Travis Barker Megan McNeil Ciera Sprague Jacob

Travis Barker

Megan McNeil

Ciera Sprague

Jacob Nowlin

Adopting.org Analysis

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Overview

Target Audience and Community

Content

Website Analysis

Audience

Engagement

New & Returning

AllTrafficReport–Source/Medium Landing Pages

All Pages Report

Frequency & Reach

Content Drilldown

Interactivity and Website Objective

Recommendations

Introduction

Birth mothers are the first step in the adoption process. Hundreds of lives and fami-lies are blessed because of their personal life decisions. Birth mothers love their chil-dren and make the best decision for them. The decision however is most likely the hardest of their lives. Adopting.org is an amazing idea. Facilitate the most difficult decisions women can make through support, knowledge, and direction. This website is where these brave women can find support in order for them to ultimately change the lives of all for the better.

The purpose of our project is to analyze the content and data of Adopting.org and give recommendations to improve the website’s ability to achieve its objective. In this report we layout the analysis of the website’s data available from Google Analytics, evaluate if the website’s content is appropriate for the target audience and effective in its objective, and lastly provide our recommendations to improve the website’s performance.

Target Audience

The target audience for adopting.org is women between the ages of 18- 25 who could be potential birth mothers. These women could be in their first few years of college and would make an annual income of about 18-24k a year.

The community does have a lot of social stigmas surrounding these potential birth mothers. People don’t see the person giving up a child in a positive light, which isn’t right. This stigma causes the community to be a very sensitive and emotionally driven subject.

Website Analysis

Engagement Report

(Mar 5, 2016 – Apr 3, 2016)Sessions Total: 3,974Pageviews Total: 6,976

Session Duration: 0-10 Seconds = 2,917 sessions (73% of Total Sessions) 11-30 Seconds = 237 sessions (5.9% of Total Sessions) 31-60 Seconds = 227 sessions (5.7% of Total Sessions)

Seventy-three percent of sessions on the website only last zero to ten seconds long. It seems like a lot of users are leaving the site very quickly without a lot of activity.

(Apr 3, 2015 – Apr 3, 2016)

Total Sessions: 138, 475Total Pageviews: 304, 10664% of Sessions ended after 0-10 seconds (88,463).4.8% of Sessions lasted 11-30 seconds (6,709).6% of Sessions lasted 31-60 seconds (8,327).11.8% of Sessions lasted 61-180 seconds (16,361)9.2% of Sessions lasted 181-600 seconds (12,677)3.8% of Sessions lasted 601-1800 seconds (5,307).05% of Sessions lasted 1801+ seconds (631)

Over the time period of a year, sixty four percent of all sessions ended before ten seconds of duration. The vast majority of users were not spending a lot of time on the site. Twenty four percent of all the sessions lasted at least a minute or longer.

Page Depth: 1 Page = 2,804 Sessions (70.6% of Total Sessions) 2 Pages = 529 Sessions (13.3% of Total Sessions) 3 Pages = 273 Sessions (6.9% of Total Sessions) 4 Pages = 131 Sessions (3.3% of Total Sessions)

New & Returning

(Apr. 3, 2015 – Apr. 3, 2016)Bounce Rate: 62% (Apr), 62% (May), 62% (Jul), 61% (Aug), 61% (Sept), 61% (Oct), 64% (Nov), 60% (Dec), 63.71% (Jan), 67.29% (Feb), 70.09% (Mar), 70%(Apr)New Visitors: 87.5%Returning: 12.5%

(Jan. 1, 2016 – Arp. 3, 2016)Bounce Rate: 63.71% (Jan), 67.29% (Feb), 70.09% (Mar), 70%(Apr)New Visitors: 85.5%Returning: 14.5%

Bounce rate of the website has been consistent over the period of a year but has in-creased slightly in January, February, and March of this year. The number of returning visitors is small and may indicate the website is not effective at attracting a big following of users.

(Apr 3, 2015 – Apr 3, 2016)Sessions vs. Bounce Rate: Sessions: 12,854 (Nov), 11,371(Dec), 11,509 (Jan), 4,558 (Feb), 4,233 (Mar)Bounce R.: 64% (Nov), 60% (Dec), 63.71% (Jan), 67.29% (Feb), 70.09% (Mar)Sessions vs. Bounce Rate:

Pageviews vs. Bounce Rate:

Users vs. Bounce Rate:

All three metrics Sessions, pageviews, and Users have seen a decrease in recent months from November 2015 to March 2016. At the same time the websites bounce rate has increased and combined with sessions, pageviews, and users the website appears to be having less visitors and visitors staying on the website. These metrics indicate a possible error in the sites functionality. The purpose of the site is the attract birthmothers who may be looking for support or answers to questions about putting their child up for adoption. Adopting.org is either driving these users away, maybe because of content, or the site is getting the wrong audience to visit its site, possibly a fault in its advertising strategy or a lack thereof.

