Fencing.Net Survey - Results and Findings

[Craig]

Thank you to everyone that participated in the recent Site Satisfaction survey for Fencing.Net. In addition to the general survey answers, you provided lots of great comments that have really helped me to see what people are looking for in the site and what I can work on to improve the site.

General Findings:

Usage:

20% of the visitors to Fencing.Net come to the site on a daily basis! That really speaks to the community that has been built up around the message boards, so thanks to all of you who continue to post and create more content and entertainment for all the regular readers.

Over 50% of users visit the site at least once/week.

People are mainly coming to Fencing.Net to learn more about the sport, to get updated fencing news, and to find/purchase fencing equipment.

Satisfaction

Visitors are generally satisfied with the site, but there are some areas that can use some improvement. Overall 90% rated Fencing.Net favorably.

The best rated areas were: Introductory Information, Training Tips.

Targets for Improvement

Based on the ratings, there were no areas of the site that stood out as needing a lot of attention as people are generally satisfied with the site as a whole. Based on the open ended comments there were two main areas that received a lot of comments. One was for more drills and training tips. (That section of the site is pretty stale and in need of an overhaul.) By far the most frequent comment/request was for more up to date fencing news with both a US and International slant (who knew Fencing.Net was so popular in Canada?)

Conclusions

Based on the survey data, I'm very happy with the fact that people who visit Fencing.Net get a lot out of it and value the site as a resource. The most frequent request was for better news reporting. That's going to be my main focus within the site over the next few months - both in terms of building out the news reporting back-end as well as the actual articles. I love that people post news to the forums as that keeps the community up to date on what's going on (and it beats publications by months at times).

What I took from the survey responses is that there is a need for more regular articles outside of the forum. I'll work on an editorial calendar and start soliciting articles from the prolific writers here and from other members of the fencing community.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I did look over the surveys and that I'm planning out the future of the site based a lot on what the fencing community is telling me they want.

Thanks!
Craig

[Craig]

I realized after posting this that it read a bit like a PR piece instead as information that could be used by the community.

Here's what I took away from the survey results: People who responded tended to like the site, so they tended to vote favorably. That means that the satisfaction ratings may actually only be directional since people rated Fencing.Net favorably on one area while also submitting an open ended comment suggesting ways to improve that area.

What to do next?

There are a lot of people who come to the site on a daily basis, and there isn't much other than the forum that changes that often, so getting a real news schedule and contributors would help that cause.

We've talked about it before, but what is the interest of people on this board who are in different areas of the US and other countries to do a little (2 paragraph) write up of tournaments in your division/section and submit them to a pool of news stories outside of the forum? Both US and International news could be captured there. It would also be a great way for some divisions to get more info out given the traffic this site gets.

Any other thoughts?

Craig

[Rolls]

I know I would happily do a small write up of any events that I go to. I usually try to make to all the tournaments within a days drive. But I'm not sure how interested anyone would be in reading what I write though.

On the other side, I would be interested in hearing local news from other divisions. Coming from a less populated division, I'm always on the lookout for what larger divisions are doing so I can toss ideas to the organizers in my area.

So, to cut the chase, I think it is an excellent idea.

Rolls.

[Zelda]

I get to most senior Australian National comps and would happily write a paragraph or two about what I see. At the moment I dont go for the whole comp due to work constraints etc but will happily write about what I see when I am there!