Understanding your users’ online behavior is not always easy, but it doesn’t have to be something to worry about. That’s the good news! The Internet is full of methods and tools to understand visitors’ behavioral patterns and thus offer them a better user experience regarding navigation and advertising impact. Here’s how you can do it.
Every measurement tool has a specific focus and objective. Some tools are very focused on providing information about the collected clicks. Others, on the other hand, focus their efforts on aspects more related to factors such as traffic and user experience, etc. So, which ones are right for you?
Below are 11 methods and tools you can use to learn about user behavior and thus improve the user experience for your visitors and your conversion rate (CRO).
1. Heat Mapping
Heat mapping and eye-tracking tools allow you to see where a visitor looks, scrolls, and clicks. They indicate high and low-level activity on a web page using colors to represent activity levels.
These mapping tools are helpful for understanding which parts of the web page attract the most attention and which go unnoticed. They not only help measure performance but also design user-friendly and practical websites. Heat mapping can improve your website structure for user experience.
Some heat mapping tools you can choose from:
- Hotjar
- Crazy Egg
- Inspectlet
- Mouseflow
- Lucky Orange
- VWO
- Feng-GUI
- Zoho
2. Session Recording
While technology has not yet made it humanly possible to get inside the minds of visitors to find out how they think, it has made it possible to literally look over the user’s shoulder when they are on your website.
With the detailed reporting that session recording provides, it’s easy to see how quickly the visitor finds something interesting on the site. This helps you answer the critical question: why exactly is the visitor not converting? Once you answer the question, you can dramatically improve your conversions.
A session log report contains details about each visitor’s unique activity on the website, including the pages they were on, the total time spent on each page, etc. It may also indicate whether the website was accessed via a mobile or desktop computer.
Some session recording tools available are:
- Hotjar
- Crazy Egg
- Inspectlet
- Mouseflow
- Lucky Orange
- VWO
3. User Panels
User panels allow you to see what visitors do on your website and hear what they think about it. They often take the form of workshops encouraging conversation between the service provider and the users. It’s a good way to get feedback on the existing model, discuss ideas for improvement and hear opinions on planned changes.
There are different user dashboards available:
- Usertesting.com
- UserBob
- USERBRAIN
- VALIDATELY
- Userfeel.com
- 99tests.com
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4. Split and Multivariate Testing
After determining that your site is performing well and ready to convert visitors, these tests are performed. In this phase, you can run experiments using control and variation pages on groups of visitors to see which ones perform well and then refine your pages for the conversion elements based on the results.
When done correctly, split and multivariate testing helps determine and apply which combinations work best for conversions.
5. Split or A/B Tests
The basic components of A/B tests are:
- A control page: This is usually a high-traffic page with a high bounce or low conversion rates.
- A variation page. This is like the control page but with some tweaks or refinements based on reliable conversion-oriented website design theories.
As the name says, the traffic is split so that half is sent to the control page and half to the variation page. Page performance is observed and measured over time based on a critical metric. When sufficient time has elapsed in which an appropriate sample group has interacted with each page, one of the pages is declared the winner. Implementing these tests will radically improve your conversion rate.
Find more information and tips for effective A/B testing here.
6. Multivariate Testing (MTV)
These are like split tests, but instead of testing one variable between two pages, MVTs test different combinations of web elements simultaneously. Instead of a single variation, you can test multiple variations of a landing page against the control page and split the traffic between them.
One thing to keep in mind is the traffic requirement. Even with basic split testing, you need at least ten conversions per day to ensure your tests’ statistical validity and reliability of tests.
The different testing tools available are:
- VWO
- Unbounce
- Optimizely
- Adobe Test & Target
- SiteSpect
- A/B Tasty
- Google Analytics, Optimize y Adwords
- Zoho
7. Personalization
There’s no better way to maintain a one-on-one dialogue with visitors than to allow them to personalize their website experience, right? This personalized interaction goes a long way in improving the overall website experience and increasing conversions.
With advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, you can expect the advent of highly sophisticated tools that can predict customer needs and behavior and deliver the right content in the proper context.
The tools currently available for personalization are:
- Optimizely Personalization
- Google Optimize 360
- Dynamic Yield
- Monetate
- Apptus
- Adobe Target
- Personyze
8. Exit Pop-ups
These windows are triggered when visitors are about to leave a website and are a typical example of on-site retargeting tools. They are a last-ditch attempt to convince the visitor to stay and possibly convert.
The key to an effective exit pop-up is to include an irresistible offer or incentive that compels the visitor to stay on the website and complete a micro or macro conversion action.
The pop-up tools currently available are:
- OptinMonster
- OptiMonk
- Wishpond
- Privy
- Wisepops
9. Surveys
Surveys can help you get valuable information about what users think of your website. The best time to launch a survey is when visitors leave your website to get the best possible response. It’s just amazing how optimized surveys can do a lot of good regarding growing conversions.
There are several tools available that you can use to launch surveys. Some are essential tools that you can customize to suit your needs.
Some of the most popular survey tools are:
- KissMetrics
- SurveyMonkey
- Typeform
- Formulários de Google
- Zoho
10. System Usability Scale (SUS)
Created by John Brooke in 1986, it is a system that measures overall usability using a Likert-scale questionnaire with standardized content based on a user satisfaction index. SUS was designed as a low-cost, “quick and dirty” method for evaluating the usability of virtually any type of system.
The main advantage of SUS is that it can be administered quickly and inexpensively online. Your website visitors are asked ten questions, to which they must respond by rating their level of agreement with each statement on a scale of 1 to 5.
The questions are as follows:
- I think that I would like to use this system frequently.
- I found the system unnecessarily complex.
- I thought the system was easy to use.
- I think I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.
- I found the various functions in this system were well integrated.
- I thought there was too much inconsistency in this system.
- I imagine most people would learn to use this system very quickly.
- I found the system very cumbersome to use.
- I felt very confident using the system.
- I needed to learn many things before I could get going with this system.
Once you have finished collecting website visitor data, you can calculate your website’s usability score. This data will also help you implement the best strategy to grow conversions.
11. Marketing Tools
It’s not enough to have a website. You also have to maintain it. Manual website management is time-consuming, but some tools can be used for more convenient and automated site management. While these tools do not take manual intervention completely out of the picture, they will certainly save you a lot of time.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools
They help you automate some tasks necessary for effective customer relationship management. With a good CRM tool you can achieve the following:
- Tracking customer communication for a marketing campaign.
- Ensure that all salespeople are on the same page so customers do not receive duplicate contact.
- Automatically send marketing material to customers as configured.
Tools to Improve Performance
Website performance problems need to be weeded out regularly. Tools can monitor website performance, automate the monitoring process, and display problems to correct them before they affect many visitors.
Tools for Updating Content
Updating content is important for any website, but even more so for content-driven websites. It helps provide regular visitors with something new every time and improves organic traffic. Some tools help you do this automatically, create posts from notes on a synced smartphone, create calendar events, or repurpose old content. If This Then That (IFTTT) and Zapier are tools that can help you with this.
Tools for Email Marketing
Email marketing is an effective online marketing method; the best part is that you no longer need to do it manually to every lead or subscriber. The available automation tools that send marketing emails in bulk are a great help. You can also personalize emails (address each recipient by name) and segment marketing based on various factors. You can use tools such as MailChimp and Constant Contact for this automation.
Technical Management Tools
The right tools can also help automate the management of some infrastructures. These tools can make programmers’ jobs easier by allowing them to automate some parts of the technical aspects of website management.
To succeed in your business, you should know how your customer thinks, understand what they want, and always be one step ahead to satisfy their needs. Now that you know this, use these tools to learn how to give them a unique user experience and see how your conversions grow in return! Schedule a meeting with one of our conversion experts, and let’s see how you can optimize your website to get better results!
