User feedback from my site

[Gutsy]

Hey all,
Can somebody please advise me (maybe Stu)? I would like to place something on my website whereby it allows people landing there to give me feedback about why they're there -I'm trying to find out whether the traffic I'm getting are potential clients, potential transcriptionists, etc, etc.
I'm thinking a poll - or does somebody have a better suggestion? Google Analytics tells me a lot, but unless I'm mistaken this will require some sort of user interaction and I will have to trust what they say?

Thanks guys.

 

[Gordon N]

You've got a couple of options for that kind of thing...

The first would be to use a service such as eSurevysPro or ezQuestionnaire to setup and run a pop-up survey as you visitors arrive. (Both offer free accounts from what I can remember, might be some adverts on them though)

The second would be a similar method, using something like wufoo forms to setup a small questionnaire and either pop-up a link on arrival, or link to it from a banner/textlink on the site. You can design some really nice looking forms with wufoo and either stick them on your site or run them off their servers - fantastic tool!

All of these gather the responses for you so you can analyse them later.

 

[stuarty]

Hi Gaynor,

Surveys are great things. Make it a short and snappy so the visitor only has a few questions to answer.

The next trick is to get your user to complete your survey. There are several methods you can use below:

In your face:

Use a popup that appears when the page loads. You can use something like ThickBox 3.1 Click on examples and see the "inline content" sample.

Another demo is here with an html form Particletree Lightbox Gone Wild! - click on the demo

The disadvantage is if the visitor has javascript disabled then they wont see the popup. It can be annoying but you will at lkeast get people filling in your survey.

Incentive method:

Give something away for free. If you give the visitor an incentive such as a chance to win a free iPod then you will get more responses.


Reverse psychology method:

Use a "don't click here" button. This is absolutely brilliant and piques the visitors curiosity into clicking the link.

All the above rely on the position of your CTAs (call to action).

You need these to be visible and placed in the key areas of where the visitors eye will be naturally drawn to. This means in the western world that we read from left to right and top to bottom.

Your CTA should be placed preferrably at the right hand side of the page and stand out from normal content. Have a CTA before the fold, i.e. the area before the visitor has to scroll. This area in particular is very effective because this is where they have to move their mouse and eye in order to activate the scroll button.

See the image below for key areas of where your ideal CTAs should be.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Gaynor,

Gordon and Stuarty have given you some good advice. I can't really add to it, except to warn you to be cautious in how you interpret the results, for two reasons.

First, whatever method you use, it can only ever be a rough approximation. The majority of visitors simply won't have any interest to provide feedback. Those that do will form a self-selecting group; they will be the ones who are motivated to make contact with you, and therefore won't be representative of the population of visitors as a whole.

Secondly, you've got to think about the impression you create. Think what it would be like to wonder into a shop, and be immediately greeted by someone asking why you have entered the shop and what you are looking. I'm not saying this will scare off all your visitors, but it might not be the most welcoming first impression.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Just be aware of the implications.

Mike

 

[Gutsy]

Hi guys,
Thank you for all your feed back! Mike, I think I agree with you re the popup thing which may be offputting as soon as someone lands on the site (what do others think?)but I'm kind of liking the wufoo banner idea, giving them the choice whether they wish to give feedback or not, which I think I'm going to have a good look at. Thank you for that link GordonN! Stuarty, I agree - that looks great and that's great info re the CTA and placing it in an eye catching place - now I need to figure out how to DO that using Joomla ...

I do realise it's only a small percentage of users who will actually give me feedback, but I would value whatever feedback I get, I guess kind of like a competition, if you're not in it you won't win it, if I don't give them the option, I won't get any feedback. Thank you all again!

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Gaynor,

I think Stuart's point about incentivising them to complete the survey is also a good one. You could offer something like a free hour of transcription or something like that. It has to be tied to your services in some way so that only the people who are interested in your services will be motivated to respond.

Let us know what you went with and how it all worked out