If your site doesn’t get millions of hits a day, you can still run some interesting experiments by making several versions of the same page with slightly different positioning or wording on each experimental page. Get your propheads to set things up so the different pages (with slightly different file names) are served randomly but equally to your site visitors. Over a bit of time, using WebTrends you will be able to see which page layout works best to get people to click on what you want. You can also figure out what people really want to click on the most.

For example on my site I have a link to our book review section in the upper right area of our main page. I call this area the ‘action aisle’ – prime-clicking territory. Big department stores call the aisle directly in front of the front door the ‘action aisle’ for good reason. Be aware of the action aisles on your site. Almost anything in the action aisle area is going to get clicked on a bunch. The book review link does not get as many clicks as other links in less prime areas of the page. WebTrends also tells me my book review section is not a particularly popular entry area to my site. Also ‘books’ ‘book reviews’ and other similar search terms do not show up in my list of search terms WebTrends says people are using to get to my site. This tells me people are simply not that interested in reading our book reviews. So I need to either make the section much better or forget about it and put a link in the prime clicking area to something people do want to see. Watch this space.

These techniques can be used to milk more page views out of the visitors you already have making your site more sticky. I have been involved in usability testing and focus groups in attempts to increase user satisfaction and increase shopping efficiency. They are very revealing but quite expensive and time consuming. You need to spend some creative thinking time to understand and use the information gained in the best way. The techniques I have mentioned here work as well, are cheap, easy to use and can give fast results.