Have you ever looked to see which search terms your visitors are using whilst on your site?

Using Google Analytics can ensure that you know what people are looking for whilst on your site.

Perhaps you sell a product or brand that is hard to spell, or is know by what it does as well as a specific brand or model. Think about generic terms, such as Hoover, Sellotape, Post It Notes, Kleenex, Band Aid and the many others.

What about sizes, quantities or colours? What about model names, or equivalents?

Ensuring that you know what your visitors are looking for will help you to have the right products or information available, and how else you can meet the needs of your target audience.

If you want to know what your visitors think about your website, why not have a survey on your site?

You’ll be able to find out what people think, and what they like and don’t like, and how you can improve things.

However, you don’t want to make your survey too intrusive. Having it pop up the minute a visitor lands on your site, and asking what people think about your site will be pointless.

People won’t bother to fill in your survey if they just want some information, or prices or opening hours. Putting up barriers will discourage visitors from being customers.

A survey that pops up quite discreetly and asks relevant questions as your visitor is leaving your site is more likely to be completed.

Knowing want to do with the results of your survey will also be important!

Another way of finding out what your visits think is to either ring them or to send a postage paid survey form with each order.

Richer Sounds use surveys and customer satisfaction forms to see where customer service can be improved.

Using incentives such as a prize or vouchers or other ways to convince people to fill in your surveys is a good idea too.

What other ways can you think of to get people’s opinions and find out how you can improve your website.

It’s important that your website shows your passion for yourproducts or services.

You might be a firm of solicitors needing a formal and corporate website, or you might be selling adventure and sports products aimed at teens, but your passion still needs to be visible.

People will often need a solicitor at a delicate time of their life. Think about divorce, criminal, wills and probate or employment law cases. You’ll need to ensure that you can reassure visitors to your website that you are right for them.

If you’re selling sports products it’s much easier to show your passion with a brighter and more creative looking website. You can have lots of information, or FAQs or buyers guides that show your target audience that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about what you do.

Keeping your website updated, and remembering to remove time sensitive content will also show that you’re keen on making more of your online prescence.

When was the last time you looked through your website and checked it for passion? Could you change your copy so that it’s more engaging, or includes call to action or is more positive? What about “we will” rather than “we can”? What about making sure your content is easy to read and offers plenty of opportunity to show off your product knowledge or experience?

Depending on how popular your website is, its purpose, and how well your site is designed and built, you might be spending a fortunte on hosting.

If you are, it might be worth seeing how you can reduce the amount of bandwidth used.

Here’s what you can do:

• Are you using huge images and then resizing them?
• Have you got your CSS rules in your html pages?
• Have you got your Javascript in your html pages
• Are you still using tables for the layout of your website?
• Have you got too much content on each page?
• Have you got videos loading on your homepage?
• Have you got a Flash welcome screen movie?
• Is your site, or a particluar page  likely to become popular suddenly, or benefit from the “Digg” effect?
• Is your site seasonal, or likely to be busy on certain days of the year, or at holiday times?

By thinking ahead, and opimising your code and making your sites quick to load and easy to use, you’ll find that the amount of bandwidth used can be dramatically reduced.  Yhis means that as well as providing your visitors  with a better experience, and a more efficient way of finding what they want, your hosting costs will be less too.

If you’re an ecommerce site, you’ll need to make sure that you’re using the most appropriate hosting package. You won’t be able to afford the loss of business if your site goes down for a couple of days.

If you’re expecting lots of traffic on your website, perhaps you’re a news or fan website, or a technology site that reviews the latest gadgets, or a social networking site, or a company that’s in the news, you’ll need to make sure that your site can handle the traffic.  You won’t want visitors and potential customers or clients to get the wrong impression of your company.

It really does make sense to get the best hosting.  If you’re not sure what you need, or what it all means, then ring up the hosting company and talk to someone.

Why not take five minutes and make sure that your hosting package, and pricing structure is right for your visitors?  You’ll find all the visitor and page view information you need in Google Analytics.

There are many ways to tell how well your website is performing.  Perhaps you’ll measure:

• the number of sales
• the value of the sales
• the number of visitors to your site
• the amount of time visitors spend on your site
• how visitors find your site
• where visitors are from
• the most popular pages
• what time of day visitors come to your site
• where your site appears in the search results for your most important keywords
• number of newletter subscriptions
• number of memberss

and so on…

However, what you don’t know, is what people really think of your site.  You might be missing a trick by not offering a certain product or service, or by hiding your delivery details, or phone number.

