Congratulations! You just launched your brand new Website loaded with the latest bells and whistles.  And, you can hardly wait for it to start cranking out new business while you sleep (hey, the vendor promised that would happen!)  Sorry to curb your enthusiasm, your Web marketing journey isn’t over, it’s just getting started…

Measure, Test, Refine

Let’s assume for the moment that your site has tons of new traffic coming to it on a daily basis.  Believe it or not, that is not a hard thing to accomplish.  What is much more challenging however, is getting your visitors to convert to new business.  That’s why it is important measure their behavior when on your site and consistently test additional ways to engage them and then refine your site to optimize conversion.  And, this is an ongoing process that should take place ideally on a quarterly basis.

For example, something simple as changing the words from “Featured Properties” to “Best Buys” made a huge difference to Realtor Jim Dolanche’s site in terms of click through rate.

He never would have known unless he tested it.

Measuring What’s Hot and What’s Not

Imagine being able to sit over the shoulder of your visitors and see exactly how they interact with your site.  Measuring site visitor behavior is very different than visitor statistics and is crucial to understanding how your site does or does not engage people who land there.

CrazyEgg is a service that generates “heat maps” of your site pages showing you where people click and how often.  The brighter the spot, the more people clicked on that particular spot (see example heat map below).

CrazyEgg shows where people are clicking (the lowest form of engagement) whether or not there is a clickable link there.  In one snapshot you get an immediate and rich sense of what your visitors found interesting and just as importantly, what they didn’t.  For just US $9/mo you can measure the behavior of up to 10,000 visitors/mo on up to 10 pages of your site (prices current as of this writing).

Once you have measured your visitors’ collective behavior it is time to start testing alternative text, graphics, offers and even layout to see if these changes significantly improve your site’s ability to convert casual visitors into serious clients.

The ABC’s of A/B Testing

To effectively test changes to your site you need to have a way to randomly serve up both the current and changed versions of your site and then measure visitor behavior on each.  This is known as A/B Testing (or Multivariate Testing when making more than one change at a time), and is a very powerful way to consistently improve your site’s conversion performance.

There is good news and bad news about the A/B Testing process however.  The good news is that Google has a free A/B testing service call Google Website Optimizer that is very feature-rich and lets you test any changes to your site and statistically measure the differences in conversion, time spent on your site and visitor satisfaction.  The bad news is that it is so sophisticated that you will need the help of a knowledgeable Web developer and/or SEO person to set up the tests and measure the results.  One last caveat; your site needs to see several thousand visitors per month in order for test results to be statistically significant.

Consistent Incremental Improvements

Once you have completed visitor behavior measurement and A/B testing part of the refinement cycle, it is time to implement the changes you have determined will enhance your site’s conversion potential and start measuring all over again.  Ideally, you want to repeat this cycle 3 – 4 times a year.  Think of it as polishing your Website.  It just shines that much more brightly with each treatment.

Websites are not “launch and forget” marketing weapons.  They need to be consistently refined and course corrected if you want the most bang for your online marketing buck.  If you focus more on the Web marketing journey rather than the destination, you will have a lot more fun and more business to show for it.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

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Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Online Dominance Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/OnlineDominance

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This article is reprinted in its entirety from the March 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.