9 Tools For Website Tracking, Testing and Conversion Optimization Internet Marketing Business Blog James Schramko

9 Tools For Website Tracking, Testing and Conversion Optimization

Posted by James in Affiliate, Conversions, How To

When you build a new website or landing page you can use past results as a starting point to get good conversions. The next step after completion is to install analytics and tracking tools. The tools you use for tracking on websites are designed for tweaking the conversion ratio for paid and organic traffic plus finding more profitable keywords and gathering marketing ideas.

Here are nine tracking, testing and conversion tools:

Google Analytics – For traffic stats, bounce rate, source, keywords, ppc metrics and keywords. It is free and goes on every page. You can set different goals such as signups and sales. This tool will show you a basic site overlay of clicks and can show you where your visitors are from around the world.

Google Websiteoptimizer – Great for split testing or multi-variate testing if you want it to be easy. The simple split test is a breeze to setup and tells you which page is a winner. With multivariate testing (for high volume traffic) you can test multiple parts of a page in one test. Banner versus no banner, picture versus picture, video or not etc…. It is free and easy to setup. Once you have a clear winner you can start a new test. When combined with on-screen heatmaps or usability you can set up tests with more knowledge about the likely improvements.

CrazyEgg – This software is well priced for the paid version and easy to setup. You can generate heatmaps and confetti maps that show you when people click on anything on the page. The confetti map shows you where the visitor arrived from and where they clicked. I like this program a lot and here are some screen shots of a couple of my sites after several thousand visits to show you how you can use the information to arrive at conclusions.

If you have a graphic Button without a text link you are probably losing sales!

Make sure you have a members log in and blog link so members can find you easily!

People click on pictures – make sure you link your product pictures!

People click on testimonials and proof links to ‘check them’. Make them open in a new window!

Place clickable ‘download’ links in your text body breaks straight after a pre-sell!

Make sure you have a trust seal for building comfort and reducing risk!

ClickTale – If you want to take things to the next level you can watch people move around your website in video format. This is a great way to sit on your clients shoulders and see what they see. The software will average out the visits to form a composite recording you can see to remove obstacles. It also offers heatmaps and the code does not interfere with Google Analytics. Highly recommended for landing pages and order page conversion optimization.

Third party pixels – When I buy traffic I make sure I get a tracking pixel installed in the thank you page. That way I know which keyword and which landing page is resulting in sales. Most traffic networks will let you track. Most merchants will install it for you if you drive enough traffic to them. These are essential for ROI measurement.

Axroi by Axandra – If you are a merchant then this will help you. The reason it is so good is you can track links from any source (not just ppc). You can generate a special link for paid links, ezines, forum signature links and ppc. So the link will let you track return on investment. You need to install code on your landing pages and also the thank you page. Once done you use the easy to manage server installed control panel to see where your advertising dollars are working hardest. It also tracks which keywords were used to arrive through search traffic.

Web Analytics at host – Most hosting companies will install web analytics for you. Webalizer and AWstats usually come standard with C Panel. This is great to see entry and exit pages, visits, search terms used to arrive at the site etc…

Xtreme Conversions – This is for tracking keywords and then comparing them to clickbank sales. More messing around than having your google pixel installed on the thank you page but it does give good reporting and it works.

Woopra – This is a new ‘real time’ tracking application that shows you a massive amount of detail about each site visitor. You need to install some tracking code and then a java based viewer.

Tags: axandra, axroi, clicktale, conversion, Conversions, crazy egg, google analytics, google weboptimizer, heatmap results, heatmaps, how to test, how to track, tracking, web hosting, woopra, xstreme conversions