
Methodological Guidelines for Systematic Assessments of Health Care Websites Using Web Analytics: Tutorial
Author(s) -
Edwin Lauritz Fundingsland,
Joseph Fike,
Joshua Calvano,
Jeffrey Beach,
Deborah Lai,
Shuhan He
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
jmir. journal of medical internet research/journal of medical internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.446
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1439-4456
pISSN - 1438-8871
DOI - 10.2196/28291
Subject(s) - web analytics , analytics , world wide web , usability , computer science , the internet , user engagement , internet privacy , web development , data science , web intelligence , human–computer interaction
With the growing importance of communicating with the public via the web, many industries have used web analytics to provide information that organizations can use to better achieve their goals. Although the importance of health care websites has also grown, the health care industry has been slower to adopt the use of web analytics. Web analytics are the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of internet data used to measure direct user interaction. Our objective is to provide generalized methods for using web analytics as key performance metrics to evaluate websites and outline actionable recommendations for improvement. By deconstructing web analytic categories such as engagement, users, acquisition, content, and platform, we describe how web analytics are used to evaluate websites and how improvements can be made using this information. Engagement is how a user interacts with a website. It can be evaluated using the daily active users to monthly active users (DAU/MAU) ratio, bounce rate, pages viewed, and time on site. Poor engagement indicates potential problems with website usability. Users pertains to demographic information regarding the users interacting with a website. This data can help administrators understand who is engaging with their website. Acquisition refers to the overall website traffic and the method of traffic, which allows administrators to see how people are accessing their website. This information helps websites expand their methods of attracting users. Content refers to the overall relevancy, accuracy, and trustworthiness of a website’s content. If a website has poor content, it will likely experience difficulty with user engagement. Finally, platform refers to the technical aspects of how people access a website. It includes both the internet browsers and devices used. By providing detailed descriptions of these categories, we have identified how web administrators can use web analytics to systematically assess their websites. We have also provided generalized recommendations for actionable improvements. By introducing the potential of web analytics to augment usability and the conversion rate, we hope to assist health care organizations in better communicating with the public and therefore accomplishing the goals of their websites.