Dear web Analytics, meet the web design team. Web design team, let me introduce you to web Analytics. I know you two have been neighbors for years, but I really think you two should spend some time together. I think you might really hit it off. Maybe I’m just overly confident in my matchmaking skills. Probably not though.
It’s True – Web Design Agencies [Mostly] Ignore Analytics
Before you string me up let me explain. Here’s what happens. A web design company decides to niche down and only do web design and development projects. That’s a smart business move, by the way. You become more efficient, and get really good at what you do. It’s a different route than dabbling in marketing, and morphing into a two pronged company that does both marketing and web design – but neither extraordinarily well.
This Is How It Happens
Analytics is the marketing department’s job right? Sure it is. That mentality results in web design agencies taking their marching orders from a marketing team (if there is one, and assuming they’re skilled). They might have very skilled graphic designers, developers, etc but those web agency employees never get any hands on experience with interpreting web analytics. That’s how you get web design agencies who are amazing at what they do, but have no experience in web analytics.
Does it Matter?
If you’ve made it this far, you’re obviously thinking it might.
Analytics Takes The Guesswork Out Of Web Design
Don’t guess what people are doing and what will work. Learn the facts from analytics, let it influence your web design, and take the user experience to the next level.
Examples
Below are questions that every Kansas City web designer would agree are valid questions to answer before doing any kind of web design. Yet, I’d bet dollars to donuts that almost every one of them would tell you they spent no more than 10 minutes digging through a site’s analytics account answering these questions before doing a web design project.
Where do people go after hitting the home page?
That’s going to give you great insight into your most desirable products/services, which can drastically influence your sitemap, navigation priorities, and CTA’s.
Where are users clicking? The nav menu or a button?
How far down are users scrolling? Is nobody clicking the nav menu? Why? Is no one clicking your buttons in the page body? Why?
What pages are people exiting the site on?
And even more important, why are they exiting? Is your CTA weak? Did they end up in the wrong place? Are they discouraged by your prices?
What pages/products have the highest goal conversions?
You’ll want these to be given priority throughout the site, and maybe spend a little extra time on them.
What CTA’s are performing the best?
Figure out why and repeat.
What devices have the highest and lowest conversion rates?
It may be hard for mobile users to convert on your website. Fix it.
If you didn’t learn these things from analytics before doing web design, that means (you guessed it) there’s a lot of assumptions happening.