I am currently doing my graduation internship at Best4u Media BV. Together with Sander Geels (@sandergeelsI have drawn up a plan for setting up a website / application for the clients of Best4u Internet Marketing BV. Ultimately, the goal is to have a beautiful concept ready by the end of October that makes communication with the clients of the Internet Marketing department more transparent and ensures clear information provision.
To shape the website / application, it is important to obtain input from direct customers, but also from potential customers. A survey was set up for each target group. In principle, the two surveys are the same; slightly more internal information was requested from the direct customers. I received the question via Twitter from Jesse van Doren (@Jessevandoren) or whether I wanted to share some results. In this blog, I will show the results and also explain them.
Characteristics of the respondents
To gain an understanding of the target audience, a number of statistical data were requested. The only thing that was clear beforehand was that all respondents are entrepreneurs or website owners. The research shows that 68% of the respondents are male. Additionally, most respondents are between the ages of 18 and 25. 27% are over 40 years old, and 24,3% are between 25 and 40 years old. Most striking is that 51,4% of all respondents spend more than 30 hours per week on the internet. At first glance, that is not a shocking percentage.
What is striking, however, is that 50% of direct customers spend less than 10 hours on the internet, whereas among potential customers, this percentage is 0,0%. Among potential customers, more than 76,0% spend more than 30 hours on the internet, whereas among direct customers, this percentage is 18,8%. This can likely be attributed to the fact that direct customers have outsourced internet marketing for their company. (This would have been a good question for the study, by the way, but unfortunately, it was missing.)
internet marketing
A number of common internet marketing terms are: SEO (search engine optimization), SEA (search engine advertising), and keywords. All respondents were asked to what extent they are familiar with these types of terms. The respondents' knowledge is not disappointing: 77,3% are familiar or very familiar with internet marketing terms. 22,7% are neutral or (very) unfamiliar with internet marketing terms. From this, it can be concluded that people like to be informed about what they are working with or outsourcing. Money is being invested, so people also want to know what it entails.
Internet marketing is an important input for revenue
The respondents indicate that internet marketing can be / is an important input for their income. Several arguments are mentioned, but the most common are 'keeping up with the times' and 'building brand awareness'.
People are looking more and more on the internet, and this is the first place where they make a selection.
It is also mentioned that you can reach a large group of customers relatively cheaply.
With internet marketing, you can reach a very large group of potential customers in a targeted manner.
Visitor statistics are most important in the Analytics report.
Analytics is part of Google. When you sign up for Analytics (which is free, by the way), you can view various data about your website in a report. For example, you can set it up so that you receive this report weekly via email. The direct clients of Best4u Internet Marketing BV receive a weekly report from Google Analytics.
The terms from the report are listed in the questionnaire. Each respondent could indicate, by means of a ranking, the extent to which the term is important to him or her. According to the respondents, the most important data in the report is the visitor statistics, closely followed by which keywords are used to find the website. Below is a top 5:
- Visitor statistics with a ranking of 4,25 on a scale of 1 to 5
- Which keywords are used by the visitor (4,11)
- Which pages are viewed the most (3,97)
- The bounce rate (3,56)
- Which traffic sources are used (3,54)
55,5% of respondents indicate that they view the Analytics report weekly. 13,9% indicate that they never view the report. Many respondents want to see what the website is generating. The importance of the report itself is rated 3,7 on a scale of 1 to 5.
The blog of Best4u Media BV has a clear layout.
To get an idea of the websites that are perceived as pleasant, a number of screenshots have been provided as examples. Each respondent had the choice between three different examples. From these examples comes the blog Best4u Media BV comes out on top. A nice compliment for Melvin van de Bout (@melvinvdbout) and Twitterless Hugo Oppelaar, the designer and developer of this blog.
With the layout of the Best4u Media BV blog, you can see everything at a glance, and everything is immediately clear.
On this website, I don't see large blocks of text. As soon as I see a substantial block of text, I already tend to stop reading.
However, in addition to these positive points, a number of areas for improvement are also provided. That is great! Nothing is perfect, so these points for improvement will absolutely be incorporated into a new design. The use of color is mentioned; a contrasting color could potentially be included. Additionally, there is currently a lot of white space around the news items.
When so much white space has been reserved, you can also place more introductory text.
The best way to display a lot of content in a structured way…
The best way to display a lot of content in a structured way is the navigation of ABN Amro Among direct customers, this navigation even scores 100%. Overall, ABN Amro's navigation scores 87,5%.
The reason this navigation scores so highly is due to the clear and professional layout. The navigation is well-organized and ensures that a large amount of content can be displayed in a structured manner.
This way, you can see what information is available on the website. And this allows the information to be conveniently organized. This also comes out on top in user-friendliness research.
The color scheme is mentioned as the only concrete point for improvement.
The contrast between the text colors and the background colors needs to be greater for readability.
Thanks!
Without your input, the results are of little value! For now, the plan is to design the layout and navigation of the various parts of the website / application. I might need your help again at some point, but until then, thanks!