published by Dan in Web Technology | Website Analytics | Website Design
As the term implies, eye tracking is simply a technique used to follow (keep track) a person’s gaze. It makes use of a device called an eye tracker which measures the positions of the eyes and its movements. There are different kinds of technologies available that is used for eye tracking but the most common eye tracker uses a video camera to record the eye(s) and its movements. This is also the method used by (web) usability consultants/engineers.
What happens is that the camera has a special feature (the eye tracker!) which enables it locate the center of the pupil. This is usually done using infrared and near-infrared light. Before data is gathered during eye tracking the camera is calibrated for each user. Calibration takes only a few seconds. The data is gathered by simply allowing the user to go about browsing the a website the way he/she normally would. Specific tasks can be given to the user since eye tracking can be done simultaneously with other usability tests. Note that the camera used for eye tracking is usually placed unobtrusively so that it will not bother the user and thus affect the outcome of the test.
After the data is gathered the usability consultant will then interpret the data. Images showing browsing pattern of the test subject (the average user) should of course be part of the report making it all very easy to understand.
If you haven’t done eye tracking and want to improve your website design I suggest you do this before investing to redesign your website. You might be surprised at how much you can learn and how much it will affect your approach to web design.
published by Dan in Website Analytics | Website Design
So your website finally has a good design. What now? It isn’t enough to invest resources on making sure that your website design looks good. What you need is to have users visit your website and take the next action that needs to be taken, whether that means signing up for your business’ service or purchasing something from the site. Although web design is very important you should always keep in mind that it isn’t the end goal but merely a tool or a step towards achieving your goals.
To make sure that the website’s design wasn’t wasted and that it really is effective it is imperative that you measure your site’s performance AFTER the website is launched. Data gathering should take place and after which analysis of the data should also be done.
Thankfully web analytics is not too hard nowadays due to the multitude of web analytic tools available in the market. However, if you are still new to web analytics it is a good idea to simply hire someone to help you with this. In most cases good web design firm offer web analytics as part of their service. This makes sense because web design consultants know that their job isn’t really done after the site is launched and that adjustments might need to be made. So when dealing with web design companies make sure that you ask about their web analytics services to make sure they can provide you good service beyond basic web design.
published by Gary in SEO | Website Analytics
Web analytics, or your website usage data tells you how many visitors you get per day, per week or per month, how they end up on your website, what they do once they are on your website, and what makes them leave eventually.
By carefully and routinely studying your website usage data you can figure out what pages of your website are favorite among your visitors and what pages need to be changed/improved in order to get more attention. They also tell you what keywords and key phrases people actually use to find your website.
How can web analytics help your SEO efforts?
As I just said above, your web analytics tell you what keywords people are using to arrive at your website. Now, this could be a totally wrong traffic because the keywords being displayed by your web analytics tool might not be the ones you are trying to optimise your website for. So you can re-orient your effort and get your web pages re-written to better search engine optimise for the right keywords.
On the other hand you may also discover some search phrases that are very relevant to your website but somehow you missed optimising your website for them. You can increase traffic for these keywords by further optimising your website for them.
What do they do once they are on your website?
Search engine optimisation doesn’t only mean getting tons of traffic from the search engines; it also means optimising that traffic so that you derive maximum benefit from it. So it’s very important to know what people do once they are on your website. If you notice that there is a page from where people leave your website the most you can make some improvements there. Then there might be some pages people immensely like. You can devise ways to promote your special products on those pages
Where are the inbound links coming from?
Search engines are not the only source of relevant traffic. A lots of traffic might come from those websites that display your links on them. If you notice a high amount of traffic coming from such websites you can strike up partnerships with them to encourage them to put more of your links there. You can even reciprocate.
The web analytics are primarily there to give you a picture of your traffic. By studying the trends and making the needed changes you can optimise the traffic your website gets to a great extent.
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