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You have the ability to compile more data than you could ever need about your website visitors using conversion rate optimization<\/a> (CRO) tools. But why should you care about user behavior?<\/p>\n After all, CRO is just about maximizing clicks, conversions, and sales, right? Why should it matter what happens in between those actions?<\/p>\n I\u2019m here to tell you that it matters \u2014 a lot.<\/b><\/p>\n User behavior gives you insight into how your website visitors act, think, and make decisions. While they\u2019re contemplating a decision \u2014 for instance, about whether or not to sign up for your email newsletter \u2014 you need to know how they\u2019re behaving. And that\u2019s where CRO tools come in.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t know that a particular blog post garners tons of engagement and contributes to a high percentage of your conversions, you can\u2019t optimize that post to make it even more effective. The same goes for every other element on your website.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a shame. Lots of business owners are missing out on incredible data and insights, but I don\u2019t want that to happen to you. Here\u2019s how to stay ahead of the competition by tracking user behavior<\/a>.<\/p>\n User behavior refers to the activities in which website visitors engage after they land on your site. It can involve clicks, scrolling down pages, reading blog posts, taking quizzes, and more.<\/p>\n Think of your website as a brick-and-mortar store. You launch your website, which opens its doors. Customers can come in and out at will.<\/p>\n User behavior tells you how they act once they\u2019re inside. It\u2019d be like tracking customer patterns inside an actual store.<\/p>\n In a physical store, you might want to know which end caps prove most effective at moving product, how signage figures into customers\u2019 decisions, and which aisles turn off shoppers. This data would help you rearrange your store for maximum sales.<\/p>\n Your website works the same way. With the right CRO tools, you can understand the user behavior of all your website visitors so you can optimize each page for a desired action.<\/span><\/p>\n User behavior and psychology go hand in hand. People behave based on what motivates or resonates with them.<\/p>\n Take a call-to-action phrase, for instance. Changing just one or two words can impact user behavior based on how your visitors perceive that phrase.<\/p>\n Check out the two CTAs above. If you A\/B test the two, user behavior might mark one as the clear winner.<\/p>\n For instance, if \u201cJoin Today\u201d prevails, you might surmise that the word \u201cjoin\u201d has a more positive psychological effect on your audience because it suggests inclusivity and a welcoming atmosphere.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just about the clicks, though. What if your user behavior tests reveal that visitors think something is a link, but it\u2019s not actually hyperlinked. Your visitors are getting frustrated because they click on an image or a phrase, but nothing happens.<\/p>\n You can use that information to optimize your website for a better user experience.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve heard of the Pareto principle<\/a>, right? It states that 80 percent of your results will come from 20 percent of your efforts.<\/p>\n Viewed another way, it also suggests that you need to optimize your site for 80 percent of your visitors rather than the 20 percent, which constitute outliers.<\/p>\n User behavior can vary widely among consumers, even when they\u2019re visiting the same website. Consumers have their own preferences and patterns, many of which you can\u2019t predict without solid data.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t optimize for everyone. Your goal should be to please the majority of your visitors.<\/p>\n First, though, you need to know how that majority behaves.<\/b><\/p>\n I meet business owners all the time who make off-the-cuff decisions about things like web design, homepage design<\/a>, landing page design, and more. They\u2019re making assumptions about what their target customers want.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a huge mistake. No matter how well you think you know your target audience<\/a>, they\u2019re capable of surprising you.<\/p>\n The way to compensate for that fact is to make assumptions \u2014 or, more accurately, hypotheses \u2014 and then pay attention to user behavior so you can adjust specific website elements based on data.<\/p>\n Ideally, those decisions will come from the vast majority of your visitors. In other words, what do most people<\/i> do while they\u2019re on your site.<\/p>\n If you know that, you can help nurture your visitors toward a conversion.<\/p>\n I once hypothesized that I could skyrocket my rankings and improve conversions by writing these long, extremely detailed articles. We\u2019re talking about 30,000-word monstrosities.<\/p>\n They cost a lot of money, too. I not only wrote them, but had them illustrated. They were beautiful, but after several months, I realized my hypothesis was wrong.<\/p>\n First, the people reading those articles weren\u2019t necessarily my target customers. They were brand new business owners without much cash, so they weren\u2019t in the market to hire my marketing agency.<\/p>\n Second, most people don\u2019t have time to read a book-length article in one sitting. To consume these articles, visitors would have to bookmark the pages, remember where they stopped, and come back later.<\/p>\n Finally, while my rankings might have improved somewhat, I already had good presence in the Google SERPs. Writing those huge articles didn\u2019t have a noticeable impact on my customers\u2019 ability to find me online.<\/p>\n However, I wouldn\u2019t know all that if it weren\u2019t for user behavior testing. I might have continued to pump out those huge articles, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a project that wouldn\u2019t yield commensurate results.<\/p>\n So how do you track user behavior? And what do you do with the information you collect?<\/p>\n User behavior reports are key to understanding what people do when they arrive on your site. It doesn\u2019t matter what pages they visit or whether they\u2019re new or returning visitors. How do they behave?