So how do you know if people are enjoying your site if you don’t ask them to tell you? Maybe your product or service really excites them and they want you to send or post more information. Perhaps they are having difficulty navigating your site and can suggest an easier method. Maybe they just wanted to tell you that your site looks great. Whatever they want to say, give them the means to say it!
The easiest way to get people to send feedback to you is to put your e-mail address on every page. If they are deep into your site and notice something they want to tell you about, they should have access to your e-mail address at their fingertips. Another way that’s better is to have a form for them to fill out and send you. This enables those who may be searching without access to an e-mail account to send you their message. The form is also ideal because in the meantime you can ask for certain information or get them to take a small survey about your site.
Feedback lets you know where people are coming from, what they are looking at, and what else they want to see. You should encourage people to let you know how they arrived at your page (and here is another good reason for a feedback form). If most people are coming from a search engine and almost no one says they saw an ad in a magazine or on television, then you may be able to eliminate this cost. Also, if people are looking more at one product than another, you may post more information or pictures related to that and concentrate less on secondary products. Finally, if people are asking you to add more to one section of a site and you are receiving little feedback from another, you may also consider reducing or eliminating the lesser of the two and putting more energy and emphasis on what sells your site.
It should be fairly obvious that what gets a site noticed and embraced are your visitors. You need to cater to their interests, and who should know better what they are? Successful web sites rely on the response of its users, and smart designers use these comments and suggestions to help the site grow and change.