User testing is the process of testing elements of a website to improve conversion, sales and revenues, as well as overall improving the user experience which brings for mentioned benefits. Being familiar with user testing is only half the battle, what do you test to make changes to improve the user experience for your customers?
How to do Website User Testing to increase conversions
Explore reasons to do user testing, how to create a hypothesis for a test, and how to pitch user testing to your manager. We will also cover practical steps on how to write test scripts, how to carry out user testing, how to analyse results and how to interpret those results to make change happen.
Access the How to do website user testing to increase conversions quick win
In our new Quick Win - 10 things you can user test on your B2B website - we explore user testing and the various methods that can be conducted, including:
The most in-depth method, this involves speaking directly to a participant either in person or over the web, while they are on your website, while their screen is being recorded. It's quite time-consuming but you get a lot of feedback and can probe users, asking questions such as why they clicked a certain thing or what they expected to be on a certain page.
Remote testing services like WhatUsersDo, Usertesting.com and Usertest.io allow you to record the screen of users while they give feedback when they are working on tasks you've given them to do on your website. It provides invaluable feedback and you can test specific pages and journeys. It's affordable and fast and websites are tested in their most natural environment, for example, while your users are at home or work.
Card sorting and tree testing are methods is discussed in the Quick Win which can help you designed the navigation of your website.
Preference testing, surveys, needs interviews and the 5-second test are all great, fast and affordable ways of getting feedback on your designs. The Quick Win explains each of the methods in more detail.
I've been in UX, working for UX companies for a few years and have always been a big advocate of user testing in every job I've been in, but I've noticed that B2B companies may not test websites as much as B2C,m I certainly noticed this in terms of order volume when I worked for a user testing company. When I first joined Smart Insights they'd already conducted user testing and we did more, Smart Insights certainly is an advocate of UX and usability testing.
Let's have a look at the various pages, journeys and channels you can test in the B2B world.
Your homepage is one of the most important pages on your website, it needs to try and keep users on the site as much as possible. By conducting user testing to understand whether users understand your website, what you offer and whether they like the design as well as whether they'd stay on your website based on what they see on the homepage, you can make amends as appropriate.
Try 5-second test, preference test and exit-intent surveys as well as Hotjar or Intercom to gather feedback on your homepage.
A checkout process, contact form, application form or any other related processes or forms, should be tested independently to make sure they work correctly. A bad checkout experience means you are literally losing money. If a customer has to contact you for an appointment and the experience is poor, complicated or doesn't work at all means again you're losing money when in reality it's a very simple and quick fix, also it's a very important fix.
Try remote moderated testing to check a process is working with multiple users, everytime you make a change to forms and checkouts make sure that you get at least 3 users to test it. If you're prototyping a checkout or application form, consider moderated testing.
Sales letters are the backbone of B2B websites and ultimately are responsible for sign-ups, leads and new prospects. Gathering feedback on sales letter pages may result in feedback such as "it's too long" or it's repetitive", CRO tests work best for sales letter pages, but it's also good to do some remote moderated testing to see if it would convert users. Jotjar intercepts asking if a page would encourage a user to sign up will also help get you some actionable feedback.
Testimonial pages are something you can test as part of wider usability tests however, it's helpful to understand whether the testimonials you have on your website would encourage visitors to sign up or whether they seem believable.
Landing pages are another major aspect of a B2B website, especially when you're running paid campaigns such as AdWords campaigns, content marketing, other paid media or social. Landing pages, like sales letter pages, may result in negative feedback around length or wording, however landing pages are crucial for getting users to convert and also very important for sign-ups. It's key to understand whether a landing page would encourage a user to sign up or not. Your landing page is key! Consider Hotjar, moderated and remote moderated testing for your landing page.
Your online value proposition is important, a good question to understand from your users is: Does your target audience and do your visitors understand your value proposition and do they believe your business offers value for money? Moderated testing is best for this.
Again, vital if you have them! Product pages, like landing pages are what leads to a conversion. Is the copy enough, too much, just right and is it saying the right things. is your product page helping people convert? Moderated and remote moderated testing is best for this.
This one is a nice to have - if you have produced instruction videos and promotional videos, getting feedback on how they are perceived and whether they are contributing to conversions is a useful idea. Moderated testing, remote moderated testing and preference tests work best for this.
Welcome emails, nurture emails, sales and promotion emails as well as newsletters can all be tested for feedback and insight with user testing. When you're conducting remote or moderated user testing you can ask people what they think of a design, the content and the positioning of the email. As well as this, you can test designs in a preference test.
Whether it's copy, content marketing, sales letter copy, product page copy or homepage copy, you can use user testing research methods to understand whether the copy applies to your target market and your visitors, this is something that like with email user testing can be done in any type of moderated or remote testing, as well as in preference tests.
Using Hotjar to get feedback during site visits can help gather feedback on web page copy and messaging, in addition it's a great idea to add a survey poll to emails, asking if they found the content to be relevant and if they have any feedback on the email.
We have a highly actionable and practical Quick Win on how to do user testing which helps you step by step through methods and how to do each of the usual user testing approaches.
By Robert Jones
Robert Jones is a specialist in CRO, UX Research, insight and digital Marketing. He is CRO Analyst at Enjoy Digital. He has a Psychology Masters of Research, has run large digital marketing campaigns to build research panels and worked in insight roles for Vision Critical, ASDA and WhatUsersDo. He also managed all of Smart Insights member resources and published several guides including "How to conduct Persona Research" as well as contributing over 100 blog posts to the Smart Insights blog. When he isn’t working on marketing campaigns he is most likely eating authentic Italian food or planning his next short trip. You can connect with Robert on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter.
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