4 minute read
Competitor analysis
from Website Toolkit
FUNCTIONALITY TESTING
Functionality testing is another way of checking that the website you are developing is up to a high standard and performing to its best ability.
Advertisement
In today’s technology-infused world, the risk of a breach in security is fairly significant.
This process checks an application, website or system to ensure that it is working correctly and doing exactly what it is meant to do.
During the planning stages of website development, every project creates a document that highlights what the website is supposed to do. This is usually done from a user’s perspective.
One way to conduct functionality testing is to create a spreadsheet with step-by-step instructions on performing specific tasks on the website (such as submit an enquiry, locate the nearest Lodge meeting place, etc) and share this with a few volunteers. The aim is to determine if the website's functionalities work well and do not present any glitches.
SECURITY TESTING
The majority of websites have substantial security protocols built into their programming to secure any data or information from intruders.
As with most software programs, it is important to evaluate the efficiency of these security systems, checking they are up to date and running correctly.
Security testing highlights any vulnerabilities in a system, determining how protected your data and resources are from intruders. A security test focuses on finding any possible weaknesses or loopholes that may result in information loss. Security testing can help identify any threats or weak points in your website’s system. This test can also measure your website’s potential vulnerabilities and detect every possible risk in your system. The results of a security test can help developers fix any problems through coding.
MEASURE SUCCESS
It is incredibly important to measure the success of your website. This will show you how well your website is doing, allowing you to set targets and evaluate your marketing techniques.
There are many ways to measure the success of your website. Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics tools in the industry – it helps by accumulating data and mapping it out into easy-to-interpret information in graphs and tables.
Some of the metrics you want to monitor are:
ACQUISITION
1. USERS: Overall traffic is an excellent place to start determining how effective your website is. Overall traffic tells you how many people have visited your website and allows you to set a benchmark to see the growth of your website. Organic traffic measures the number of people who visit your website through search engines like
Google. This traffic allows you to measure how effective your SEO (see next topic) is and highlights how well your website is performing.
2. SESSIONS: A session is a group of user interactions within your website that are recorded during a given time period. A session collects every interaction a user has within your website at one time – for example, if they access three different pages. Tracking sessions enables you to evaluate how good your marketing is by seeing how often users are directed back to your website (for example, twice a month).
3. CHANNELS: Channels highlight how people came across your site (such as direct, organic search, referral, social). This enables you to evaluate the performance of your various types of marketing and develop ways to increase the usage of different channels.
4. DEVICE: This is what your website viewers are using to access your page (such as mobile, desktop, or tablet). It allows you to highlight areas of improvement, like making your website more mobile-friendly.
ENGAGEMENT
1. SESSION DURATION: An engaging website also means visitors' average time on your site will increase. Visitors aren’t going to spend too much time on a website they do not find engaging or worth their time.
Linked to this is a metric called ‘average page views per visit’; this tells you if visitors are viewing multiple pages on your website. A high result means your website is engaging and has a smooth transition.
2. THE NUMBER OF PAGES VISITED
DURING USER SESSION: This metric is the average number of pages a person views in one session. For example, that could be reading two blog posts and signing up for a newsletter. If the average page per session is three, it means the average person visits three pages on your website before leaving.
This measurement is important as it can show how engaging your website pages are and highlight areas of improvement to keep viewers sticking around.
3. BOUNCE RATE: Visitors to your website are only valuable if they stick around to see what you are offering. Bounce rates measure visitors who leave your website after visiting one page. A low bounce rate suggests an informative and engaging website that inspires visitors to view multiple pages.
