Do you check the website heatmaps?

[Helmuts]

we have noticed an unusual challenge - it’s difficult to understand user needs, what grabs attention, and what turns them away as we continue improving the live auction feeds. The users are here, though there is almost no feedback (what is quite normal for a tool that works). It’s not a major issue, of course, though it is something I wish to look into.

like all websites with traffic, the numbers (if these are analyzed) tell a story. They can reveal patterns, opportunities, and pain points.

question: are you using heatmaps on your websites to better understand your users? Or do you use other tools to improve the user experience and make your resources even more valuable, as you keep developing these?

hashtag could be: #googleanalyticsisnotenough

tx

 

[Adam H]

Heatmaps and Video feedback ( Hotjar or mouseflow are good ) perfect for user flow testing and split testing on ecommerce stores and problem finding across devices and browsers.

Not sure id ever do it on a forum unless there was something really specific i thought there was technically wrong and i couldnt replicate it. With forums its pretty simple, keep it clean, don't add loads of features people dont care about, reduce clutter and have follow user feedback to what they want.

Acorn isnt and never has been a real "community", its more of a business resource that was built on a forum script and was incepted, possibly incorrectly from the start with being free to use for the majority of its life with very little change during its peak.

It's business/commercial intent with a very specific demographic and userbase, but has never been a community forum in the typical sense of what most of us consider to be a forum, where people want to chat and do small talk outside of that primary topic.

 

[Helmuts]

Heatmaps and Video feedback ( Hotjar or mouseflow are good ) perfect for user flow testing and split testing on ecommerce stores and problem finding across devices and browsers.

Not sure id ever do it on a forum unless there was something really specific i thought there was technically wrong and i couldnt replicate it. With forums its pretty simple, keep it clean, don't add loads of features people dont care about, reduce clutter and have follow user feedback to what they want.

Acorn isnt and never has been a real "community", its more of a business resource that was built on a forum script and was incepted, possibly incorrectly from the start with being free to use for the majority of its life with very little change during its peak.

It's business/commercial intent with a very specific demographic and userbase, but has never been a community forum in the typical sense of what most of us consider to be a forum, where people want to chat and do small talk outside of that primary topic.

Thank you. I want to see how users use the Live Auction Feeds. This will help us prioritizing our tasks.

Have you used any self-hosted solutions? Tx

 

[Adam H]

Thank you. I want to see how users use the Live Auction Feeds. This will help us prioritizing our tasks.

Have you used any self-hosted solutions? Tx

Only a few custom made scripts for tracking onsite search field searches and frequency ( again ecommerce ) and a few little looker studio implementations, Id recommend looking at looker studio to refine your analytics and search console data, even showing similar info it can be displayed in a much more managable and simplier way using looker studio.

 

[Helmuts]

Only a few custom made scripts for tracking onsite search field searches and frequency ( again ecommerce ) and a few little looker studio implementations, Id recommend looking at looker studio to refine your analytics and search console data, even showing similar info it can be displayed in a much more managable and simplier way using looker studio.

Thank you Adam.

how do You listen to your users? .. this is more a fundamental thing (or a personal belief.. as old as the world is) that a person can't really build any business without listening to their customers.

curious to hear thoughts.

tx

 

[ukbackorder]

I think to listen to your users you have to not only take on board what they are saying (and how many people are saying it) but also make sure you *understand* what they are saying It's not really hard to do - however acting on results is.

 

[Adam H]

Listening to users is the most important part of running a community, but a community and a business is two seperate things, especially when the asset you've aquired wasnt ran as a business prior to the take over and the userbase is an aged userbase used to working in a certain way.

Of course, there is collatoral damage of change, and of course as an investor into an asset you need to start making back on what you've invested.

But I dont think Acorn was big enough, with broad enough usebase for you to be able to afford to take collatoral damage into consideration trying to make sweeping changes and enforcing rules. Recooping investments when buying forums I've always found is an after thought, once you've got the community onside and the community is growing.

Buying a forum with a primary intention of making money from it, in my opinion needs a big forum, with big "active" userbase to be fine with upseting a percentage of them.

If I had aquired Acorn, I probably would have upgraded to XF2 straight away like you have, its not a major change and was needed, but I probaly wouldnt have changed any rules, opperating processes or advertisements and sponsors until well after I had the trust of the members and had their input on how there can be a compromise between the forum earning and not making members feel there is a shift in focus.

Just my two cents, obviously every forum and niche and memberbase has to be treated differently so there isnt a single formula that works for every forum, most of it is common sense though.

 

[Helmuts]

Improving and enforcing rules was necessary.

1 simple reason: most big dn industry companies do not to deal with forums at all > if not enforced, can be damaging to brands, and they prefer avoiding risks. Now this is sorted. Acorn is clean. .. the question is not about this .. let us leave this in the past

===

The question is more about seeing how your users use your businesses.

@ukbackorder, you regularly improve your websites > how do you monitor how your users use these when making decisions of further development? Tx

 

[Adam H]

Apologies, it wasnt clear the intentions of your questions. I assumed....wrongly, you were looking for opinions on forum/business.

Feel free to remove my responses.

 

[Helmuts]

Apologies, it wasnt clear the intentions of your questions. I assumed....wrongly, you were looking for opinions on forum/business.

Feel free to remove my responses.

it is all good Adam Apologies for not being clear enough.. we should meet at the next Domain Summit in London, what do you say? Would love to meet a fellow online entrepreneur who also loves forums

Yes, I am looking for opinions on making forums even better and even more valuable for users. How do you improve your forums? Would love to listen to the experience of others.

 

[Helmuts]

@BG hi Barry, how do you make decissions when building your Gozilla (size-wise) sites/communities? Does your team have processes analyzing user behaviour?