AllTrafficReportorSource/Medium(Apr 3, 2015 – Apr 3, 2016)Channels:Organic Search: 61.94%Direct: 18.38%Referral: 18.36%Social: 1.31%Email: 0%

Sixty one percent of traffic to site comes form organic searches on search engines.Over half comes from these searches. The searches are made on Bing, Yahoo, and Google. The keywords that are used to search and find Adopting.org indicate that users are looking for information about adopting a child or becoming a foster parent and not looking to put their child up for adoption. The traffic sources and keywords indicate the site isn’t attracting the intended audience, birth mothers, rather it has attracted those looking to adopt.

Organic Search Sources:

Keywords:

Source/Medium:

One interesting metric in the All Traffic Report was traffic from bbinternationaladoption.com and as referral. Traffic from this source had a slightly lower bounce rate and higher pages per session and session duration than other referral mediums, which had about the same number of sessions. The referral source generated a very small number of sessions in total but the sessions were consistent throughout the year.

While exploring and digging deeper into the bbinternationaladoption.com source, the only distinct characteristic of this source, which set it apart from other referral sources, was the landing page of the visitor from the referral website. The Referral traffic from bbinternationaladoption.com mostly entered the site through the single-parent-adoption.html page. Ninety-three percent of the traffic from bbinternational landed on the single-parent-adoption.html page and the bounce rate was 45%. The third most frequent landing page for these visitors was similar to the first, single-parent-adoptions-why-not-2.html, which had the highest average session duration. This insight might suggest that different landing pages or content category on the website could generate niche visitors.

Landing Pages Report

Creating various landing pages may also be a strategy that could help identify which types of pages and what kind of content is good at retaining visitors.

All Pages Report

(Apr 3, 2015 – Apr 3, 2016)Total Pageviews: 304, 106Pages: 1- Home Page: 35,736 (11.75%) 2- Information for those seeking to adopt: 28, 221 (9.28%) 3- Adoption costs and fees: 6,970 (2.29%) 4- Single parent adoption: 5,016 (1.65%) 5- Becoming a foster parent: 4,659 (1.53%) 6- Adopting a native american: 4,498 (1.48%) 7- /expect.html: 4,390 (1.44%) 8- What parents can do checklist: 4,310 (1.42%) 9- Adopting an adult – state laws: 4,263 (1.40%) 10- Older parent adoption – adopting after 40: 3,027 (1.00%)

Looking at the All Pages Reports it shows the pages with the most views within the time period selected. The most viewed pages for the year might indicate who the readers are based upon the page’s content. Based upon the top viewed pages for Adopting.org of the pervious year, they suggest the readers are not the intended target audience of birth mothers. The top ten articles/pages viewed or read for last year are mostly articles that are geared toward those looking for information on how to adopt, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The content of Adopting.org might not the best to attract birth mothers as the target audience and prompt them to seek support in putting their child up for adoption.

Frequency & Reach

FrequencyEighty-five percent (118,393) of all sessions created on Adopting.org by users were “one-time” sessions. Users who had two sessions in the year made up about nine percent of the total sessions (12,375 or 8.9%) and users with three sessions within the time frame drops to 3,311 (2.4%). The trend continues that in the same direction. The amount of users who had multiple sessions within the year is low. However, looking at users with more than 15 sessions during the year indicates there is a small number of frequent visitors to the website. Nearly one percent (1,339 users) had more than 15 sessions last year.

ReachNinety-three percent of all sessions (129,084/138,475) in the last year did not have another session on the website. In other words, most users who created a session by visiting the site didn’t create another sessions the whole year, they didn’t return to the website.The website is having small success in having visitors coming back with increas-es frequency. Users with eight or more sessions within the year were a total of 5,449 (3.0%). Again there is a very small percentage of users who created more than 15 sessions with the past year.

Content Drilldown

The website doesn’t have an effective strategy for grouping content into categories. Grouping content will help identify which type of content is getting looked at the most. This helps identity the readers themselves and what content is engaging. Since the website is largely made of posts or articles, these could be categorized.

