Unfortunately, a lot of this is guesswork. Even research such as web analytics that provide us with hard data tends to sometimes miss the point.
The fact is that every single visitor to your website is unique. Web analytics and online marketing ‘common sense’ tends to homogenise your visitors. To really get into your website visitor’s shoes, you need to be a bit more open minded and ready to admit when you may be wrong.
Of course, you will probably be wrong a lot of the time, but you can do your best to gain some empathy and place yourself in your visitors shoes. Ask yourself:
- Who are your visitors?
- Where on your website are they landing/converting/leaving?
- What motivates them to make a decision?
- What influences their behaviour?
- What are you trying to get them to do (your conversion)
- Is your website operating to help them do what they want to do?
You also need to realise that, since your website visitors come from many groups with different intentions, that there is probably not an ‘average’ answer to any of these questions. Depending on your business type, you could focus on the more viable group/s, or you could expand and try to fit a more diverse range of visitors.