Visitors might want to read more about your products, or your calls to action could be stronger, or maybe your visitors would liek to discuss your products or services with each other on a forum.

Unless you make the effort to actually ask your visitors what they think, you’ll never truly know what they think of your site.  It might be that people love your site, or that your site is the only one offering a certain product, or the lowest price, and that’s why people buy from you.

Why not encourage your visitors to suggest improvements to your site, so that you know what they think?  You might be surprised at the answers, but you’ll be better informed as to how you can meet their needs.

If lots of respondants want you to change your colour scheme, or have more product pictures, or have video demonstrations of your procucts, then you’ll be able to make more use of your website, and turn yiur visitors into customers.

By giving the respondants an incentive,  such as a discount voucher, or a prize for the best suggestions, you’re more likely to encourage even the first time, or casualy visitor to comment.

Whether you choose to email a questionnaire to your members and subscribers, or have a survey section on your website, you’ll want to make sure that your visitors have the opportunity to comment, without feeling pressured into it.

Oh, and by the way, it’s not a good idea to have the survey/what do you think about this website/tell us what you think form pop up on the first page that the visitor arrives at.  The visitor has just arrived at this page, and might not know anything about your website or company.  If they’re just looking for a price, or an address or phone number, they don’t want to be impeded by a form that’s not important to them.

Now you know what sort of things you can do to improve your visitors’ experience of your website,  and its usability, what’s stopping you?

The well known car lover and presenter Jeremy Clarkson once went to a boat show in order to buy a boat.  He was bombarded with information,  specifications and prices, as well as pushy sales people trying to impress.

He commented that it must be how people who aren’t “into” cars feel when they go to buy a car.

I was thinking, that it could apply to websites too.  If you’re wondering how visitors feel when they’re trying to buy from your site, why not try buying products or services that you know nothing about from a site that you find in the search engine results.

For example:

If you sell cars, why not try buying a boat or a caravan?

If you sell clothes, why not try buying sports equipment?

If you sell insurance, then choose an architect, or a solicitor

If you sell computers, why not buy a bike, or fishing tackle.

By having to choose something that you know nothing about, you”ll have to do some research, and ask around, in the same way that your potential customers do.  You’ll be finding that every other word is jargon, and you’re expected to know what it means.  You might not know the difference between 2 fishing rods, or what size frame your bike should be, or whether your can tow the caravan you’re interested in.

You’ll be able to learn lots from this sort of activity, and  make your site easier to use, and more approachable for people who don’t know what they want, or how to choose what they want.

If you find looking for fishing tackle hard, and there are lots of options, and essential accessories you need, and brands to choose from, as well as fishing bags, reels, bait and waders, how do think a first time computer buyer feels when looking on your website?  Not everyone knows about hard drives, broadband, RAM, graphics cards and so on.  People don’t want to buy a laptop, they want to be able to use websites.  They’re  probably not bothered about bus speeds, they want to know if there’s a web camera, or how easy it is to install a printer, and how many songs or videos the computer can hold.

If you find a fishing tackle site, with a “rod finder” guide, that asks lots of questions about what you’re fishing for, where you’re fishing, and how much you want to spend, you’re much more likely to be able to find your perfect fishing rod.

If you stumble across a website for a firm of solicitors that puts you at ease, then how could you make your insurance, or financial advice site as easy to use and reassuring?

What aspects of the various sites you look at could you use? What made you click on them in the first place? Did  you just look at sites or brands you already knew? Were the results what you expected?

What aspects of customer service, or the delivery details did you like? How much attention did you pay to the About Us or Mission Statement pages, and why?  What affect did the colours or fonts have on you.  What about navigation? What about the tone of the copy? What about images and  logos? Would having videos describing how to use your products, or what to look for when buying your products be beneficial to your customers? Would your customers benefit from being able to discuss their purchases or hobbies with a forum?

There are many things that you can take from this sort of activity, and by seeing things from your potential visitors and customers point of view, and understanding that not everyone shares your passion for power drills, or is as keen on koi carp as you are, you’ll be able to make your website easier to use, and the  buying experience much better.

Why not give it a try?