Use an Online Survey to Poll Visitors Effectively

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Use an Online Survey to Poll Visitors Effectively

By Steven Ray
2007-08-23

Use an Online Survey to Poll Visitors Effectively

Whether you run a site offering goods and services, provide news and special reports or have a blog with growing readership, the key to success is keeping your visitors coming back for more. One thing you can do to ensure this happens is to provide your visitors with an opportunity to give you feedback. Online survey software can be a powerful tool for involving your audience in your site.

Sure, putting a poll on the front page asking your site visitors to vote whether they think one political party or another will win the next election is a quick and easy way to involve them. But delving deeper into their reasons for choosing A, B or C can teach you a great deal about the people visiting your pages online. It might seem like a long and complex process, but today’s online survey software makes asking the right people intuitive questions easier than ever. All it takes is a few minutes to craft a survey that’s both professional and engaging.

Constructing Interactive Online Surveys
A survey on its own may not be enough to interest your regular readers – however, an interactive survey that allows participants to offer input or feedback can improve your relationship with site visitors exponentially. For instance, if you’re considering adding new topics to a discussion board, rather than posting the question in a forum and tallying responses by hand, you can use online survey software to construct a questionnaire that gives you the answers you’re after.

A good online survey software provider will have tools to help you easily set up a survey, as well as quickly analyse the results. When writing your survey, be sure you choose a variety of question types to get the variety of responses you require. Asking the same question in a number of different ways can provide surprising results. Giving your participants a number of ways to respond means you’re more likely to receive a complete picture of what your audience is thinking. Powerful analysis is a snap with online survey software that lets you see the results of your survey in an instant with graphics and charts that are easy to interpret.

Using Online Surveys to Dig Deeper
In the example above, you could use the survey to ask additional questions about the members of your discussion board community. Finding out more about their demographic makeup could help you tailor future services or product launches more effectively. Consider asking questions about merchandise your customers might be interested in, or choose leading questions to invite your visitors to special sales or other events.

Because filling in your online survey will take a matter of moments, most respondents won’t mind sharing a little more information with you. Asking questions pertaining to the demographics of your audience can help you get a better bead on what interests them elsewhere both on and offline. And as all savvy businesspeople know, understanding your target market is one of the cornerstones to real success.

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