User Intent – Why Are They Visiting Your Website?

SHARE THE ARTICLE ON

User Intent - why are they visiting your website? survey software
Table of Contents

Everything is customer-centric – products, services, and even their marketing. An organization’s website is an important part of its marketing and sales outreach to prospective customers. However, it comes with its own set of challenges. One of them being User Intent. 

Getting loads of web traffic is good, but all those hits on your website need to mean something – are they helping you achieve your goals from your website? Is your website catering to the requirements of the user who wandered across from a Google search?

What are the three types of user intent?

It’s quite common to stumble across web pages that you did not intend to visit, but if it’s your website, you want to make sure that whoever visits it is there for what you’re offering. 

“Does user intent match your website’s intent?”

There are usually 3 key reasons for a user to visit a website.

Transactional intent – They’ve come to make a purchase.

This signifies users who are ready to complete a specific action, such as buying a subscription or making a purchase. The users are actively seeking opportunities to engage in a transaction. 

Use targeted user intent surveys on product pages or during the out process to understand their purchase intentions and preferences. Also, leverage email surveys to target users who made a purchase or abandoned their cart to identify their reason. 

Navigational intent – They’ve come to read up on a resource or a specific page on your website.

This type of intent indicates that the visitor is on a quest to achieve a particular destination. For instance, an individual who has a specific brand or website in mind will search with the brand or domain names. 

Utilize user intent surveys on key landing pages or the homepage of your website to capture data on what specific destinations the users have in mind. 

Informational intent – They want additional information on a topic or answers to a specific question.

This revolves around a user who is seeking answers or knowledge to specific queries. They are in their research mode and looking for information for education or entertainment purposes. 

To gather data at this stage, you can integrate surveys such as exit-intent pop-ups on content-heavy pages. Focus on using open-ended questions to encourage visitors to share their purpose. 

Why is it important to conduct user intent surveys?

User intent surveys help businesses seeking to elevate their digital strategies and attract visitors to their apps or websites. The data from this survey type can help you enhance user experience and conversion rates and customize services. 

1. Enhancing user experience: 

Survey data can guide you to deliver personalized and satisfying experiences to visitors. By gauging what users are looking for, you can tailor their interface, content, design, navigation, and layout to make it more user-centric. 

2. Increase conversion rates:  

User intent surveys help you identify the intent behind visitors’ actions. This helps you refine your sales funnel by streamlining the purchase process and providing right information when they need it most. This, in turn, drives conversion. 

3. Tailoring content: 

One of the most significant advantages of gathering user feedback is using it to tailor content creation. By identifying what visitors are searching for, you can create and display relevant content that resonates with their needs. 

How to gather user intent data?

There are strategic ways to gather data on user intent. Here, we have explored two ways of gathering insights to make informed decisions. 

Determining visitor intent – explicitly with user intent surveys

Sometimes, the best way to determine why someone is visiting your website is to simply ask them. Modern survey tools can be easily integrated into your website in an unobtrusive manner and pop up at opportune moments. You can then use these to query visitors and gain insights into user intent and customer behavior.

Determining user intent – implicitly with website analytics

Even if you’ve integrated a survey tool into your website to query the user on their behavior, they may not always respond. This can be due to a lot of factors – they may not have the time, lack the motivation to do so etc. 

Website analytics tools can help you identify user behavior on your website – how long are they spending on each page? Did they purchase anything? Or did they add something to their cart and not make the final purchase? 

You should also check website analytics for users who’ve filled up your questionnaire to see if their behavior matches with their declared user intent.

Best practices for implementing user intent surveys

Once you have decided to gather data explicitly using user intent surveys, you need to design the survey thoughtfully to ensure accurate and valuable insights. 

1. Regularly update survey questions

User behavior and preferences evolve with the market, which means you have to update the survey questions regularly to stay relevant. Stagnant surveys will capture outdated data, and you will fail to learn about the shifting user priorities. 

2. Utilize multichannel approach:

Leveraging more channels to implement user intent surveys can increase your reach and ensure inclusivity. Different segments of the audience prefer different channels. Employing multiple channels will ensure you gather a comprehensive understanding of user intent. Leverage an online survey tool that enables you to share surveys through email, SMS, website pop-ups, and social media. 

3. Ensure user privacy compliance:

In this hyper-connected digital world, respecting user privacy is paramount. Leverage survey software that complies with data protection regulations like GDPR to build trust with the audience. Additionally, clearly communicate how you will use, store, and protect customer data and provide them the option to opt in or out. 

What can you do with the user intent survey data?

Once you’ve determined what the visitor is there for, you need to verify if they’re able to accomplish their task. User intent surveys can help you identify if users are able to complete their objectives or if they’re facing difficulties. You can also use survey tools to gauge user intent and take feedback as well. 

Actively implementing user feedback into your offerings or implementing their suggestions about your website helps build brand loyalty. Users are likely to hold your business in good standing after a positive feedback experience as well. 

Determining user intent also helps you identify content on your website that is drawing in quality traffic. Based on these findings, you can choose to create & post more of the same content. You can even integrate these insights into content that you feel isn’t performing well and provide visitors more of what they’re looking for.

Voxco is trusted by researchers across verticals in 30+ countries. Our powerful Free Survey Tool can help you systematically measure & improve your website experience.

Read more

User Intent - why are they visiting your website? survey software
Blog

Training Survey Template

Training Survey: Introduction, Definition, Need, Advantages, Uses, and Questions SHARE THE ARTICLE ON Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin Table of Contents

Read More »
PREVENTIVE MEASURES THAT CAN HELP REDUCE SAMPLING ERRORS
Blog

Sampling Error In Statistics

Sampling Error In Statistics SHARE THE ARTICLE ON Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin Table of Contents Every research has a target

Read More »