I see many “awesome” websites all over the internet.
Some of them have all these image galleries at the top of their homepage. Others have fancy effects that when you scroll down a page, some of the texts disappear. A few have videos right at the homepage.
But some are minimalists – like those of Nat Eliason and James Clear. No frills, just straight-to-the-point telling you “give me your email if you want to pick my brain.”
But fancy and minimalist alike – what makes a website truly awesome?
I don’t know about you but to me, an amazing website is one that is functional and user-friendly. It’s so idiot-proof that even the least techy person can find what they’re looking for in it. And they can easily perform what I’d like them to do in my website.
In marketing speak, this is called conversion.
What is conversion?
A conversion happens when a website visitor completes a desired goal. It could be a purchase, email subscription, booking an appointment, or filling up a form.
Marketing-wise, a great website is one that gives you the conversion.
Think: what do you want your visitors to do on your website? What is your website telling them to do? Are your visitors doing it?
You will know whether your website is awesome when the answer to the last question is yes.
But answering these questions require more than 5 seconds of guessing. To better respond to these questions, you need to perform a data-based approach to gather both quantitative (objective) and qualitative (subjective) information.
In this article, I will share with you a few things about the following:
- Site-walkthroughs and heuristic analysis – assessing how easy (or frustrating) it is to navigate your website
- Qualitative research through surveys – know what your target customers’ experience going through your website
Assessing your visitors’ experience in your website through site-walkthroughs and heuristic analysis
Site walk-throughs
Having all sorts of effects, images, videos and other elements in the website does not guarantee a visitor going through all of them. You need to make sure that everything in your website should be properly represented across various:
- devices (desktop/laptop, tablet, mobile, even on a wide-screen television). YouTube lets you see how your page looks like on these devices when creating banners. This is a great practice to adopt for websites too.
- browser (Google, IE, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera) and their versions (IE 10.0, 9.0, 8.0 and so on)
- mobile devices – iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry (believe it or not, some people still use this!)
It’s key to note that just because your website looks pristine on one device, browser or mobile interface does not mean it will work in others.
So perform a thorough walkthrough, taking note of the issues or “Areas of Interest” which will feed into the analytics inspection later on.
When doing this, there’s no need to find all sorts of devices. I would just pick a desktop (with different versions – a common one like Chrome and not-so common like IE8), tablet, and mobile (just the common ones like iOS and Android + one not-so-common one either Microsoft or Blackberry).
Make sure you go through two routes – organic (like how a typical visitor would navigate your website) and advertising (when a visitor finds you through an add from socials or Google).
Heuristic analysis
CXL Institute in its Growth Marketing mini degree defines Heuristic Analysis as:
an expert based analysis that uses experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Its results are not guaranteed to be optimal.
CXL Institute, growth marketing mini-degree
In layman’s terms and in the context of website optimization, heuristic analysis is assessing each page of your website to find out what works and what does not. Are there any friction or challenges in navigating your website? Are the messages clear and coherent? Does your website give your visitors what they’re looking for? Are your visitors doing what you initially intend them to do?
CXL has provided an approach to find out the right formula to ensure your website converts:
The probability of conversion depends on the match between the offer and visitor motivation + the clarity of the value proposition + (incentives to take action now – friction) – anxiety.
Said another way, your website is guaranteed to convert if:
- the motivation of the visitor to take action in your website is high. Are they looking for answers or solutions to problems?
- motivation is complemented by a clear and relevant value proposition. This means that your product/service addresses the motivation/pain point. Your website makes it clear throughout your pricing, product pages, product description, overall copy. Your pre- and post-advertisement copy and visuals are aligned (when a visitor clicks on your ads, there’s continuity in messages and visuals as they land on your website).
- there are incentives for them to complete the action. Do you offer a freebie, gift card, discount, exclusives? Is it clear that your visitors will get their money’s worth?
- there are less friction and anxiety associated with them taking action. They don’t need to provide personal details or credit card info. There’s a seamless process to complete a transaction. There are no distractions and unnecessary elements like blinking banners or image sliders.
Knowing your visitors’ website experience through surveys
Surveys can be a gold mine of information when it comes to understanding your customers and attitudes towards your products/services, evaluating new products, and even getting more information about your competitors.
More importantly, surveys can help you understand their experience walking through your website and find out the issues or frictions that you need to address.
Here are some of the ways by which you can capture information from your captive audience – those who either looked through your website or completed a conversion (purchase, forms, appointments, subscription):
By email
I receive a lot of these, often within a day or a week of purchasing something online.
Apparently, this is best practice. Send surveys to recent first-time customers within 1-7 days of purchasing something from you.
Sending surveys beyond a week may be letting go of the opportunity to obtain fresh takes from first-time customers who just transacted in your website.
Note that the amount of response you get depends on two things:
- Your relationship with them. Have they been going through your website a lot prior to transaction? Are they engaged fans on your socials? If you have built a strong relationship with your customers, then you are likely to get a high response rate.
- Incentives. If you offer Starbucks or Amazon gift cards in exchange of them answering 8-10 questions, then yes they’ll be more likely to respond.
Web and exit surveys
If you want to capture an audience that has already visited your website but not making any transaction yet, then this is for you.
Exit surveys pop out as the visitor is showing exit behavior, or about to hit the x button. They are great for finding out what’s holding them back from a conversion.
Trigger exit polls when a visitor has spent 10 or more seconds on a page. This duration shows above average commitment and that they may have been looking for something.
Make sure that you run these polls one page at a time, and at the appropriate page. For instance, you won’t ask them about why they did not buy at the homepage – that doesn’t seem to make any sense. Perform the exit poll on this at the checkout page.
For on-site polls, the goal is to identify the friction. You can start with a yes or no question first. Once they respond, you can pop up a longer survey, or pull up an open-ended question like below.
Tap into your customer support team
Your customer support team is your front-liner. They have more experience dealing with your customers than anyone in your company, so they would know the pain points and what people are looking for.
Find out:
- The top 10-12 frequently asked questions from customers
- The top doubts and hesitations
- How your customer support team responds and the responses that lead to more conversion
Have a look at live chat transcripts as well. Live chat provides insights to pre-sales questions and gives you the exact wording your customers use when describing their pain point or your product. This is highly useful when you’re writing the copy for your website and other marketing collaterals, i.e. landing page.
Go back to the transcript over the last 30 days (or if you still have a low traffic site, the last three months given no major changes to your website has been done).
Find out:
- The common questions and additional features
- Top pre-sales questions
- Pages that have frequent issues
- Products/services your customers often ask about
- Your customers’ main questions, doubts, hesitations
- Which responses from your customer support team lead to purchase and sales
A truly awesome website is one that gives you high conversions. Site-walkthroughs, heuristic analysis and surveys are critical things to do when you’re looking to improve your website and make it a highly converting one.
There are many tools available that can support these processes. If you’d like to know the tools that most conversion optimizers use, or want to dive deeper into today’s topic, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Email me@tinasendin.com or leave a comment below 👇. Would also love for us to connect on LinkedIn!
