The aim of most company websites is to increase sales, brand awareness and enhance their reputation. When designing a website there are many aspects to take into consideration such as the functionality of a site, layout, site architecture, colour scheme, fonts, images and navigation. However there is something more important than each of these; monitoring your visitors. I am not saying that the previously mentioned aspects are not important, they are, but they will count for nothing if you do not monitor your visitors and gain their feedback. When you are designing a site you are designing it for a purpose. The vast majority of company websites are created to improve sales so your website should not be designed to suit your own preferences but rather the preferences of your website visitors, your future customers. So don’t burry your head in the sand and remember to monitor your visitors. Here are three ways to gain the information you need to improve your web design.

Use A Website Analytics Tool

There are many options out there, why not have a look at this: 5 fantastic alternatives to Google Analytics. However, Google Analytics is free and one of the best available. I would recommend starting with Google Analytics if you’ve not currently got a favourite tool. Once you’ve set up your website tracking with your chosen analytics tool here are some stats you will want to keep track of – Visits, Bounce Rate, Pages/Visit, Avg. Time on Site and Traffic Sources. I would suggest running a weekly report to track improvements in the above areas. After 1 month you could then look to set targets for the coming months. Monitoring your site like this can tell you a lot about your visitor’s behaviour. Is your bounce rate high? If so you may need to look to keep visitors interest for longer with the use of videos or interactive presentations. Perhaps make interesting news more prominent in your site design. If your traffic from search engines is for certain terms you should research these to see if you can get more traffic from them. For example if you’re getting some traffic from Google for the phrase “website hosting news” and you currently rank 13^th for that term then why not do some link building and get to #1 in Google.

Heatmaps

Many web designs neglect the use of heatmaps. Using a heatmap is vital for a website that is selling products. If you’ve never heard of a heatmap before then have a quick read of Wikipedia’s explanation. In basic terms a heatmap shows you the areas of a webpage that are selected the most. Why is this useful? Well if the home page or any page of your website is selling a product or promoting an offer you can see how many users have clicked one link more than the other. The most common way this helps with web design is to move your CTA (Call to Action) to the area of the web page that is most commonly clicked. Or perhaps you have a search box and a navigation bar with your website categories. You can begin to see which your visitors prefer to use when they come to your site. Do lots of visitors use the search box rather than the navigation bar? If so then perhaps redesign your navigation bar.

Encourage Customer Feedback

 

“We would like to give you the opportunity to give us your feedback” 

 

When designing your site provide your visitors with a clear and easy way to leave comments/feedback. If you have a blog then enable comments, if you have a company site then why not have a page that asks for customer feedback. You could also carry out surveys to your existing customer base. Listen to what your customers say, they are the ones buying and using your products. If your customers want a link made bigger then make it bigger, if they want more product images then give them more images and if they don’t like your font then change it. Happy customers lead to more sales.