Analyzing Buyer Behavior Helps Us Make Money Online

Have you ever noticed that each time you visit a franchise store, the displays are changed, goods are moved around, and impulse purchase items are conveniently placed on racks in the checkout line? If so, do you have any idea why this is being done?

The reason why conventional stores take these measures is to hide things from you, and make you buy what they think you should buy. Okay, I am just kidding, sort of. The reason behind these changes is feedback and analysis. These stores are analyzing customer traffic, and studying behavioral patterns amongst customers to see how their visitors shop. So essentially, they are sort of hiding certain items from you, while showing you others.

 

As online retailers, how can we capture subtle customer feedback? How do we procure behavioral information from customers which will ultimately increase our ability to make money online?

 

Open your ears, because your customers are trying to tell you something. By following your customers' clicks to and through your website and webpages, you can discover some very valuable information on how your customers interact with and experience your website. Google Analytics is a very good tool which can capture this information for you. Best of all, it is free.

 

Below, I will point out some of the key things which you should be looking at when customers and potential customers visit you online.

 

1. Not only should you be paying attention to the keywords which are bringing visitors to your website, you should also track which keywords result in the highest conversion ratio. Often times online businesses focus on ranking for keywords which generate the highest level of traffic. However, this approach is short-sighted. Often times the keywords which generate the highest amount of traffic, also result in the highest amount of visitors immediately leaving your website, also known as a high "bounce rate". Keep in mind that the more time people spend on your website, the more likely they will purchase. Analyzing this data allows you to measure which keywords convert more visitors into buyers.

 

2. You can also analyze the amount of time visitors spend on your site on average. Due to the fact that potential buyers do not always make an immediate buying decision, this is a good way to project future sales. For instance, if visitors to your website are taking their time, looking things over carefully, and doing research, this tells you that they are interested, and will most likely come back to complete the transaction.

 

3. If you notice that traffic is leaving almost as soon as they visit your website, this can be due to a number of problems. Perhaps your webpage takes to long to load, or there is some other issue. Either way, you need to reinforce to your visitors that when they visit your website, they have found what they are looking for. Do this by making sure that the keyword which lead the visitor to your website is strongly related to the text on the landing page. Studies have indicated that taking this step alone can increase your conversion rate by as much as 20%-50%.

 

4. You can determine at which page of your site your visitors are exiting. This is critical is you find that visitors are abandoning their shopping carts mid-checkout. If you notice that there are a high rate of users leaving full shopping carts, you can almost determine exactly what is costing your business sales:

i) If potential buyers are exiting on the page which reveals the shipping costs, your shipping costs may be making your less competitive in the market.

ii) If potential buyers are leaving in the middle of filling out the buyers' information page, perhaps your form is too long.

 

Although traditional brick and mortar stores have their methods of analyzing buyer behavior, those of us who make money online with our online businesses have a succinct advantage in pinpointing buyer motivation and behavior with tools such as Google Analytics.

 

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