ASHA.org Re-envisioning
Discovery Update
Discovery is nearing completion. The problems ASHA has named for years are no longer impressions — they are measured, sourced, and sized. This is what Interactive Strategies’ research says, how our peers compare, and where we’d like FT’s support as we move into strategy and platform selection.
Scroll to follow the story, or jump to what we need from FT.
Since kickoff
01 — Project timeline
We are at the hinge point.
Research and audits are nearing the finish line. Everything ahead turns findings into decisions — strategy, platform, and the creative brief.
Phase durations are indicative and will firm up with the platform decision.
Delivered
Nine deliverables in hand.
- Keyword & SEO analysis
- Analytics review
- Competitive analysis
- CMS comparison
- Core content audit
- Internal stakeholder interview synthesis
- LLM brand audit
- User research review
- Creative brief
Coming next
Ten deliverables ahead.
- Member focus group & survey results
- Brand architecture
- Domain strategy
- Archiving strategy
- CMS selection
- KPI tracking methods
- KPI & cross-domain tracking
- Taxonomy & search strategy
- Usability study plan
- Final strategy recommendation
02 — What we found
The problems we knew existed, now quantified.
ASHA has heard this before
“Despite this comprehensive repository [of content], audiences cannot find information when and where they need it… Users have difficulty navigating ASHA.org and are not aware of the resources that are available to them.”
Now we can show it
Today, the same finding holds — and now we have the data to show why it isn’t working for members.
How people find our content
When the field asks a question, ASHA.org is the answer that surfaces — in search and in AI. The problem is what happens next.
How they arrive
Search is the front door to ASHA — more so than our own homepage.
times ASHA content ranks for a generic topic search — “hearing test,” “AAC devices,” “developmental milestones,” “common medical abbreviations” — it is ASHA.org that ranks.
times an AI answer cites ASHA, it cites ASHA.org — not the journals, not the learning center, not any other property.
of clicks come from people who already know they want ASHA and are typing our name to get somewhere specific.
- “asha login”33k clicks
- “asha convention”20k clicks
- “asha code of ethics”10k clicks
People are using Google as our navigation because ours does not get them there.
Our crown jewels
The pages carrying ASHA’s search and AI visibility.
- Common Medical Abbreviations7.5% of all AI Overview citations · 1,900 top-10 keywords
- About Speech-Language PathologySecond most cited by AI
- Audiology ICD-10 Diagnosis CodesA PDF — not a page
- Selected Phonological PatternsQuick-reference, high visibility
We compete with ourselves
Search “code of ethics ASHA” and seven ASHA URLs come back.
- The current policy page
- The ethics practice hub
- A PDF
- A 2023 Leader article
- An enforcement page
- A schools FAQ
- …and a page whose URL ends in “everyday-ethics-old”
Search “ASHA Practice Portal” and another seven appear — led by ASHA Leader articles from 2015 and 2013.
These disparate destinations make it unclear for users which link to trust.
And the ground is shifting
“The paradigm is changing so fast… zero click, and the risk of a gulf developing between professional societies and their members because of answer engines.”
— Internal stakeholder interview
When members ask AI about the value of ASHA membership, Reddit is already the third most-cited source — behind only asha.org and audiology.org.
When we don’t answer the question directly, Reddit, Fix SLP, Change.org, and Trustpilot fill in the gaps.
How people use our sites
Thirty-three subdomains. Almost all of the traffic lands on three of them — and the people who arrive do not browse.
Of 33 subdomains, just 8 see 96% of all digital traffic — and 81% of visits start on one of three sites.
Home, not so sweet home
The homepage is our most-viewed page — 23.9% of asha.org users see it. Then they leave it immediately:
They do not browse.
Navigation is barely used
- CE
- Certification
- SLP
The rest of the menu barely gets used.
Question to Interactive Strategies: Were the other navigational links tracked in analytics?
Takeaway: ASHA’s properties behave as separate destinations, not one connected journey.
How people interact with our content
Our consumer voice works. Our professional voice talks at members in acronyms — and our longest pages ask for ninety minutes of their attention.
Flesch reading ease, by audience
“Talking to people can be hard if you stutter. You may get stuck… SLPs can help.”
“Verify the status of an individual’s CCC-A or CCC-SLP… C-AA or C-SLPA.”
Flesch Reading Ease scores text from 0–100. Higher is easier to read: 60–70 is plain English, and below 30 is very difficult.
Often not because the language is clinically precise, but because it is dense with acronyms some know and others do not — CCC, CF, NSSLHA.
“It’s more of like ASHA’s talking to their members rather than talking with them.”
Quick reference beats long clinical pages
21,700 words on the Autism page — roughly 90 minutes of reading.
