March 2007

What do visitors think of your website?

You are probably aware that all kinds of usage statistics are being collected about your website. That’s because most website hosting services include software to track such information. Observing usage patterns is helpful for making site adjustments to better reflect the reasons why you built a website in the first place.

Useful, but only part of the picture

If you’ve never looked at usage statistics for your website, give it a try. You might be surprised. Betagraph provides its website customers with the appropriate URL to access site statistics. You should bookmark this webpage to easily access the data anytime. If you’ve forgotten how to access your site statistics, please let us know.

Site statistics track information about usage activity on an hourly, daily, and monthly basis. Stats include all kinds of data: the number of hits, visitors, pages viewed, length of view, browsers used to view your site, referring websites, key words and search strings used to find your site, entry and exit pages, and lots more. The data is presented in lists, tables, charts, and graphs.

But what do visitors actually think?

As interesting and useful as this statistical information is, it is only part of the picture. This kind of information only tells the cold hard facts about visitor numbers as well as when and how your site is accessed. It does not — and cannot — tell you what website visitors actually think about your website. The ability to know that would be very useful — and more interesting.

What would you do if you knew that a significant number of visitors thought your website was difficult to navigate? Or, didn’t provide enough information for them to make a decision? Or, thought your message was confusing? In all likelihood, you’d take the necessary steps to eliminate those problems and improve things. After all, maintaining a website that people didn’t respond favorably to would be pointless and could actually work against you.

There are number of things you should know regarding what visitors think about your site. High on your list would be 1) how inviting and immediately useful the home page appears; 2) ease of navigating the website; and 3) usefulness and relevance of site content. You also might want to know how well your site enhances credibility and inspires confidence in the mind of the visitor. You might also want to know what information the visitor thinks is lacking or missing.

Finding out what visitors think

There are a number of ways to find out what visitors think, but you will have to take the time to find out.

One way to survey visitor reaction would be to simply talk to valued customers whose opinion you regard as objective. The thoughtful opinion of six to ten customers and business acquaintances could provide relatively quick and easy feedback. Their comments should at least tell you whether or not your website is on target and what things could be improved.

Another method would be to periodically survey your customers via email. If you send a newsletter, for example, include a mention of the survey and invite readers to respond.

You could also devise a brief online survey that anybody could respond to when visiting your site. Survey software makes this kind of information quick and easy to collect while providing instant presentation of responses. Though helpful, this method may be the least reliable because non-serious responders can “mess around” and deliberately skew responses.

Yet another method for determining site usefulness would be an independent, professional website evaluation, a “website report card” of sorts. Such a service should include a consultative interview process, use specific evaluation criteria, analyze hard statistical data, test site functionality, and provide a written report with findings and recommendations. Such an evaluation should be especially considered prior to undertaking a website makeover process.

In the end, it’s your website. It’s only as useful to your business as you make it. If you regard your website as an essential and important marketing tool, take time to find out how your site is being used and what visitors think of it.