The expression, website usability, has been known for quite a few years, and yet it is something that appears to be hardly discussed in the more heavily trafficked marketing forums. We consider that just incredible because it really is talking about optimization of all aspects of a commercial site. The meaning of this word is intuitive, and if visitors have difficulty using any aspect of your site then that isn’t desired. Of course it is obvious that your site needs to always be user friendly and motivates people to return. There is much to think about based on the nature of your site, and the best way to approach this is to have data about what is happening.

So you understand the importance of knowing visitor behavior, and you will use a good tracking script for getting that done. The basic strategy is to discover where your site is under-performing; once done, you examine the location and begin creating adjustments. When you think about it, that approach is not so advanced, but it does work nicely if you do it. So you want to use the most robust tracking script you can find. They generally do the same things, and then it boils down to features and benefits. You can track entry and exit pages, or points. The best scripts will not leave you guessing about visitor behavior on your site.

When you indulge in the overall practice of improving site usability, you are optimizing. You can optimize your site for any number of desired steps including conversion rates; both an opt-in or a sale. The proven method or approach for optimizing anything at all on your website is accomplished through testing. The vast majority of people only use split testing, and that is fine since it does work well. Multivariate testing is much more powerful and different than split testing. You can take the somewhat blind approach and choose random aspects of your pages to run a test. But like we pointed out earlier, you use the tracking script metrics to determine possible trouble pages, and then you just begin testing that page. The sensible approach to optimization and testing is to discover where your site is weak so you can fix it.

There is no question about the worth of testing and usability performance analysis. Once you start seeing positive results, you will likely be happy with yourself for having accomplished it. When your site is fully optimized, your desired conversions will be the best they can be. We all understand what the bottom line is, and that is the entire reason for doing this.