9,600 words is the median length of a topic page.
An engaged session lasted 10 seconds or longer, included a conversion event, or had two or more pageviews.
Where engagement is already strong
- Learning CenterUsers come back to it again and again.
- StoreVisits average more than eight minutes.
- StreamHigh time-on-content, low reach.
- Career PortalLow reach, but visitors return.
Half our footprint is not a page
of the site’s total footprint is files — PDFs and images — rather than navigable pages — 12,051 images and 10,164 PDFs in Optimizely alone.
- Hard to use on mobile
- Weaker for accessibility
- Hard for search engines to index and summarize — and when they do rank, they open outside the site, so members lose navigation and context
03 — The comparison
How our peers are doing by comparison.
Eight organizations reviewed for user experience, four more for search and keyword competition.
Reviewed for UX
- AOTA
- AAP
- APTA
- APA
- American University
- Johns Hopkins University
- AARP
- US Travel
Reviewed for search & keyword competition
- American Academy of Audiology
- The Informed SLP
- MedSLP Collective
- SpeechPathology.com
What we do well
ASHA: “Making effective communication, a human right, accessible and achievable for all.”
AAP: “You’ve chosen a career caring for our most vulnerable population.”
The Practice Portal, Evidence Maps, and the journals are genuinely differentiating assets. No peer matches them.
AAP and APTA divide their properties the same way — the structure is sound.
Where we fall behind
APA organizes membership in the second person — “Your Membership” — and speaks to what you keep: “Keep your place in our global community and access exclusive benefits and resources.”
“Our members live in an Amazon world where they want to be told what they want before they know they want it.”— Internal stakeholder
APTA leads with an “I want to…” menu organized around member tasks. Ours is organized around our departments.
“Our architecture reflects our organizational map. And that’s just insane.”— Executive leadership
The American Academy of Audiology outranks ASHA on 494 of 809 shared keywords by running a clearly defined page per topic instead of one comprehensive page.
MedSLP Collective — far smaller than ASHA — outranks us on the Frazier Free Water Protocol (used for dysphagia management) on the strength of a single downloadable resource.
“We’re just pages and pages and pages of text. Good information, but it’s not always the most digestible.”— Membership
What no one is doing well
Nobody in the field connects a topic from plain-language overview all the way through to the research. That path is ours to model.
04 — A first glimpse
Where the strategy is headed.
One findable hub per topic, with focused spokes that each answer a single question well — and a short list of content that does not exist yet.
one front door
The hub is the page that ranks, gets cited, and orients anyone arriving cold — and it stays in front of the member log-in wall.
Instead of one 21,700-word page, a hub that routes each audience to the one thing they came for.
The content gaps
Eight things members, students, employers, and answer engines are looking for and not finding.
Tangible, findable proof of value — not a benefits grid.
A plain-language explainer for students, early-career clinicians, employers — and AI visibility.
School SLPs, hospital SLPs, audiologists — each with their own daily questions.
The return-on-credential case, written for administrators.
Practice management, OTC hearing aids, reimbursement, and consumer education.
Raise the visibility of the assistant career path across ASHA.org.
Plus interprofessional-referral content for other health providers.
Spanish content is “so scattered around” — an equity and findability gap.
Why membership content tops this list: Our Join ASHA, Dues & Renewal, and the Certification FAQs pages are cited by AI for important questions like “Is ASHA membership worth it?” — but they document the facts, not the value. Third-party voices — including Reddit and Fix SLP — fill the gap.
05 — The platform
The decision underneath it all.
None of the above is possible without a platform that ASHA staff can actually publish in. Here is how we are weighting the CMS evaluation.
Evaluation framework
Weighted criteria, heaviest first.
Also informing the selection
Considerations we’re bringing into the CMS decision.
- Taxonomy / ontology integration
- eCommerce — Shopify+ integration
- Single sign-on integration
- DXC framework integration
- Member log-in implementation
- Bringing video in from Stream
Editor experience carries the heaviest weight because the audit found the real constraint is not what the platform can do — it is what ASHA staff can maintain.
Next steps
We’re planning to meet directly with representatives from the two leading platforms for live demonstrations and Q&A.
06 — What happens next
What we need from FT.
Four areas we need your support and backing to keep the work moving forward.
- 01 Support our CMS decision Endorse the weighted framework and the resulting recommendation.
- 02 Finalize the content audit And assign ownership for the changes it calls for.
- 03 Prepare SMEs for structural change Site structure changes will require content adjustments.
- 04 Complete the consumer-site move Move remaining asha.org/public content to the consumer site.
These discovery findings will form the basis for the strategy Interactive Strategies presents next. We will share that work with FT as it takes shape.
