As website designers and developers, we get to be creative every day, to design and build websites that will be used by people from all over.
We often design to a brief that has been worked through with the client, or website owner and this is coupled with market research completed before the project begins. Before any design starts we determine the best customer pathways using the brief and market research created. This research is translated into our own opinions of how the website will work and be used. Unfortunately, for a lot of agencies and website owners, this is where the thinking and analysis stops.
The problem is, this is where the analysis needs to START
Knowing how users actually use and interact with your website once it’s live is critical. It’s the hard data that should determine any change you make to your online presence going forward, and should be continually monitored. An example of this thinking can be viewed below.
Virtual Print
www.virtualprint.co.nz is an eCommerce website we built and launched late last year. You can read the case study on this project here.
This is a small snapshot of real life users interacting with the Virtual Print homepage. It gives an insight into where the majority of users are clicking and filtering through to the internal pages. It also helps to recognise where improvements can be made so that we can continually streamline the site and ultimately improve the sales results.
Each dot illustrates “clicks”, and they start with the colour Blue and work up to Red depending on how many times an area has been clicked. Using the Virtual Print website as an example, we can see that allot of users are clicking on the “Contact” page in the menu, so a focus can be put on improving that page to make sure it is completely optimised for maximum conversion.
This type of tracking is called Heatmapping, and is just the start of analysing how users interact with your website. There are other methods involved like recording users as they navigate around your website, analysing your Google Analytics and implementing Goal Conversion Tracking just to name a few.
If you’re not analysing how your website users are “actually” using your website, you could be missing out on online sales or extra enquiry. If you’re interested in how your website can be better optimised for conversion please contact us for an obligation free chat about the options.
