Last spring, LIVESTRONG partnered with Springbox to design a new Web site for their LIVESTRONG.org domain. Together, we worked to create a more user-friendly site that both improved navigation for visitors and better-equipped LIVESTRONG to make data-driven decisions around what content the community finds most helpful. Some specific changes included…

1. Reformatting their site according to a more intuitive hierarchy, which we subsequently reflected in their URL structure as a way to enhance site navigation, improve reporting capabilities, and initiate SEO improvements.
2. Developing a technical solution for collecting, and then a strategy for documenting, on-site activities to let LIVESTRONG know what PDFs, videos, images, external links, and flash elements the community finds most helpful.
3. Better featuring programs and resources — such as their “At School” program, which helps educators talk to K through 12-graders about cancer, and their Resource Database, which helps those affected by cancer find helpful information and local support. 

Naturally, we hoped to implement these changes with as little negative impact on the site’s users as possible. This is the first of a series of blogs that outline the results of this project. 

At Launch: New Site Improves User-Engagement Without Losing Traffic

The new site went live in the last week of April 2010. To assess how seamlessly the launch went, we pulled traffic metrics on the new site’s performance, and then compared them to the same metrics, by month, for the previous six months. We were happy to see the site did not experience a drop in usage or search traffic that would indicate users had excessive issues finding it. To the contrary, traffic has increased, and, as a percent of total traffic, search has improved. Here are some highlights:

• The three months following launch (May 2010-July 2010) averaged 70.54% more visits than the old site did for the six months before launch (Oct. 2009-April 2010.)
• In July 2010, the new site saw 144.21% more visits per day than the old site averaged for the six months prior to launch (October 2009-April 2010) — this constitutes a nine-month high for the domain.
• Under the new site, May-July 2010 all saw more overall visits, than the old site’s previous six-month high back in October of 2009.
• Visits per day increased an average of 68.20% the three months following launch (May 2010-July 2010) over the old site’s previous six months (Oct. 2009-April 2010.)
• As a percent of total traffic, Search traffic increased month-over-month for the three months following launch in May 2010 — meaning that as a percent of total traffic, Search accounted for more visits in Aug. 2010 than in the previous 10 months.  

 

 

LIVESTRONG.org is a content-heavy, non-commerce site. So as an initial gauge for success, we looked at common engagement metrics for the old site the month before we replaced it (March 2010) and for the old site during the same time period the previous year (May-June 2009.) We compared those to averages for the two months following launch. Engagement metrics across the board improved. After launching the new site, visitors:

• Spent 126.09% longer on site than on the old site the month prior.
• Bounced 7.68% less often than on the old site the month prior.

At launch, preliminary metrics looked good. In the next blog we’ll discuss what we’ve seen since.