Nowadays a thriving business equals great digital marketing and investing in online resources in order to achieve success. As we say clothes make the man, in this case websites make a brand because this is the image they present to users and potential customers. So having the right website is an important asset that should be maintained.
More than the image of the brand, your site is a great tool that can tell what is working or what is not in relation to your customers. We are especially referring to those that concentrate on selling products online because this is where the higher stakes are. A clear overview over the actions made on the site by visitors will get you on the right track and testing is a step not to miss.
Running the right tests
Testing is crucial because this is the validation that any change made to your site is indeed an improvement and not just a waste of energy and time. So what to consider, what and where to test?
Taking every step at a time, you should first analyze where the issue is, if for example the rate of visitors is increasing, yet in the sales you see no difference. Another point not to miss is the prioritization of the pages depending on their traffic. This will reveal the pages with the greatest traffic on which you can then run tests.
Concentrate on what to test
Is almost impossible to have an impartial perspective over your own site because you are very familiar with it, you know all its secrets and when we know very well something, we tend to ignore the small details. This is why testing the usability can reveal surprising things. You can do this by choosing people that are not familiar with your site and to whom you can assign specific tasks. This test will reveal where the day to day user might encounter difficulties and what is refraining them from getting to the final steps of the buying process.
Once you identified a problem find out what caused it. Why aren’t users doing what you expect them to? Get some insight on what stopped them from taking the action you wanted. Maybe the purpose was not clear enough or the steps where not explained as they should have been.
Is there anything distracting their attention or decreasing their motivation? For example some people might find it odd if you ask them to fill in a form requesting certain information. Make sure that you reassure the user that everything is to his advantage.
Last but not least, in order to have good results focus on testers that match the target group and the profile of the potential customers. Once you gathered the information make a list of the specific problems and come up with exact solutions that will bring results.