<\/p>\n Set user behavior reports to run for a couple months. Pay careful attention to clicking, scrolling, and form engagement.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll also want to check referral sources. Where does the majority of your traffic come from?<\/p>\n For instance, maybe you get 70 percent of your traffic from Facebook posts. What does this tell you? It\u2019s time to put more energy into Facebook.<\/p>\n Consider boosting posts, running Facebook Ads, and initiating contests or giveaways. When engagement improves on Facebook, your posts find their way to more people organically.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t jump the gun. Wait until you\u2019ve collected a solid chunk of data before you make any decisions. You\u2019re anxious to optimize your site, but getting ahead of yourself will only slow down the process. Leave your site alone until you have enough data to act upon.<\/p>\n Find out why users leave your website<\/a><\/p>\n Once you have solid data, examine it to figure out how obstacles might influence user behavior in negative ways.<\/p>\n For instance, do visitors stop scrolling early on your blog pages? Have you noticed that visitors from a specific source, such as social, spend less time on your site<\/a> than visitors from other referring sources?<\/p>\n Write down your observations and what the data says. Don\u2019t draw conclusions yet \u2014 you have to test your hypotheses to see how they pan out \u2014 but make educated guesses based on the user behavior reports in front of you.<\/p>\n A possible list might look like this:<\/p>\n Once you have those observations, you can do something about them.<\/p>\n Your goals have to align with past performance. If, for instance, you\u2019ve only been getting 10 conversions per week, you wouldn\u2019t want to set a goal of 1,000 conversions next week based on a few tweaks.<\/p>\n Decide what goals you want to pursue first, such as email conversions or sales, so you can align your strategy with them. That will impact the metrics you\u2019ll track as you proceed, which I\u2019ll get into below.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at our short list of observations above. Based on what the data told us, we can make a few changes on the website to help guide user behavior more effectively through the site. As a reminder, here they are:<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve created your variation, you\u2019re ready to test them against one another.<\/p>\n Start A\/B testing right now<\/a><\/p>\n The metrics you decide to track should be directly impacted by your goals. For instance, let\u2019s say you want to increase conversions by 10 percent by a certain date. You might want to track bounce rate, time on page, overall traffic numbers, and traffic referral sources.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re hoping to increase email conversions, you don\u2019t need to worry about metrics like revenue, profit, or customer lifetime value. They\u2019re not relevant to your current goal.<\/p>\n Other metrics to track could include conversion rate by source and top pages. You\u2019ll find this information in Google Search Console. Top pages are your best-performing pages, so you\u2019ll want to optimize them for conversions. Plus, if you know which referral sources give you the highest conversion rates, you can focus on them more heavily.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve set up your campaign, from data analysis and goal setting to setting up variations and defining key metrics, set up A\/B tests<\/a> for the pages you want to test. For instance, you might test an alternate CTA on your blog pages to see if it helps boost clicks.<\/p>\n Crazy Egg gives you the tools necessary to understand how your users behave on your site and to test variations on pages that might help increase conversions, sales, and other KPIs.<\/p>\n Use our tools to see exactly where your visitors click, scroll, and otherwise engage with your site. That way, you\u2019re not making decisions based on guesswork.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll love recordings<\/a> because of their depth of information. They allow you to look over your visitors\u2019 virtual shoulders and watch how they interact with specific pages on your site.<\/p>\n Using this information, you can determine whether you\u2019ve designed the page for maximum flow and purpose. If people are engaging with every element except the CTA, for instance, you might need to make the CTA bigger, bolder, or more attractive.<\/p>\n You can use Crazy Egg to generate several types of heatmaps, each of which communicates information in a slightly different way. The traditional heatmap<\/a> uses color temperature on the page to show you where visitors engage the most.<\/p>\n The other user behavior reports can give you information about scrolling, referral sources, percentage breakdown of clicks, and more.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that user behavior reports need to come before A\/B testing. While you can run A\/B tests whenever you want, you\u2019ll enjoy more success if you base each variation on data collected from heatmaps and other user behavior reports.<\/p>\nWhat Is User Behavior?<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Importance of Tracking User Behavior on Your Website<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nHow to Track User Behavior on a Website Using CRO Tools<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nWatch how users engage with your site<\/h3>\n
Analyze all the data you collect<\/h3>\n
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Set specific, attainable goals<\/h3>\n
Choose what elements you should test<\/h3>\n
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Define the main metrics that matter for your goals<\/h3>\n
Set up your A\/B tests<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nStart Improving User Behavior Patterns Through Educated Changes With Crazy Egg<\/h2>\n
Recordings<\/h3>\n
![\"how-track-user-behaviour-recordings\"](\"https:\/\/ceblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/24151934\/how-track-user-behaviour-4.png\")
<\/p>\nHeatmaps<\/h3>\n
A\/B Testing<\/h3>\n
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