You can improve many aspects of your website by enabling user feedback. This feature encourages visitors to actively contribute and share new ideas. A website would greatly benefit from any positive insights or inputs.
If your content is interesting enough, some visitors may even be willing to add relatively long comments with information that complements your main topic. It is understandable why new bloggers often reluctant to allow others to write something on their webpages. Spam and inappropriate comments can be troublesome enough to handle and in some cases, they require so much efforts to manage. However, with proper use of plugins and other methods, website owners will soon realize that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Latest versions of content managements systems (CMSs) offer complete control on the comment feature. Bloggers have the ability apply rigid rule on what visitors can write. They can easily scrutinize and moderate each comment using only a single dashboard. Deleting and approving a comment is as easy as clicking a button.
Comments and user feedbacks are now considered as useful SEO elements, especially because they are unique and packed with information relevant to the main topic. User reviews on online stores are often considered as a way to add many user-generated long tail keywords. Often, incoming traffic from search engine is generated through new keywords added by users in the comment section. The Internet is a hyper-competitive environment and often traffic can only created through the use of relevant keyphrases or long tail keywords. In the end, properly managed comments can drive traffic and increase conversion rates.
User reviews can directly improve your online business. Visitors often trust the credibility of an online store, if they read genuine comments from others users. Your website may not be able to instill much trust if you use only sales copies and disable user comments. Potential buyers want to be certain about the quality of your products and services. They need to be reassured about their suspicions and fear. Well informed customers are more likely to become satisfied customers, who won’t demand for a return of merchandise or refund.
When working with user feedbacks, you shouldn’t analyze them too deeply. People have reasons for their opinions and you should understand why they need to say that. Often, we are left feeling hurt personally by their statements. But try to see things objectively and you may find it easier to agree with their points.
Most contact forms have three or four fields. How a contact form is designed often affect the type and amount of traffic your site is getting. Websites with about 100,000 monthly pageviews would often find comments and feedbacks useful, especially if they have just launched a new product. Website owners always want to know how early adopters are using the product and if they could fix any glitch. If possible use separate contract forms for each department of the company. This would allow you to direct messages more easily and reply effectively.
Be Confident
This bound to happen; some comments and user feedbacks don’t say good things about your products. You should expect to encounter this type of users, because they exist. Never beat yourself up over any negative comments. Unless you’re getting dozens of similar responses, ultimately they don’t mean anything. As a business owner you have the final say abut how things are implemented.
If you professionally and personally prefer how your website or product works, then keep at it. But, you still shouldn’t ignore any feedback. Even if there’s only one person that sends a complaint, find out why he dislikes something and consider whether his opinions are justified. Sometimes, it requires a direct, head-on confrontation with customers to fix a nagging problem effectively.
A/B Split Testing
A/B split testing can be used as a response to user feedbacks. It is imperative to perform the test before you launch a user-requested feature. The development phase can be stressful for web developers because they have website owners and visitors pushing to squash bugs and churn out requested features as quickly as possible. Whenever you consider adding, removing and changing something, an A/B test could be necessary.
The concept behind A/B test is straightforward; create two versions of your webpage or website, one with the original design, another with a newer design. Send 50 percent traffic to each, wait for a month or so and observe whether users react favorably to the changes. It is a good idea to notify users about the test and provide a contact form to gain some feedback.
Quality or quantity?
All changes should be crafted carefully or you will only get sub-par results. Always strive for favorable feedback from visitors during all stages. Some may send poor feedback due to confusion and misunderstanding; this might indicate that further improvements are necessary to make things easier to understand. Sometimes, you can start by reiterating the design, once you obtain a few honest brazen feedbacks from experts. A good feedback would offer a suggestion on necessary changes and wage new features to include. You should open yourself to all ideas and as time passes, you have something that appeals to most users or customers. Your products are created for public use and all honest opinions are important. Good advices are necessary, especially during the early stage and they usually come from intelligent users.
Conclusion
In order to improve your website design or product, it is necessary to handle feedback correctly. It might be unwise to develop an emotional attachment to your work. Always try to think objectively and see everything completely. This should make it easier to find solutions needed to clean up or improve your work. Ideas obtained from good feedback can get you started towards improving things. Gathering opinions can be quite fun, but how things are implemented are what really matters.