Supplement-Ongoing evaluation strengthens Web site
Another decision to make when setting up a Web site is how you are going to evaluate its effectiveness. By monitoring "hits," or visits, to the Web site, you have a chance to see what appeals to people using the Internet to gather information and what areas you need to improve or drop.
Tony Westhoff, RN, administrator of Seattle-based Westlake Surgical Center, doesn't track the numbers of visitors to his site because the center was going to set up a Web page regardless of the number of visits. "Although we don't formally track numbers of visits, I do keep track of the number of e-mails I receive through the Web site," he says.
The Web site for Promina Health System, an Atlanta-based system of hospitals that include hospital-based and freestanding ambulatory surgery programs, is monitored on an ongoing basis with the help of WebTrend software produced by WebTrend Corp. in Portland, OR, says Cheryl Iverson, director of system communications for Promina. "The software costs only $99, but it produces monthly reports that tell us how many visitors the site receives, what [Web address] they visited before us, what they looked at within our site, what order they looked at different information, and how long they stayed at our site."
This information gives Iverson a chance to see which information is of most interest and evaluate necessary changes to improve the length of time people stay in the Web site.
"The job bank portion of our Web site receives about 12,000 hits each month, and we are now working with our human resource department to track how many employee applications and new hires come from the Web site," she adds. They will track this information by adding an "Internet" box to the section of the employment application that asks applicants how they heard of the job opening.
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