Undoubtedly a successful website is one that is able to drive traffic towards itself. However, one does come across numerous instances of sites that attract a lot of traffic but do not have conversions to match. When we say “conversionâ€, it does not necessarily have to be sales resulting in the generation of revenue but also includes the successful outcome of the intention of the CTA that could range from an email newsletter subscription signup to a request for a demo or just about any other action desired from a visitor to the site.
Visitor Flow Tracking Is Vital
Visitor flow is the way a visitor visits different pages on a website and the sequence they follow. The tracking of this flow is important because it can give you a general view of how the visitor is processing information on the website and where the site provides stopping points. This sort of an insight is crucial because you will be able to discover the points at which there are bottlenecks or halting points and how to connect them so that more conversions take place.
Tools for Tracking Visitor Flow
A simple way of monitoring the flow of visitors is by using Google Analytics. Another effective way of tracking visitor flow is to set goals up in Google’s Admin tab. Either a single page can be set up as a goal or even pages in a funnel, which is defined as the steps leading up to the goal. An example of a typical funnel is product page – shopping cart – checkout. Once the goal is set up, it can be tracked under Conversions – Goals. Once the funnel is established, you can see how the visitor is progressing to the end or leaving at any particular stage.
However, the CEO of the leading provider of bulk email marketing services in Mumbai is of the opinion that while such tracking can give you a general idea of visitor flow, you need to appreciate that there are a number of other factors affecting conversions, such as confusion regarding what the next step should be.
The Difference Lies In Gaining Insights into User Behavior
The reasons why your site is not able to get the vital conversions can also be revealed by obtaining visitor feedback as they navigate the site. Gathering insights from users in real time can be really shocking at times butis extremelyinformative. To understand if there is indeed a pattern that can be established, it is best to have the site navigated by multiple users rather than just one.
This sort of testing can be done through specialist sites like usertesting.com that take the required user demographics and track the flow of visitors fitting the profile. A useful feature is that you can actually set up goals for your visitors and see how well they fare as they attempt to carry out certain specified transactions like a purchase or an email newsletter signup. You can even request for feedback on specific aspects of your site and use the responses to determine what changes need to be done. By using another test site by the name of fivesecondtest.com, you can administer a simple test that asks a user to look at a particular design for just five seconds and answer a number of questions. The responses you get will enable you to design a user experience that is better and geared towards promoting conversions once the users land up on your site.
Conclusion
Even the best SEO campaign will only suffice to get the users to visit your site but the traffic does not always correspond to sales conversions. Vital to the purchase decision is the emotion of the user that is very closely linked to the user experience. When users are not clear about what is expected of them or cannot figure out what to do to achieve an outcome, it can lead to frustration and they will leave the website. This underlines the importance of allocating sufficient resources to promoting sales conversions rather than just traffic when strategizing an SEO campaign.
Author bio: Walter Moore is a senior sales consultant at GingerDomain.com, a reputed name in digital marketing services. Walter, a keen mountaineer, is a prolific writer on SEO trends and issues on the online media.
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