Internet marketing strategies started with Website Development -> Search Engine Optimization -> Paid Search -> Social Media. Now the latest strategy is conversion rate optimization / usability which can be defined simply as creating more return on investment with the existing traffic of your website.
Below are a few tools that we use to help our clients increase their conversion efforts.
Name: Usability Hub
Website: http://usabilityhub.com/
Price: Free to $200/month
Usability Hub offers 3 different types of tests that can help you evaluate the design and concepts you have.
Navflow – Tests how people are navigating through your website.
Fivesecondtest – Flashes the website for 5 seconds then allows you to ask a series of questions. I use this to see if the main call to action and messaging is clear.
ClickTest – Tracks where a user clicks. This is great for asking them to click on the main call to action or finding out what got their attention the most.
As you can see, Usability Hub is full of useful tools. The best part is that you can take other people’s tests and in return receive a credit. So in theory, if you participate you do not have to pay for this tool!
Name: Crazy Egg
Website: http://www.crazyegg.com/
Price: $9 / month to $99 / month
Crazy Egg has been around for a few years and was the first usability tool I ever used. I still use it today because it is cheap and provides amazing data on how exactly visitors are using your website. The heat map reports show you where people are clicking on your site.
Name: Click Tale
Website: http://www.clicktale.com
Price: Free to $990 / month
Click Tale is very similar to Crazy Egg, but actually records every mouse movement, click, and keystroke. It gives you more data to chew on, but is more expensive. If you have the budget, give it a try.
Name: Kiss Insight
Website: http://www.kissinsights.com/
Price: Free to $25 / month
Kiss Insight helps you implement a custom feedback form; you can use the results to improve your website. I recommend using this for ecommerce website and asking questions like, “Are you finding the product you were looking for?” “Do you feel our prices are affordable?” “Would you recommend this product to a friend?” and so on. Also, I would not constantly run this on your site because it could be considered invasive or annoying. Just run it for a test period of time or until you have received a large enough sample of results to make an educated analysis.
Name: User Voice
Website: https://uservoice.com
Price: Free to $589 / month
Similar to Kiss Insight this feedback form can be very useful to gather visitor feedback. The big difference with Use Voice is that you do not ask your visitors questions; they tell you what they think. This is a great way to gather suggestion and feedback that you might have never thought of. Like I mentioned earlier, I would not constantly run this on your site because it could be considered invasive or annoying.
For me Click Tale has been an eye opener. From the Mouse heat maps, to attention heat maps, scroll depth and the all mighty mouse recordings: insight into users and web design hasn’t been easier. Looking forward to testing some of the tools you recommended.
Steve, Another great usability tool developed in Australia by PicNet is "Mouse Eye Tracking" http://www.picnet.com.au/met and has a number of features that allows you to understand the behavior of your visitors and optimize your design accordingly. Mouse movement and clicks are recorded and graphically displayed. Characters typed are not, removing any security concern that users May have. The solution sells as SaaS (worldwide) and self hosted to the Australian market.
Hi Steve,
We will do our best to get http://www.reedge.com on this list in 2011….
Dennis