SHERPA S WEBSITE TRAFFIC CASE STUDY

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1 SHERPA S WEBSITE TRAFFIC CASE STUDY

2 SHERPA S WEBSITE TRAFFIC A SNAPSHOT OF BEFORE & AFTER contact us sherpamarketing.ca Sherpa Marketing recently launched its new website. Launching a new website can be both an exciting and daunting endeavor. It requires an investment of time which involves careful planning to minimize problems when the site is finally live. As with all websites Sherpa develops, countless hours were spent conducting usability tests to evaluate how the site would perform in a user environment. Usability testing is an essential part of quality assurance and a true test of how site visitors would use the site kenaston blvd winnipeg, manitoba westmount rd e. kitchener, ontario marketing

3 FROM OLD TO NEW After satisfying the requirements to ensure that the site would look and act as was intended, Sherpa launched its newly designed website in February, 2015.

4 CHALLENGE PRE-LAUNCH STATS Pre-launch 6 MONTHS POST LAUNCH The marketing challenge was to create a mobile responsive, aesthetically like parallax design and responsive CSS, the brand new site was intended to Months before the new website was launched, traffic to the website had begun Unique users 1,596 pleasing website that reflected the Sherpa brand identity and that would capture the essence of who and what Sherpa is, changing the focus from the to plateau. The overall traffic sessions for the six month period before the launch Sessions 1,816 establish Sherpa as a trusted expert in website development and creative former abstract mountaineering theme to a more direct focus on the people that (Sept 27, February 19, 2015) were 1,816. There were 1,596 unique users and Session Duration 1:20 design. Featuring tons of new features work at Sherpa. 4,607 page views. In addition, the average session duration pre-launch was 01:20. Page views 4,607

5 CHALLENGE Continued Reviewing year-over-year traffic to the Sherpa website in 2013 versus 2014, there was a 12% increase in sessions and a 34% increase in users. While there was an increase in visits to the site, we noticed significant decrease in page views, pages per session, average session duration and an increased bounce rate. In terms of setting actionable goals, some of the goals and events that were to be measured within Google Analytics were intended to track the stickiness of the site by reviewing metrics such as the average time spent on the site and to see more page views. Having established our own extensive content marketing plan, one of our specific goals was to see interaction with social media icons on the website.

6 During the week of the initial launch as well as the week post launch, we saw a 74% increase in sessions and a 64% increase in users. Page views soared by 165% and pages per session increased by 52% SOLUTION Launch To increase the newly launched website s visibility we notified clients, prospects, influencers and vendors through all social media channels as well as through a blast . We promoted a post about the new launch on LinkedIn which received over 500 impressions from both organic and sponsored posts, with a 2.21% engagement rate on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great networking tool and good for publishing content relevant to your professional network; however, we used this platform as a promotion tool to spread the word about our newly launched website to our client base and extended network. During the week of the initial launch as well as the week post launch, we saw a 74% increase in sessions and a 64% increase in users. Page views soared by 165% and pages per session increased by 52%. On an average, session duration was 4:39. How long visitors stay on a website has been considered a key indication of how successful that site is in attracting relevant visitors.

7 OUTCOME Post-launch With internet users snacking on and skimming content online, the new website was designed to be visually palatable and easy to skim through. By using beautiful pictures and having short but punchy headlines and news content, the new website very easily appealed to our audience, making them stay 4 times longer on the new site. Due to increased promotion of the new site, we noticed a peak in traffic volumes around March 17 th, about a month after the launch. Sessions and users increased significantly, which can be attributed to social media activity. The larger peak that occurred near the end of the launch month could again be explained as excitement surrounding the new site.

8 OUTCOME POST-LAUNCH STATS Continued 6 MONTHS POST LAUNCH Comparing similar time periods in May 2014 versus 2015, we saw more than twice 133% increase in users and a 36% increase in average session duration. However, In terms of devices, we combined data from tablets and mobile and classified Unique users 3,742 the number of sessions and users on the website in In addition, we compared pages per session dropped. This could be due to excitement surrounding the new both as mobile. We noticed that more than 80% of visitors came to the site from a Sessions 4,566 6 months pre-launch (Sept Feb 2015) and 6 months post launch site, with visitors navigating the site to admire the graphics and design and desktop device and generally spent more time on the site. Interestingly, looking at Session Duration 1:49 (Feb July 2015) and saw a 151% increase in sessions, not necessarily staying on it to explore the content. engagement, visitors who came from a mobile device viewed more pages per session than those who came from Page views 11,015 a desktop.

9 With the optimal viewing and interaction experience provided by the responsive design, visitors screens were adapted to the device they used to visit the website. After the new site was launched, returning visitors spent more than twice the average session duration time potentially clients wanting to explore what had been changed on the Sherpa site. The age group had the most sessions on the website. This demographic breakdown of the data showed an age distribution similar to those of the Account Managers who shared posts about the website launch across their social media platforms to their friends and social community.

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