dashboard. 

A number can be just a number if you don't have anything to compare it to. Measuring progress toward a goal means you need a baseline first. Then we are happy to help adjust the web content to see what works better in reaching your goals.

I hope you have found this inspirational for reporting on and improving educational web content. Just comment below if you have anything we can clarify!