When a website isn’t delivering on business goals, the symptoms often start with vague complaints: “It feels outdated,” “We’re not getting enough conversions,” or “It’s just not working for our business anymore.” While these concerns are valid, identifying the real cause requires more than a hunch.
So, how do you uncover what’s actually going on with your site when it’s not performing as you expect or you have a hunch something is amiss?
Diagnosing your site’s underlying issue or issues requires a structured approach to gathering and analyzing data. Without hard evidence, you risk spending time and budget on changes that don’t move the needle.
Here are the steps to take to diagnose the actual problem so you can get your site back on track.
Step 1: Setting or Reviewing Goals
Before beginning your examination, it's important to ensure you’ve established clear goals for the website and have involved stakeholders across the organization in setting them. Doing so ensures that all perspectives are considered and that your website aligns with broader business objectives.
Leadership involvement is vital, as they may offer a strategic vision that other departments might overlook.
Work together to define what success looks like for the website. Is it:
- increased lead generation?
- improved user engagement?
- enhanced brand visibility?
- or something else?
Establishing website goals helps prioritize data collection and analysis efforts, so you can focus squarely on metrics that align with organizational objectives. And know exactly where to focus your examination.
If you don’t already have goals established, this is your first step. If you do, then you’re ready to move to the next one.
Step 2: Collect the Data
Without data, attempts to diagnose and resolve website issues are often misdirected. Even the most educated hunches can be surprisingly wrong!
Essential tools like Google Analytics and heat mapping software like Microsoft Clarity provide hard data on and critical insights into user behavior and site performance.
These tools reveal which pages or sections of a website are underperforming and where users encounter roadblocks, enabling a more accurate diagnosis of your website's issues.
If you’re not currently using them, we strongly encourage you to set them up. Both are free.
Step 3: Gather User Feedback
While analytics provide a quantitative view of your website's performance, qualitative insights from users are equally important. Engaging with users directly can reveal why they behave in certain ways and what frustrations they experience.
Methods of Gathering Feedback
- Pop-Up Surveys: Deploying short pop-up surveys on the website can capture immediate user feedback, especially from those with strong positive or negative experiences.
- Interviews and Focus Groups: Conducting in-depth interviews or focus groups can yield richer insights. Though resource-intensive, these methods allow for a comprehensive understanding of user needs and pain points.
- Online Surveys: A great middle ground between pop-ups and focus groups or interviews with users is to utilize online surveys.
If you’re not sure which method makes the most sense, our team or another digital agency with UX research experience can help guide you in the right direction.
Step 4: Analyze Your Data
Now you’re ready to analyze the qualitative and quantitative data you’ve collected through Google Analytics, heat mapping, and user feedback. Critical issues will usually be easy to spot; however, it’s helpful to get a second, experienced set of eyes on your data.
Turn to an experienced UX research and strategy agency for additional review and insights. Based on their experience and expertise, they can uncover helpful insights you may miss – as well as make recommendations for next steps and help you implement changes.
Common Website Complaints
In our experience, organizations tend to encounter a few common issues with their websites, including:
- difficult navigation
- lack of conversions
- and outdated designs that fail to inspire trust.
Poor navigation is one of the most frequent user complaints and usually suggests a need for a redesign of the site's information architecture. Conversion issues can stem from ineffective calls to action or content placement that doesn't align with user expectations.
Addressing these problems often involves moving critical content higher on key pages or redesigning call-to-action elements to be more engaging. However, it can also point to the need for a full redesign depending on the severity of the issue or issues.
Step 5: Determine Whether to Redesign or Make Targeted Tweaks
Once problems are identified, the next decision is whether to undertake a complete redesign or make targeted tweaks. Not every issue requires a full-scale overhaul; sometimes, minor adjustments can significantly improve the user experience and site performance.
When Should You Redesign Your Website?
A full redesign may be necessary if your site's overall look and feel are outdated or if its navigation is fundamentally flawed. On the other hand, if issues are isolated to specific pages or elements, focused tweaks can be a more cost-effective solution.
There’s no hard and fast rule that will determine which way you go. We recommend working with your website and UX partner to decide the best path forward.
Check out our checklist of 20 UX changes you can make to your site today to improve performance.
Step 6: Ongoing Monitoring and Improvement
The digital landscape is dynamic, and ongoing monitoring is critical to ensure that your website continues to meet user needs and business goals.
Tools for Continuous Monitoring
- Google Tag Manager: Allows for more granular tracking of user interactions, providing insights into specific actions such as form submissions or button clicks.
- Heat Maps: Continued use of heat maps helps visualize user engagement with site elements, guiding iterative improvements.
- Pop-Up Surveys: Deploying short pop-up surveys on key pages or sections of your site helps to capture immediate user feedback so you can more quickly identify issues and make any necessary changes.
As mentioned earlier, if you don’t already have Google Tag Manager and heat maps installed, set them up right away.
Summary of Steps to Uncover Website Issues
To effectively address website issues, follow a structured process:
- Define clear website goals and involve stakeholders to align efforts with organizational objectives.
- Collect and analyze data using tools like Google Analytics and heat maps.
- Gather user feedback through surveys, interviews, and focus groups to understand user needs and frustrations.
- Understand common complaints such as navigation difficulties and conversion challenges.
- Decide between a redesign or targeted tweaks based on the scope and nature of identified issues.
- Implement ongoing monitoring to adapt to changing user needs and maintain website performance.
- Leverage UX experts to help you interpret your data and apply industry best practices effectively.
By following these steps, you can identify critical website issues and transform your site into a powerful tool for achieving digital marketing and business success.
Do you need help identifying what’s causing your website to underperform? Reach out! Our UX and digital strategists will work with you to identify critical issues and make recommendations for improvement.
