So, you’ve made the investment into a new site, but still aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped for. It’s officially time to take a deep dive into your online customer journey and see how your visitors are interacting with your website. Are they landing on a certain page and bouncing back out? Where are they originating from? How long are they spending on each page? Are they even making it to your contact page? All of the answers to these questions and more can be found in your Google Analytics dashboard. By becoming accustomed to these tools, you’ll be better equipped to pinpoint any hiccups that could be attributing to your missed conversions–and you should start with your behavior flow.
Behavior flow charts can help.
The behavior flow metric is one of the core facets of Google Analytics. Though the setup may appear to look a little intimidating at first glance, it really is simple to use. It affords you the capability to see the exact paths visitors took when traveling throughout your website. You’ll then be able to further dissect which pieces of content your visitors are most engaged with and which content pieces aren’t quite getting the love. While here, you’ll want to pay special attention to your nodes (points where your traffic flows) and connections (path from one node to the next) to determine what the most popular flow is for your site.
Segment your data.
Segments are another cool feature that allows for an even deeper dive into your visitor data. By dabbling with segments, you can analyze your traffic even further. You can filter for designated traffic, like only those users residing in certain locations or users who visit a certain portion of your site. Perhaps one of your segments indicate that a good majority of your traffic that lands on your contact page is coming from one nearby locality in particular. If this is the case, you may want to consider amplifying your online and traditional marketing within this area. Helpful insights like these can easily be revealed by a simple activation your data’s subsets.
Your segments will also denote if your visitors hopped to certain pages and then bounced, if one page in particular sparked their desire to venture to other pages within your site, and, most importantly, if users are following your ideal path to that conversion. By dissecting the trends here, you can gain a much better understanding of where your visitors are getting stuck in the process and where you should dedicate some additional time for possible tweaks. Traditionally, you’ll want your traffic to convert after two to three engagements. If you’re noticing that your visitors are approaching four or five interactions without hitting that call-to-action, then you definitely have some work to do–be it addressing poor navigation, content issues, or absent calls-to-action.
Monitor your results.
Using these concepts as a guide, you can begin to strategically place your most prized content to gain additional traction among your prospects. This might include property amenities, leasing specials, or a great call-to-action. After you carefully evaluate your user flow and make the necessary adjustments to those impacted pages, you should start to monitor the tweaks over the next few weeks to see if your adjustments have contributed to any meaningful results for your property. In the event you continue to experience challenges with your site’s pages, it may be time to consider re-evaluating your actual site design, call-to-action, and/or property offerings/amenities.
Rentbot can help.
Understanding your customer journey is just as important as the final destination. That’s where we come in. With a Google-certified partner like Rentbot by your side, you’ll experience more high-quality leads, increased conversions and less vacancies–guaranteed. We know websites, the multifamily industry, and, most importantly, how to help get you found online. We are committed to building and supporting property management websites specifically for small and mid-sized properties. That’s why each of our turnkey sites come with full-service admin support, comprehensive training so that you can make changes to your pages as you see fit, and assistance with setting up access to the Google Analytics platform so that you can monitor your site’s behavior flow and follow your customers’ path to those conversions.
Ready to see what Rentbot can do for you? Try a new high-performance website for your multifamily property free for 30 days.
About the Author
Jonsette Calloway joined the Rentbot team in 2015. With a background in public relations, advertising and copywriting, she has helped a multitude of clients achieve their marketing and communications goals within various fields, but she particularly enjoys working with the apartment industry.