Friday, November 07, 2003
Today's article comes from webpronews.com
There's a great article from Jamie Kiley about focusing traffic onto your website. I always believed it's a two way street: great design might focus your clients, but what prospective clients are finding the site? And, your marketing might be great, but they're not going in the right areas of your website. Below, she has three main points to look out for:
1. Check to see if your traffic is targeted.
If you're getting traffic, but it's not targeted, that's where you should focus your attention first. Untargeted traffic isn't beneficial, because the visitors who come to your site aren't interested in what you're selling. You must ensure that you are seeking to attract visitors who actually need what you provide.
In case you're wondering, it's impossible to target "everybody." Even if you can reach a global audience on the web, most people simply will not need your product. You must identify a narrow niche of people whose needs match the solutions you provide.
2. If you have ensured that your traffic is targeted, figure out exactly where you are losing visitors on your site.
In order to identify what needs to be fixed on your site, you first have to establish where the problem is. Looking at the site as a whole generally won't help, because you need to know specifically where the breakdown is occurring.
Examine your traffic logs and figure out where your traffic is dropping off (if you don't have a good tool to analyze your traffic, invest in one). This will tell you at what point visitors are abandoning your site.
Are visitors coming to the main page but not clicking through to any other pages? Are you losing them on the product pages? Or are they making it all the way to the checkout process and abandoning their carts once they reach that point?
If you try to improve your site without knowing exactly where the problem is, you'll be wasting your time trying to fix an element that might not necessarily need improvement. Concentrate first on figuring out exactly what pages need to be fixed. Then you can work toward fixing them.
3. Once you've identified the problem pages, it's time to start tweaking-one element at a time.
Put yourself in the shoes of the visitor and ask yourself a few questions:
- What information might be lacking on this page that would help a visitor find what he or she needs?
- What information on this page might be confusing?
- What about this page might cause visitors to feel insecure?
- What about this page might be unappealing?
- What might be preventing visitors from being able to perform the tasks they are supposed to perform on this page?
Remember, don't try to overhaul everything at once. This is not to say that some sites don't need a complete overhaul (many do!), but often, it's an issue of details. In that case, you should focus on the specific problem page you've identified. Then start adjusting individual variables on that page.
If you set out with this systematic approach, you'll be well on your way to turning those visitors into buyers.
Send your questions to Jamie at askjamie@kianta.com.
Site Design - Focusing you marketed traffic
There's a great article from Jamie Kiley about focusing traffic onto your website. I always believed it's a two way street: great design might focus your clients, but what prospective clients are finding the site? And, your marketing might be great, but they're not going in the right areas of your website. Below, she has three main points to look out for:
1. Check to see if your traffic is targeted.
If you're getting traffic, but it's not targeted, that's where you should focus your attention first. Untargeted traffic isn't beneficial, because the visitors who come to your site aren't interested in what you're selling. You must ensure that you are seeking to attract visitors who actually need what you provide.
In case you're wondering, it's impossible to target "everybody." Even if you can reach a global audience on the web, most people simply will not need your product. You must identify a narrow niche of people whose needs match the solutions you provide.
2. If you have ensured that your traffic is targeted, figure out exactly where you are losing visitors on your site.
In order to identify what needs to be fixed on your site, you first have to establish where the problem is. Looking at the site as a whole generally won't help, because you need to know specifically where the breakdown is occurring.
Examine your traffic logs and figure out where your traffic is dropping off (if you don't have a good tool to analyze your traffic, invest in one). This will tell you at what point visitors are abandoning your site.
Are visitors coming to the main page but not clicking through to any other pages? Are you losing them on the product pages? Or are they making it all the way to the checkout process and abandoning their carts once they reach that point?
If you try to improve your site without knowing exactly where the problem is, you'll be wasting your time trying to fix an element that might not necessarily need improvement. Concentrate first on figuring out exactly what pages need to be fixed. Then you can work toward fixing them.
3. Once you've identified the problem pages, it's time to start tweaking-one element at a time.
Put yourself in the shoes of the visitor and ask yourself a few questions:
- What information might be lacking on this page that would help a visitor find what he or she needs?
- What information on this page might be confusing?
- What about this page might cause visitors to feel insecure?
- What about this page might be unappealing?
- What might be preventing visitors from being able to perform the tasks they are supposed to perform on this page?
Remember, don't try to overhaul everything at once. This is not to say that some sites don't need a complete overhaul (many do!), but often, it's an issue of details. In that case, you should focus on the specific problem page you've identified. Then start adjusting individual variables on that page.
If you set out with this systematic approach, you'll be well on your way to turning those visitors into buyers.
Send your questions to Jamie at askjamie@kianta.com.
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