Some pages of your website can be inefficient and thus hamper its potential in achieving the goals you have set for it (sales, leads, etc.). You must therefore identify these bad boys to be able to tweak them to your advantage. This task will be made much easier with the help of your web statistics tool (Google Analytics or other). A closer analysis work will probably be necessary to determine the exact causes of this poor performance and thus know the points to correct. To quickly isolate the most egregious cases so here are 3 main types of issues in optimizing pages as fast as possible.
How to analyzing the performance of your pages
In addition to the usual precautions of any interpretation of data (volume and period of significant time, etc.) before analyzing the performance of your pages you should take into account the different nature of each page of your website. Indeed, all the pages will not have the same objective (and therefore the same success indicators) and you do not assess all the same way. Thus you will distinguish 3 main types of pages:
Guidance pages: landing pages, menus, directories, etc.
pages of information: text content, multimedia, etc.
interaction pages: forms, payments, downloads, etc.
How to analyzing the performance of your pages
In addition to the usual precautions of any interpretation of data (volume and period of significant time, etc.) before analyzing the performance of your pages you should take into account the different nature of each page of your website. Indeed, all the pages will not have the same objective (and therefore the same success indicators) and you do not assess all the same way. Thus you will distinguish 3 main types of pages:
Guidance pages: landing pages, menus, directories, etc.
pages of information: text content, multimedia, etc.
interaction pages: forms, payments, downloads, etc.
We observe that distinction on the nature of pages in the following list of behavioral groups. In addition, establish a hierarchy of pages according to their importance in the conversion funnel, depending on their weight in the overall performance of the site. Indeed, in your website funnel, all the pages are not equal. This is why the key pages of the conversion process should be studied first.
1. Scarecrows
Pages "scarecrows", as the name suggests, will tend to scare away visitors. These are fine pages Course (users will leave your site) while they are not designed to be. For example, if it is legitimate to expect a late session on interaction pages (= target achieved), it is quite different to the information pages but especially those of orientation which are intended to be as bridges to deepen the visit and not shorten it. So, your mission will be first to list your traffic guidance pages to specifically monitor this portfolio of web pages to quickly identify "scarecrows" that compose it. During this census work, distinguish particular landing pages of your site you will heal your priority traffic gateways because they are the first link in the chain of trust that you seek to establish with the surfers. Now that you have selected potential candidates under scarecrow, you'll have them assign grades based on their respective performance in order to highlight the most problematic. For this you will need to choose the most appropriate indicators. For example, indicators to monitor priority could be:
Bounce rate (adjusted or not): percentage of single-page visits (the user stops at the landing page)
Interaction rates with the content: proportion of physical interaction with the content of the input pages
Cost per visit out-rebound or qualified Visit: cost of acquisition of a qualifying session (no rebound, significant numbers of page views, or completed action)
Etc.
It's up to you to determine those KPIs that will make the most sense in your context. But in general, you will select a limited number of indicators illustrating the concept of best scarecrows pages. The worst-performing pages, as set score, and those will rework first.
2. web pages
Some pages are not necessarily inherently bad, but it is their integration within your website that can be reviewed. Indeed, pages not adapted to the situation expected content affect the user experience, not scaring the user, but rather by creating confusion in his mind ... and putting it in the conditions for the abandonment of the current session on your pages. For example, if a page directed to a new page with a content contradictory to the previous, there is a good chance that the visitor is more mixed than convinced. Thus, you should make sure to present a coherent overall content of a page to another. It will be of no use to possess excellent pages individually but, assemblies, will be totally discordant. The identification work pages can then be more complex because it is not to analyze the performance of a single page, but the performance of a navigation path. So you will have, as seen above, to establish a portfolio navigation path and follow the most appropriate performance indicators to help identify those segments of the traffic with the worst performance. You can then work to understand why it does not work. Thus, in Google Analytics you can create segments with sequences of pages visited. You can compare them with indicators such as:
Visiting depth (in pages and time): a sequence of pages has a beginning and an end and an expected number of page views. Compare the actual number with the number expected for calculating a first score.
Combined page value: giving values to your goals, you will be able to identify the sequences of the most ... and less profitable pages.
Exit rate: if you build sets of pages is there to guide the user from the beginning to the end, towards your goal. The sets of pages with the highest exit rate and will thus be the earliest ones to correct first.
Success or conversion rate: if pages funnels allow the accomplishment of objectives (macro and micro), you will have a sorting between pages according to the respective conversion rates you have available.
Of course, as stated above, all depend on your background and goals that you measure. But, again, applying good recipes calculation will identify quickly the existing problem areas in the chain of sequences of pages of your website.
# 3. dysfunctional
In the great trilogy of problem pages you'll have to face, there is still a (not least): dysfunctional. These pages are those that affect the user experience because of purely technical problems: bugs, error handling, faulty connection, programming error, site speed, etc. The complexity of their monitoring lies directly in nature: how to identify technical problems related web pages within a statistical tool such as Google Analytics? Apart from certain dimensions available natively in Google Analytics, you will need to mark the pages of your site using event tracking code. Thus, you have correctly mark events related to attempted statutes, potential success and failure to complete certain tasks that may be key in achieving the goals of your website:
Loading pages
Validating form data
Display graphics
Downloading or reading files
Etc.
These tasks, once identified and properly marked in your traffic monitoring tool will follow so segmented to highlight the winners and losers traditional. These will be your subject of choice for technical optimization of your website. By counting the number of attempts, successes and failures of a particular action, you also get the necessary operators to calculate valuable performance indicators concerning:
Failure rate: if 100 attempts to carry out an action, you have 95 failures, you'll do well to try to fix something
Cost of failure: if you are able to retrieve the traffic acquisition costs related to these actions, you can put a specific dollar value on the cost of technical failure on.
