Trying something new? Collect your data! 🧮

Hello Reader,

Last week, I talked to you about my own experience re-writing and refreshing the design of my homepage. I made that decision based on a few things:

• I wanted to be more clear about what, as a company, SM&Co believes
• I was ready to elevate my message and a look that matched it
• It was time I took my own advice and did one thing to move the needle instead of expecting I do all the things all at once

These are reasons based mostly on feelings (my own specifically) versus being informed by data. Yes, I'm experienced and I know my instincts are solid, and I've done the foundational work to inform those instincts, but data is missing from this picture.

I've talked to you before about the critical nuances of my philosophy of data-informed decisions rather than data-driven decisions, so I won't go into it further. However, it is time for me to bring data to the table now that we've implemented these initial changes and I thought it would be more good "behind the scenes" information for you to adapt to your own needs.

This is, frankly, a step a whole lot of people skip after finishing an exciting project like a design refresh. Plus, it's easy to see data collection and analysis as something that needs expensive tools or an army of business development folks, so perceived as not accessible to smaller businesses. In reality, these days that assumption couldn't be further than the truth.

There are loads of accessible ways to collect data, draw conclusions, and make adjustments.

In the example of a homepage overhaul, there are so opportunities that exist to collect great data to see how successful our adjustments have been or if there are other steps that would help us even more—or if we missed the mark entirely. (Sidebar: This is also why I aggressively encourage people to launch new things at the minimum viable level instead of going all in—you'll have more data from that MVP launch than the "perfect" one.)

What I did was install HotJar on my site (it'll be temporary for a few months) to create heat maps so I can see how different components of the new homepage are interacted with (or not!). Here's the most popular part of my homepage right now:

What you can see is that that new section I talked about last week is currently the top performing section on the homepage. There's a fair amount of interaction compared to everything else. Interesting, right?

Now, when I showed this to Josh, he asked, "Does this mean that we should reduce the homepage content?"

This is a great question—and my answer was no. (There are cases in which I'd say yes, though.) That content has a purpose, even if it's not being seen by everyone. But what it did tell me is that for the first time in years, a button—the "how we do it" one—is outperforming the "let's connect" button in my header.

Hmmmm... again, having data to provide context was interesting here. My judgement is that people are enticed enough by the text above it that they want to click on the "how we do it" button to understand more. We've piqued their interest. So, my next action based on what that data is telling me to create a process/philosophy type page to further explain they how and why—because the data told me this is a good idea.

If you don't want to mess around with a tool like HotJar, you can use other tools.

• ​UTMs (which stands for Urchin Tracking Module, not Universal Tag Manager—which would be far more clear); these are little bits of code in a program like Google Analytics, Fathom (what we use), or Squarespace that create special links so you can track click behavior. UTMs are usually discussed in terms of outside sites like social media, but they work perfectly well on your own website, so why not try it?
• Simple A/B tests, such as having the call to action in your navigation that leads to your inquiry form, say Let's Connect one week and Get Started the next. Which creates the most traffic or inquiries?
• Link different text that lead to the same section and see which one gets the most clicks.

You can keep this super, super simple and you'll still be so far ahead of most small businesses or consultants. I can guarantee you that most of your competitors aren't gathering this information with intention and by doing so, you'll be more closely aligned with your audience's needs and have evidence of how effective your changes have been and what your best next steps may be.

Data doesn't have to be complicated to meet your needs and help you make good decisions—every single day we're presented with opportunities (such as this newsletter—I pay attention to what gets clicked each and every week) to gather better information to continue to fine-tune our marketing and business strategy. How cool is that?

Talk soon,

Sarah