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Analytics matter because data-driven decisions are the best decisions.

You've heard the term 'analytics' thrown around quite a bit in the realm of digital marketing and web design. But what does it mean for your church's website? And more importantly, why should you care? The truth is, understanding and using website analytics can unlock information that can drastically improve your church's online presence and outreach. Let's break it down.

What Are Website Analytics?

At their core, website analytics are data points that show how visitors interact with your site. From the number of people who visit your site to the pages they spend the most time on, these metrics offer valuable insights into what's working and what might need a bit of tweaking.

Tim Berners-Lee
"Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves."

The Importance of Website Analytics

Understanding your website's analytics is like having a roadmap to success. It allows you to identify where your visitors are coming from, what content they find most engaging, and where there might be roadblocks in their journey through your site.

They show you who your audience is.
They help identify popular content.
They highlight potential issues on your site.
They allow you to track growth and engagement over time.
They provide insights into optimizing your site's SEO.

How Can Churches Track Website Analytics?

The process might sound daunting, but don't worry. Squarespace can easily help you monitor and understand your website's traffic and performance. Here's how you can get started:

In the Home menu, click Analytics.
Click a panel to see the report. You can choose from Sales, Traffic, or Geography.

Click below to read through the definitions of common analytics terms you may see:

Average time on page - The average amount of time users spend on a single page before navigating to another part of your site (Total time spent on page / (Pageviews - Exits)). Users who exit or bounce from a page aren't included in this audience engagement metric.
Bounce rate - The bounce rate for a page is the percentage of visitors who entered your site on that page, then exited your site from the same page without visiting any other pages on your site. What this audience engagement metric tells you about a page on your site depends on what you expect site visitors to do on that page.
Button clicks - The number of times a visitor clicked your site’s buttons. The total includes clicks from any button blocks, promotional pop-up buttons, or cover page buttons enabled on your site.
Conv. rate - Short for conversion rate. A good indicator of how visitor behaviors convert into actions, such as sales or engagement. The number is calculated differently depending on the panel.
Direct - Represents when someone typed your URL directly into their browser, rather than coming to your site from another page. You'll see this metric in the Referrers and Traffic Sources panels, and on the Traffic Sources card in the Squarespace app. If this number appears inflated, some of those visits may be from you visiting your own site while logged out. When you're logged in, your activity doesn’t count toward visits.
Exit rate - The percentage of views to a given page that didn’t result in any more pageviews on your site. This audience engagement metric highlights the pages that most often cause visitors to exit out of your site.
Form submissions - The number of forms submitted from your site. The total includes submissions from any form blocks, newsletter blocks, promotional pop-up newsletters, or cover page forms enabled on your site.
Individual - In RSS Subscribers, this represents specific visits to your site’s RSS feed URL. It can also include instances where we can’t detect a visitor’s specific feed reader.
Pageview - A record of page requests on your site. Requests for specific image URLs or other scripts don’t count toward this number—only full page loads do. Use this audience engagement metric to determine page popularity.
Subscribers - In RSS subscribers, this represents the number of times an RSS feed or post within the feed was accessed in a selected time period. It doesn’t represent the actual number of subscribers to your RSS feed.
Unique views - An estimate of the total number of actual visitors that loaded the page with your button or form in the set time frame.
Unique visitors - Previously called audience size. An estimate of the total number of actual visitors that reached your site in the set time frame. This can be a good measure of your loyal audience and readership. We track the number of unique visitors with a browser cookie created when someone first visits your site. This cookie lasts for two years. If a visitor clears their cookies or opens your site from a different browser, the Squarespace app counts their first new visit toward unique visitors.
Visits - The total number of visits in a selected time. A visit is one browsing session on your site, which could potentially include multiple pageviews. We track visits with a browser cookie that expires after 30 minutes. Any hits within that 30-minute browsing session count as one visit. This means that one person can count as multiple visits in a day if they come to your site more than once.

How to Use the Data to Improve Your Church Website

Now that you're collecting data, what's next? Here's where the fun begins. You can use the insights from your website analytics to make targeted improvements that can enhance your website's effectiveness and increase engagement.

W. Edwards Deming
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion."

Transforming Data into Action

From updating the content on your least visited pages to understanding the best times to post new content, the data you collect can guide your website improvement efforts.

Here's how:

Enhance popular pages for increased engagement.
Update or remove less popular content.
Improve site navigation based on visitor journey data.
Optimize your site for search based on popular keywords.
Make data-driven decisions for future site improvements.

Understanding Analytics One Step at a Time

Understanding and applying website analytics may seem like a giant task, but remember, it's a journey. Start with the basics, and as you become more comfortable, you can dive deeper into the data. The important thing is to use these insights to make informed decisions, and continually improve your website. As we like to say, data-driven decisions are the best decisions!

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