Tips for Using Visitor Behavior Intelligence for Website Metrics

Understanding your website’s visitors is key to a successful online strategy. But many people don’t realize how much valuable data is gleaned from studying how people behave on a website. By tracking and analyzing visitor behavior, website owners can gain powerful insights into what’s working and not, identify potential areas for optimization, and make data-driven decisions about design and content. In short, visitor behavior intelligence (VBI) can help businesses get the most out of their website by providing a deeper understanding of website users and their needs.  

What is visitor behavior intelligence (VBI)?   

Visitor behavior intelligence (VBI) is a relatively new field that combines aspects of psychology, sociology, and marketing. VBI is designed to help businesses better understand their customers and visitors’ behavior to improve the overall experience and conversion. Different methods are used in VBI, but one of the most common is visitor tracking. Visitor tracking involves using technology to track the movements and actions of visitors as they move around a website. This data can then be analyzed to identify patterns and trends in behavior and can come from a variety of sources, such as web analytics, heat maps, session recordings, click tracking, and form abandonment analytics.

Understanding visitor behavior can be hugely beneficial for businesses. It can help them to optimize their websites and make more informed marketing decisions. In today’s competitive marketplace, anything that gives businesses an edge is worth considering.  

By understanding visitor behavior, website owners can make changes that result in more website traffic and conversions. For example, if you see that most visitors are leaving your site after viewing only one page, consider changes to your site’s design or content in order to keep visitors engaged.   

How to Use Visitor Business Intelligence on Your Website   

There are a few different ways that brands can use visitor business intelligence on websites:   

1. Leverage web analytics to track visitor behavior. Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks how visitors find a site, what pages they view, how long they stay on the site, and what actions they take. This information can illuminate what’s working well and what needs improvement.  

2. Heat map tools like Hotjar, Mouseflow, or FullStory are a great way to get insights into how users interact with a website. Heat maps are visual representations of where users are clicking on web pages. By tracking mouse movements, clicks, and scrolls, businesses can see which areas of the website are getting the most attention and which areas are being ignored. This information can be invaluable in helping optimize a website for better user engagement.  

3. Use session recordings to watch what visitors do on your site. Session recordings let businesses “watch” as real people use the site to see exactly where they’re getting stuck or confused. This information can help identify usability issues that inform changes to improve the user experience.  

4. Form abandonment analytics provide insights into why people leave forms without completing them. This data can be incredibly valuable in helping identify where users are struggling in an effort to optimize forms for better conversion rates. Common reasons for form abandonments include a form that is too long or complex, errors such as required fields that aren’t marked, or simply that the user is not ready to commit.  

5. Use click tracking to understand users’ interests. Click tracking will identify which links people are clicking on (and which ones they’re ignoring). Knowing what users are interested in can inform product strategy and aid remarketing or retargeting efforts.  

6. Use scroll mapping to see how far down people scroll on web pages. Scroll mapping is helpful in determining the prioritization of information on a page.  

7. Use exit intent popups to prevent visitors from leaving the site too soon. Exit intent popups display a message when it detects someone is about to leave a site without taking action (such as subscribing to your email list). This information can help keep visitors engaged so they don’t leave before taking action.  

8. Use live chat to provide real-time assistance to visitors who need it. More importantly, live chat allows businesses to log and collect real-time data on users’ challenges with the website. In aggregate, what users share will enable businesses to identify common issues that impact user experience.

The Benefits of VBI  

There are several reasons why businesses should use VBI to inform their decision-making. First and foremost, it can help boost sales and profits. By understanding what people want and need, companies can stock inventory accordingly and design a website to make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for. Additionally, VBI can help increase customer loyalty and repeat business. If people have a positive experience on the site, they’re more likely to return.   

Finally, VBI can save time and money. Instead of making decisions based on guesswork or intuition, businesses can lean on data-driven insights to make informed decisions about where to focus efforts. This can prevent costly mistakes and redirect resources where they’ll have the most impact. Here are just a few of the benefits of using visitor behavior intelligence. 

• Improving the User Experience
  • One of the main benefits of visitor behavior intelligence is that it improves the user experience on a website. Tracking how visitors interact with a website can identify areas that are confusing or difficult to use. The data can then inform changes to improve the user experience and increase the likelihood of conversion.

• Increasing Conversions
  • Conversions are the lifeblood of any business with an online presence. Whether selling products or services or looking for people to sign up for a newsletter, increasing conversions is among top priorities. Visitor behavior intelligence can help increase conversions by giving insights into what visitors are looking for and how they interact with a website. With VBI, businesses can increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action. 
     
• Optimizing Your Website
  • A well-optimized website is essential for any business that wants to succeed online. VBI can identify areas of a website that need improvements to increase traffic and engagement. For example, if visitors leave a website after viewing only one page, a change to content or structure may keep visitors on the site longer.
• Making Data-Driven Decisions
  • One of the most important things that any business can do is make data-driven decisions. Visitor behavior intelligence provides a wealth of data that can inform marketing and sales decisions. From understanding what visitors are looking for to identifying areas that need improvement, visitor behavior intelligence offers insights that help businesses operate strategically.   

Understanding your website visitor’s behavior is crucial to the success of a website and business. Applying cognitive neuroscience principles can help decipher what information is most important and how to present it in a way that will be persuasive. However, if all of this sounds daunting, don’t worry. Our experts help you understand everything and create a plan that will work for you. Contact us today to get started on understanding your visitors better and increasing your website’s metrics!