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One year review of the new messiah.edu

Prepared by: Kris HardyDirector of Web Communication

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Follow along with the presentation:

www.slideshare.net/messiahweb

Presentation overview Section 1 - Importance of the webSection 2 - Web strategy for the past 12 months Section 3 - A closer look at the redesign

Questions feel free to ask questions at any point during the presentation.

SourcesE-Expectations Reports (sponsored by Noel-Levitz, OmniUpdate, CollegeWeek Live and National Research Center for College & University Admissions)Google Analytics (for messiah.edu)CrazyEgg (heatmapping tool)

Talk specifically about the methodology of the research not specific to our campus.E-Expectations Reports:documentsthe expectations and attitudesof nearly 2,000 international high school students from 146 countries about enrolling in college in the United Statesis part of an ongoing research project by Noel-Levitz to provide helpful information about the college search process

State of the Mobile and Responsive Web in Higher EducationSurvey conducted by Higher Ed Web Analytics, a partner to the Higher Ed Experts.com series174 professions working in web and marketing offices at colleges and universities in the U.S. participated in the 2013 surveyThird annual survey

Both surveys provide valuable information about students usage of the web and mobile and higher educations response4

Importance of the webSection 1

Importance of the web*2013 E-Expectations Report70 percent of students answered that an institutions website does affect their perception of a college. No.30%Yes.70%

Importance of the web43 percent of students correlated colleges with higher quality websites with colleges that have higher quality education options.No.57%Yes.43%*2013 E-Expectations Report

How important is the web in the evaluation of an institution?

*2012 E-Expectations ReportCollectively, 52 percent of students responded that a campus website played at least a significant role in their evaluation of a potential college.

Its not a surprise that students place high value on an institutions website when evaluating college.8

Importance of the webEach month visitors spend around 12,325 hours on Messiahs website and visit 673,704 pages. *Google Analytics March 1 March 31, 2015

Web strategy for the past 12 months Section 2

Web strategy for the past 12 months Initiative 1 - Centralize content into one Content Management System Initiative 2 Redesign (responsive design)Initiative 3 - Migrate custom developments and modulesInitiative 4 Improve content integrity

Initiative 1 - Centralize content into one Content Management System

Initiative 1 completed on: June 27th 2014

Initiative 2 RESPONSIVE redesign(mobile friendly)

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Responsive Framework

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Responsive Framework

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The importance of responsive design

Prospective student mobile browsing behaviors

*2013 E-Expectations ReportHow frequently do students use mobile devices for web browsing?

78% of students have regular access to a mobile device so its no surprise that theyre using that device to go online, including checking college websites. Many students also use their mobile device to check email, so even though they might not be coming to our website using their mobile browser, they may be clicking through from search emails we send.21

Initiative 2 completed on: August 18th 2014

Initiative 3 - Migrate custom developments and modules

Initiative 4 - Content integrity Worked with Institutional Web and Technology Committee to implement a content audit system.Developed widgets to improve user interface (UI) on pagesSearch Engine Optimization (SEO)

Content integrity - content auditOut of 4,836 pages -

Content integrity - improve user interface

Content integrity - SEO*Google Analytics 30 daysTraffic to our website

A closer look at the redesignSection 3

In this section: More than just a redesign What the data is telling usThe new homepageAcademics

More than just a redesign Identified prospective students as our primary audience and focused content and navigation around their needs. Audited and removed hundreds of old pages that were no longer neededIntroduced numerous widgets to improve user experience along with helping to organize content better on pages.

More than just a redesign Identified prospective students as our primary audience and focused content and navigation around their needs. Audited and removed hundreds of old pages that were no longer neededIntroduced numerous widgets to improve user experience along with helping to organize content better on pages.

More than just a redesign Identified prospective students as our primary audience and focused content and navigation around their needs. Audited and removed hundreds of old pages that were no longer neededIntroduced numerous widgets to improve user experience along with helping to better organize content on pages.

What the data is telling us

Change in mobile trafficPages mobile visitors viewed increased by 34%The bounce rate for mobile visitors also dropped by 23%.

Overall traffic

Google Analytics Benchmarking

Pages viewed per visit (Organic Search)

19.09%

Average visit duration (Organic Search)

16.01%

Bounce rate (Organic Search)

-11.36%

Heatmapping

The new homepage

Heatmapping

Homepage slider

We have had 22,318 visitors interact/click on the homepage slider

Roughly 10% of new visitors will interact with the slider

Out of the 22,318 clicks3,393 clicks were to start the online application. 357 of that 3,393 submitted the application in that same session.93 open house and visit registrations

Academics

Website traffic per month *Google Analytics from the month of October

Questions?