SEO, social media, professional website design, consistent branding, killer content, increased traffic, unique offerings—you’ve done it all but your business is missing one thing…
Sales!
What do you do when you have tried every marketing strategy in the book but you can’t seem to land any sales from your website? You are attracting links, building relationships with your audience, doing all the right things, but your business bank account has seen better days. Why isn’t anyone hitting the BUY button?
Don’t fret. Yes, it is quite frustrating, but an answer does exist.
You may have poured hundreds or thousands of dollars into your website design while following all of the correct conversion techniques, but if your visitors are not buying what you are selling, something needs to change. At this point, you must consider the usability of your website.
Usability testing will offer you keen insight into what your visitors are seeing and thinking when using your site. You must get your website in front of other people to see how they view it. The information you will gain from this type of testing will be priceless to your business. A few minor website tweaks could take you from zero to hero in no time.
Consult with your Mother
What does mom have to do with this?
You can thank Search Engine Guide for this helpful tip. You look at your website several times a day so it is understandable that you will not be the best person to perform a usability test.
Mom always knows best, right? Well, it’s time to recruit some of our mothers to help us out with usability testing. Unless, your mother is a backlink building SEO ninja, she will do just fine. It’s important to choose someone who is over the age of 50 and not knowledgeable about online marketing.
Show your website to your mother or chosen tester and ask her to perform the task of your choosing, preferably one on which you want to test and increase conversions. Do not give her any more instructions. Observe how long it takes for her to accomplish the task. If it takes her longer than a few seconds to figure out where to go or what to click, you may have some usability issues.
Ask her to verbalize her comments as she is clicking through your site, but avoid coaxing her along. Just observe her actions and listen to her speech. Does she have a hard time finding a button? Does she hate the colors? Is she gasping at a price?
Notice her every move and take notes. Consider everything she says and start implementing these changes one at a time (with testing) to see if they make a difference in your conversions.
Usability Tools
If you want to be a little more scientific with your usability testing and you have a little cash to spend, below are some helpful resources. Each website offers similar tools from tracking your website visitors’ actions and their line of sight to hiring users to verbally use your site and record their comments. For a small investment, you can save years of lost profits.
I like User Testing because it hires real live people and records their every thought as they use your site. You can specify specific instructions and a demographic for each tester. You will also receive a complete video (usually 15 to 20 minutes) of the testing. One test is only $39 and the service offers a 1 year money back guarantee.
ClickTale offers similar features to User Testing along with some other tools like heatmap (see where your users clicking), real time monitoring and form analytics. ClickTale offers a 30 day money back guarantee.
Crazy Egg offers heatmap, scroll mapping (displays when people abandon the site after scrolling), and an overlay and confetti tool (shows the referring sites). Crazy Egg also offers a 30 day risk free trial and promises to increase your conversions or you pay nothing.
Whether you twist your mother’s arm or use some professional testing, you should consider usability an important test for websites. Usability testing removes the bias and helps you see your website through your customers’ eyes. Take advantage of one of these tools and see what a difference it can make in your conversions.
Jenna Scaglione is a content writer, internet marketer, and a lover of family, friends and life. Jenna enjoys learning, growing and discovering the newest and latest trends on the internet. Known as "Lady Content", she lives in sunny Socal where she helps her clients around the world increase brand awareness on the internet through content writing and social media.
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