Newsletter #129 What Do Your Visitors Want?

Created on Dec 17 2008 12:00AM

A special hello to new subscribers and a Merry Christmas to you all. This article is on the Web at this address. Note that Netinsites will be closed from 5th to 15th January but will be available at most other times over the Christmas period.

Our last newsletter (27th November, 2008) was "DIY AdWords Campaigns".

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Feature Article

Over the years we have written about various Web technologies including wikis, blogs, podcasts and others. The current buzz is about social media – how can businesses use the growth of social media sites like Facebook, Second Life, YouTube and Twitter to best advantage?

In the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index Q2 2008 on (www.theacsi.org), Google was the top ranking Website with a score of 86 out of 100. Google has risen to fore precisely because it focuses on doing the basics and doing them well. You could argue that all Websites should be doing the same.

We’ve talked to many business owners, some of whom draw our attention to their competitor’s sites who use some sort of user-generated content, and say “…we need to be doing that too.” But the question is, should they?

Val Fox of Red Valise in the USA found that when she asked the Website users of one of her clients what they wanted from the site, only 10% wanted social applications. Most wanted the company to improve the site’s navigation and search functionality. This tallies with our experience; people will engage with the site functions that they need for their particular activities, everything else is a distraction.

The core functionality and content of a Website is critically important. The functionality, or way the site elements work together, needs to be clear and effective to allow easy navigation around the site. Without the right information and depth of content, visitors just won’t find enough to interest or inform them.

So how can you find out what your Website users actually want?

• Via Web statistics. Your hosting company should provide access to data that you can use to find out what site features your visitors are using. The free Google Analytics can show graphically the popularity of links on any page on your site. What paths are visitors taking through your site, what pages are they exiting, what countries are they from?
  
  
  
• Conduct a survey. There are a number of inexpensive or free online survey tools that will host the survey for you. All the survey systems mentioned below have a basic free system and then you pay per month or year for more features. Some systems are:
  SurveyMonkey (surveymonkey.com), SurveyPro (esurveyspro.com) and SurveyGizmo (surveygizmo.com).
  
  
• With Google Website Optimizer you can try combinations of different content and layout. Combined with Google Analytics you can measure the number of conversions (sales, signing up to a newsletter etc) to find out which versions work best. Which site functions, if any, can be left out without affecting the number of conversions?
  
  
• If you are looking for new blinding insights (or NetInsites) often your customers aren't the best way to go; they simply just don't know the possibilities. See the quote at the bottom of this page. If you really want to do something different you might want to try brainstorming, using outside advisors or look at what other innovative industries are doing.

The idea of this analysis is to improve your site so that Website users, who are often prospects, become actual customers.

Hot Tips

Newbies

Most browsers offer tabbed browsing, the most notable exception being Internet Explorer 6 (to upgrade to IE7 click here). Tabbed browsing allows you to open different Webpages in tabs instead of opening new windows so that you can easily keep track of different pages. In IE7, Firefox and other browsers just right click and you will have the option of "Open Link in New Tab" or "Open in New Tab"; if selected a new tab will be created alongside your current one with the new link loaded.

Power Users

Set multiple tabs as your home page so every time you open your browser your favourite sites are loaded!

In Firefox go Tools/Options/Main and enter in multiple sites separated by the | symbol until you have all the ones you want entered. Also see here for a visual.
In IE7 go Tools/Internet Options/General and type or paste in the URL you want, hit Enter and type or paste another; repeat until finished. Visual here.

Interesting Sites

Twitter lets you text message large groups of people simultaneously. Sign up and send it a message - from a phone, internet or instant messaging service - and it will be sent to your contacts. Updates are limited to just 140 characters, which has lead it to be called "microblogging". Twitter asks one question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web.

Twitter's core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features. By accepting messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for people to stay connected. http://twitter.com/

InsiteFul Quotes

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Henry Ford

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management