Charging time: whether to display a page, a picture or playing a video, you will need to ensure that these tasks are accomplished as soon as possible.
This is a very time consuming to set up monitoring that can expect to be able to identify pages and dysfunctional actions of your site, but it is nevertheless essential elements to secure your side to be able to provide the most enjoyable user experience possible for your visitors.
conclusion
The three families of problematic pages presented here are just a few ways to show you how to identify the pages of your site affecting the user experience. You probably will also assess other categories according to which the problems you will face. In general, you will focus the analysis of the most influential pages on the success of your website to put your efforts in the right place. The key, once the pages "dunces" found, will be to find ways to improve them. To do this the best way will perform tests on multiple versions of these pages to determine the winner. By correcting your site in small intelligent retouching you give him the best chance to succeed.
1. Scarecrows
Pages "scarecrows", as the name suggests, will tend to scare away visitors. These are fine pages Course (users will leave your site) while they are not designed to be. For example, if it is legitimate to expect a late session on interaction pages (= target achieved), it is quite different to the information pages but especially those of orientation which are intended to be as bridges to deepen the visit and not shorten it. So, your mission will be first to list your traffic guidance pages to specifically monitor this portfolio of web pages to quickly identify "scarecrows" that compose it. During this census work, distinguish particular landing pages of your site you will heal your priority traffic gateways because they are the first link in the chain of trust that you seek to establish with the surfers. Now that you have selected potential candidates under scarecrow, you'll have them assign grades based on their respective performance in order to highlight the most problematic. For this you will need to choose the most appropriate indicators. For example, indicators to monitor priority could be:
Bounce rate (adjusted or not): percentage of single-page visits (the user stops at the landing page)
Interaction rates with the content: proportion of physical interaction with the content of the input pages
Cost per visit out-rebound or qualified Visit: cost of acquisition of a qualifying session (no rebound, significant numbers of page views, or completed action)
Etc.
It's up to you to determine those KPIs that will make the most sense in your context. But in general, you will select a limited number of indicators illustrating the concept of best scarecrows pages. The worst-performing pages, as set score, and those will rework first.
2. web pages
Some pages are not necessarily inherently bad, but it is their integration within your website that can be reviewed. Indeed, pages not adapted to the situation expected content affect the user experience, not scaring the user, but rather by creating confusion in his mind ... and putting it in the conditions for the abandonment of the current session on your pages. For example, if a page directed to a new page with a content contradictory to the previous, there is a good chance that the visitor is more mixed than convinced. Thus, you should make sure to present a coherent overall content of a page to another. It will be of no use to possess excellent pages individually but, assemblies, will be totally discordant. The identification work pages can then be more complex because it is not to analyze the performance of a single page, but the performance of a navigation path. So you will have, as seen above, to establish a portfolio navigation path and follow the most appropriate performance indicators to help identify those segments of the traffic with the worst performance. You can then work to understand why it does not work. Thus, in Google Analytics you can create segments with sequences of pages visited. You can compare them with indicators such as:
Visiting depth (in pages and time): a sequence of pages has a beginning and an end and an expected number of page views. Compare the actual number with the number expected for calculating a first score.
Combined page value: giving values to your goals, you will be able to identify the sequences of the most ... and less profitable pages.
Exit rate: if you build sets of pages is there to guide the user from the beginning to the end, towards your goal. The sets of pages with the highest exit rate and will thus be the earliest ones to correct first.
Success or conversion rate: if pages funnels allow the accomplishment of objectives (macro and micro), you will have a sorting between pages according to the respective conversion rates you have available.
Of course, as stated above, all depend on your background and goals that you measure. But, again, applying good recipes calculation will identify quickly the existing problem areas in the chain of sequences of pages of your website.
# 3. dysfunctional
In the great trilogy of problem pages you'll have to face, there is still a (not least): dysfunctional. These pages are those that affect the user experience because of purely technical problems: bugs, error handling, faulty connection, programming error, site speed, etc. The complexity of their monitoring lies directly in nature: how to identify technical problems related web pages within a statistical tool such as Google Analytics? Apart from certain dimensions available natively in Google Analytics, you will need to mark the pages of your site using event tracking code. Thus, you have correctly mark events related to attempted statutes, potential success and failure to complete certain tasks that may be key in achieving the goals of your website:
Loading pages
Validating form data
Display graphics
Downloading or reading files
Etc.
These tasks, once identified and properly marked in your traffic monitoring tool will follow so segmented to highlight the winners and losers traditional. These will be your subject of choice for technical optimization of your website. By counting the number of attempts, successes and failures of a particular action, you also get the necessary operators to calculate valuable performance indicators concerning:
Failure rate: if 100 attempts to carry out an action, you have 95 failures, you'll do well to try to fix something
Cost of failure: if you are able to retrieve the traffic acquisition costs related to these actions, you can put a specific dollar value on the cost of technical failure on.
Charging time: whether to display a page, a picture or playing a video, you will need to ensure that these tasks are accomplished as soon as possible.
This is a very time consuming to set up monitoring that can expect to be able to identify pages and dysfunctional actions of your site, but it is nevertheless essential elements to secure your side to be able to provide the most enjoyable user experience possible for your visitors.
conclusion
The three families of problematic pages presented here are just a few ways to show you how to identify the pages of your site affecting the user experience. You probably will also assess other categories according to which the problems you will face. In general, you will focus the analysis of the most influential pages on the success of your website to put your efforts in the right place. The key, once the pages "dunces" found, will be to find ways to improve them. To do this the best way will perform tests on multiple versions of these pages to determine the winner. By correcting your site in small intelligent retouching you give him the best chance to succeed.