Interactivity and Website Objective

One of the main objective of the website besides providing content for visitors is to provide them with a domain where birth mothers can share their stories, input, voice, and any other information about adoption. The website hasn’t had many if any visitors share content with the site and interact with it.

The main objectives of the website is to attract birth mothers and culminates in them submitting their information for help and support. The option to request support is available at the side of each article/posting and it leads to a support page where they enter their information. Without the metrics in order to examine how many people have actually enter their information, the metric and activity we can observe is pageviews or visits to the support page. According to the Google Analytics metric of pageviews for the website, within the last year there have been zero pageviews of the support page. The few pageviews in the end of March and in April have come from our group members visiting the page to analyze and evaluate its effectiveness.

Recommendations

After our analysis and evaluation of the website and its effectiveness in achieving its objective of attracting birth mothers, we want to provide a number of recommendation in order to help the website attract birth mothers, increase visitor retention and reduce bounce rate, increase visit duration and depth of site exploration, and encourage birth mothers to provide their information for support.

Content

The majority of Adopting.org’s content is oriented more towards individuals and families looking to adopt rather than birth mothers. The content currently on the site isn’t necessarily bad, however there could be more content that is better focused towards what birth mothers want to see, read, know, and feel.

The pages most read on the website were more instructional in nature speaking more to adopting families. We recommend content that covers situations that the birth mother’s would go through and questions they would ask instead of the adopting family. Some examples of this content more appropriately oriented around birth mothers could be: -Stories/experiences about birth mothers -Birth mother testimonials -Stories of adopted children and how they’re grateful for their birth mothers -How adoptive families are grateful for birth mothers -How to trust families -Guidelines to find and work with adoptive agencies -Reasons to decide to become a birth mother -All emotions that birth mother experience

WebsitesTone/FeelContent other than articles such as pictures and videos should feature women in an honest but positive light. The website shouldn’t be overly optimistic and feel good but should have a positive, strong, hopeful and somewhat serious tone. The website should feel like it doesn’t avoid the realities and emotions of being a birth mother but still sensitive to the topics associated with it. The website needs to professional, simple designed, feature soft and warm colors and typography. Pictures should be primarily of women. Making these changes in the content would allow the site to be ready for the correct target audience to engage. Birth mothers visiting the site would be even more interested the content and the website would retain them better.

Website’sNameAdopting.org might not be a good name for the website which is trying to attract birth mothers. The title implies the process and might attract those looking to adopt. A more appropriate website name to attract birth mothers would have to imply the site’s purpose is to help birth mother join a community, feel welcomed and good about their possible decision, learn about the process, and relate to other women.Examples of a new website name that would better communicate to birth mothers are: -BirthMother.org -CommunityOfMothers.org -ToGiveLove.org

Website’sInherentPurposeWhen a visitor comes to a website, we feel it is important that he or she has a feeling or good understanding of the website’s purpose from its home landing page. We recommend a home-page that clearly communicates the website’s purpose and also the partnership with Adoption.com. If mothers want to know more about how the adoption process happens, they can go to Adoption.com.Adopting.org should include the following to communicte the purpose: -Images of women. -Symbols of community and unity such as arms and circles. -Tagline/slogan or introductory statement that clearly communicates the websites purpose to birth mothers such as: “Support. Love. Hope.“

Organization and Categories

The website should be organized into different categories of content so a visitor can easily navigate and explore. Some of the categories could be as follows: -Birth Mothers (Articles/Original Content/Posts explain realities of birth motherhood.) -How, Why, What, Benefits, etc. -Real Mothers (Testimonials/ Private Discussion Board *Membership Req.) -Community (Adoption agencies/ Social Work Agencies/ Local Organizations/Miscellaneous Resources for birth mothers) -Adoption Families (Info that birth mothers want to know about families.) -Questions (Birth mothers submit questions, emails, suggestions) -Adoption.com

We would not recommend a section for visitors sharing. Most birth mothers would want their privacy but to feel encouraged making the correct personal decision. The website would be a balance of openness and honesty about the realities of birth mothers and private details.

Optimization Achieved

Implementing the changes we recommend concerning the website’s content, tone/feel, name, inherent purpose, organization and categories will improve its overall performance and effectiveness. The website will better attract the target audience of birth mothers, get them to interact with and spend more time on the site, and encourage them to enter their information for adoption support.

The support, encouragement, unity, hope, and love that visitors will feel from the site will naturally motivate them to act. The website will be optimized specifically to facilitate their very personal life decision by providing knowledge, support, and community through the vehicle of the website.