Is Your Website All It Can Be?

Your website is a powerful tool to attract new business and grow relationships. Is yours doing that? Is your website useful to visitors? Are they finding what they came for? Is it easy for visitors to take the action you want them to? Sure, web analytics can give you data, but it can’t give you the whys. For example, why don’t shoppers complete transactions? Why don’t visitors click more deeply into the site? What you don’t know about your website can lead to lost prospects and lost sales. Gather instant feedback from your customers on your website; here’s how.

1. Create polls, a questionnaire, or both. Polls are a good way to get the conversation started. They provide an easy and anonymous way for your web visitors to share their opinions. You can put a poll on pages of your website that asks a question specific to the content on that page. It’s good to focus on pages that get good traffic, but the visitor is not taking the action you want. Perhaps ask visitors to rate your content, like in this poll example.
   
   A longer questionnaire is the way to really understand from your visitors’ point of view what needs improvement and where you should be focusing your efforts. Here are a few good questions to include:

   • What is the purpose of your visit to our website today?
   • Were you able to complete your task today?
   • If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?
   • If you did complete your task, what did you enjoy most about the site?
   
   

   Want more ideas? Click here for more good questions to include in your website questionnaire. (Tip: Keep the questionnaire to 10 questions or less so people actually complete it.)

2. Place the polls and/or questionnaire high enough on the web page in a prominent place to increase the number of people who click to participate. You may also want to send a brief email to your contact list offering them an opportunity to participate in these feedback options. Explain in this email that you want their input so your website can better meet their needs, and link them directly to the page on your website with the poll or questionnaire. (If you think an incentive might be needed for participation, find out how to do that here.)

3. Review your poll/questionnaire results. Are there performance issues? Usability issues? Do you need to improve your online shopping cart? Are visitors having a hard time finding what they were looking for? Look at the comments to know where your website needs work. Then tell participants what you have learned from their feedback, what you plan to do about it, and start improving your website. Not only will you build loyalty among visitors by giving them a sense of ownership, but you will also achieve a higher conversion rate.

4. Unveil your new and improved site! Once you are done making the changes suggested by your visitors, announce your new and improved site in a special email message that includes links back to the site. For example:
   
   “It’s here -- the improved website you asked for! Click here to take our new improved website for a test drive today and enjoy these great new enhancements:
   
   
   • A new, cleaner look
   • Links to most popular items
   • Faster load times
   • Search products quicker and easier
   • New specials section
   • New products coming weekly”

If you want more tips on improving your website, attend a free live webinar about Search Engine Optimization, Blogging and Email. I’m also happy to answer questions – just click the comment link. Until next time, happy growing!