Imagine knowing exactly what your website’s visitors think when they land on one of your pages for the first time. Now imagine knowing that for FREE.
Sound impossible? Think again. This is exactly the service that Peek offers. Peek is an online tool that enables you to go behind the screens of real people as they navigate your site or app for five minutes. You even get a video recording of the result. Amazing, right? It is one thing to ask for the opinion of your family and friends as they peruse your website - they will always be a little biased and not want to hurt your feelings. It is totally different when you get a fresh, unbiased view from a complete stranger. It’s pure honesty at its best.
One of the first things we need to figure out when we create a website
ourselves is its purpose. That is the reason why you created your own website
in the first place, and all of your efforts should be united to make that
happen. When visitors stumble upon your website, are they supposed to subscribe
to your e-mail list, book one of your services or establish you as an expert in
your field? Have you added something that distracts them from doing that or,
even worse, makes them want to leave? How do they perceive you and your brand?
As much as we can add elements to direct them in that particular manner, there
is no way to know for sure what our visitors actually think and do until we
test it. That is where Peek comes in.
So how does Peek work, exactly?
It’s fast, easy, and 100% dummy proof. On their homepage, select from the drop down menu whether you want the tool to test your website (or blog for that matter - it does not discriminate), mobile site or mobile app. Then just paste your website’s URL in the designated area (where it says ‘My Website URL’), click start, and fill out your personal information (first name, last name, company name, company size, work e-mail address, work phone number, job title, and country, as shown in the screenshot below).
Once you click ‘get my test!’ the tool will send your website to a regular, everyday user to test its capabilities, functionalities and ease of navigation. As this user moves about your website for five minutes, they will say their thoughts and observations out loud, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. They are provided with prompts and questions from Peek itself to make sure they address all the necessary parts. In just a few hours (in my case, it specified under 24, but I got the result in just a couple of hours), you will get an e-mail with their insights recorded on video. The standard setting is having this video public, but you can edit the privacy settings from public to private, as I did below, so that no one else sees the results.
Once I received my recording (I submitted a Sales Page for my free 5-day e-mail course), I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the visitor knew exactly what my intention was: to get people to sign up for the e-mail course and thus join my e-mail list. She even was stimulated herself to sign up. This means that the copy on the page is emotional enough to trigger action, even if the person was not thinking that she needed that kind of advice or service - another plus. On the other hand, she criticized my one,
long scrolling page, mentioning that I should break it down into various pages, to make the website’s navigation easier.
When you analyze the results you receive, you have to think about your purpose as well, not just what the visitor mentions. My site’s visitor had no idea that what I submitted was a Sales Page for one of my offerings, rather than a website for my company. Therefore, adding more pages would detract from my number one goal, while the one, long scrolling page was included on purpose to provide more and more reasons to join my course as you scroll down the page. If I had followed her advice, I may have improved navigation for my visitors, but I would ultimately have a lower opt-in rate.
As you can see, by using Peek, you will know if there are any issues with your website, visualize what they are exactly, and understand how to fix them. Maybe a redesign is in order, or maybe everything is working just fine. Never again will you have to wonder what is going on in your visitors’ minds. Peek allows you to get into their head without actually doing so, which is a dream come true for marketers and business owners alike.
Pro tip: you can use this tool on any website, not only on one that you own. This means that you can submit your competitor’s website to Peek, and see where they are excelling and where they are not. This is particularly vital when you are just starting out, and are in the researching phase, gathering inspiration from numerous sources to create your own website. You can submit various websites to Peek to ultimately figure out what your pages should be, where each section should go, and what kind of copy to add so that it maximizes conversions. You can then mix and match what works to create a dazzling website of your own.
Here is an action item for you: figure out your site’s purpose (be it to have people subscribe to your e-mail list, book one of your services or establish you as an expert in your field), and submit your site to Peek to see if that purpose is being addressed correctly. Once you have received your results, come back here and let us know how it went. Maybe you will inspire others in their website creation process, or even be enlightened in your own.
Author Bio:
Marina Lotaif is an entrepreneur and the founder of Yes To Tech (http://www.yestotech.com). She created her company’s website from scratch without technical knowledge or hiring a professional designer. Grab her free 5-day e-mail course (https://mlotaif.leadpages.co/free-course-create-your-own-website/) that teaches you the first steps you need to take to get your site online, easily, quickly, and without going 1000 directions at once.