Uncovering Site Problems for Landing Page Optimization. Part 1 Tim Ash - SiteTuners.com - Sep 9, 2008

If you can improve the landing pages that receive click-throughs from Google AdWords ads -- and the pages which receive the most organic search engine traffic -- you can improve your conversion rate dramatically and transform the economics of an online business. But how do you decide what to improve? Here are a few places to turn.

Web Analytics

Web analytics, such as Google Analytics, can provide some important clues help you uncover and prioritize potential problems:

• Most visited content. If a key page is not getting enough traffic, you may want to move it to a more prominent location on your website or to create more links to it from other popular pages.
• Path analysis. Path analysis allows you to see the sequences of pages that visitors use to traverse your site. Perhaps you can change the position of key conversion pages or links within the site to benefit from such "drive-by" visibility.
• Top entry pages. A list of the top entry pages shows you the points of first contact with your site. These are the landing pages that need to be fixed first.
• Top exit pages. Exit pages are the places where visitors leave your site, the "leaky buckets." The pages with the highest number of exits and highest percent of exits should be on your priority list.
• Funnel analysis. Visitors usually pass through a well-defined series of pages in order to convert. The funnel narrows as people drop off during each step. High drop-off percentages may signal that a particular step is especially problematic.
• Conversion goals. Web analytics software allows you to track conversion rates for the important goals on your site. By comparing your conversion rates with analyst research for your industry, you can get a rough idea of whether your conversion rates are competitive or substandard.

On-site Search

On-site search can be a source of information about what is not working. Many searches produce no matching results, indicating a mismatch between visitors' desires and expectations, and the ability of a site to provide relevant content. By taking a careful look at such empty search results, you can identify the type of information that is not being found on your site.

Usability Testing

Usability testing can often be done inexpensively and rather informally. After running as few as three subjects through your mission-critical conversion task, you can usually uncover significant issues with your current landing pages. All you need is a quiet room, a mock-up of your site or your proposed design (possibly just hand-drawn on paper), and a clear statement of what you want your subjects to accomplish. Then simply ask the person to talk out loud about their thought process as they work through the task.

Once you've used these approaches to identify the problems with your landing pages, you'll know what to fix so you can boost your conversion rates -- and your profits.

In part 2 we'll cover additional tactics including expert usability reviews, focus groups, eye-tracking studies, customer service reps, forums, blogs, and surveys.