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The Internet has radically transformed how
organizations market and advertise their products and services. Many focus
their marketing muscle on funneling potential customers to their web sites.
They hope the right prospects will visit the sites, and once there will be left
with a favorable impression and frequently return.
Yet, the sophistication of web site visitors has made
it more difficult to leave the right impression. The increasingly web-savvy
public has become highly critical of the look, feel, and operation of web
sites. The organization of a site, its design, and the language it uses must be
carefully crafted to fit your company’s objectives and the type of traffic
it will attract. If the site seems amateurish or doesn't leave them with the
right impression, visitors quickly leave, never to return.
Increasingly, organizations are conducting systematic web site research
programs to learn if the right people are visiting the site and how they feel
about the site. Four basic research techniques can be used to gain answers to
these questions: installing a registration process; conducting a survey;
establishing a panel; and conducting focus groups.
Registration
Through visitor registration, companies can gain a better understanding of
whom is visiting their sites. Registration requires visitors to answer a series
of questions before receiving a password that grants them access to the site.
Typical questions include occupation, organizational affiliation, or experience
with a particular type of product or service.
But, registration has its
shortcomings. People might leave the site because they decide it is not worth
the time to register. Or perhaps they perceive a risk in revealing personal
information about themselves. As Marcia Yudkin, author of Marketing Online,
warns, "It is important to strike a balance between information you desire and
turning people off by being intrusive." Another problem is that the profile of
first-time visitors may be much different than the profile of frequent
visitors.
Survey
A survey is a convenient and less biased
research method for improving a web site. It can be used for exploring not only
who is visiting the site, but also why, and how they feel about it.
Visitors are invited to click on a strategically-placed hyperlink to
gain access to the survey. A special pop-up screen can also be used to prompt
all, or a random sample of, visitors to complete the survey. The survey can
contain both rating scales and open-ended questions. Incentives such as a small
gift or entry into a raffle often increase the number of respondents.
To learn who is visiting, a survey can ask demographic questions
such as geographical location, age and job title. To learn why people visit the
site, it can ask them to rank order the major reasons they visited. Other
questions can ask what features are most useful and which similar sites they
frequently visit.
How visitors actually feel about a site is critically
important. Visitors will lose interest quickly if they feel the site does not
meet their needs or has been created for someone other than them. The survey
should therefore be used to ask questions about its usefulness and relevance.
It can also ask how friendly, attractive, professional, organized, and fresh
the site feels.
Panel
Lisa Hebert of Bridge Consulting
suggests using a site review panel. A panel is a group of people hired to visit
your site and provide specific feedback. The panel can consist of customers,
potential customers, web site developers, and graphic designers. Panelists are
asked to provide their individual feedback about the site on a one time or
periodic basis. Typically, an outside firm is used to hire the panel, provide
them with instructions, compile their feedback, and prepare a written report
that summarizes their views and provides suggestions for improving the site.
Focus Group
A focus group is a useful qualitative strategy
for gathering information about why people visit a web site, what they like
about it, and what they don’t like. The group should be conducted with
eight to 10 participants that match the profile of the visitors to your site.
The session should be held at a focus group facility using an experienced
moderator. The moderator will be able to objectively elicit useful information
without biasing the group one way or the other. If held at a focus group
facility, you will be able you to observe the session from behind a one-way
window.
Another good idea is to display the site to participants. This
enables the moderator to gather feedback about the location of icons on the
screen, the readability of the pages, the organization of the site, and the
ease of navigation.
Registration, surveys, panels, and focus groups can
all be used to continually gather information about the characteristics of your
visitors and their perceptions of your site. Such research will provide
valuable insights that will allow you to constantly be improving the site so
that visitors will keep coming back. |
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