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16 UX and optimization must-reads

We know what it’s like to have pressing questions about a website—Who is really visiting it? What are these people looking for? Why are they not converting? What can we do to improve their experience?—and not having a clear sense of how to go about finding the answers.

UX design and analysis

Fio Dossetto

Last updated

20 Sep 2021

The content team at Hotjar spends most of its time creating resources to help you (and, occasionally, ourselves) find answers to those questions. We go deep into UX and optimization, we share practical step-by-step advice, and we just generally try to make the Internet a more customer-centric place. We also practice what we preach and keep asking for feedback from you, our readers, to understand if you are finding our content as useful as we think it is:

HOW WE USE AN ON-PAGE SURVEY TO GET CONTENT FEEDBACK

A WORD CLOUD VISUALIZATION BASED ON OPEN-ENDED FEEDBACK ANSWERS

Here are the pieces we recommend you get started with when you have burning questions about your website, want to understand what’s working and isn’t, and need to know what to improve.

What to read when you want to:

Identify issues and pain points on your website that make people leave

1. The complete guide to website heatmaps

A complete guide to heatmaps with chapters about creating and analyzing heatmaps, case studies, practical examples, and heatmap FAQs.

2. A beginner's guide to usability testing

A comprehensive introduction to usability testing and its benefits for your website, with deep dives into the method you can use, questions you should ask, and how to get started with it.

3. Funnel analysis: how to fix drop-offs and increase conversions on your site

How to use funnel analysis to identify key traffic sources and spot high-exit pages to improve UX and increase conversion rates.

4. The complete guide to session recordings

A complete guide to session recordings: what they are, why they can help you improve your website, and how to use them to get actionable insight.

Get to know who your customers are and what drives them

5. How to create user personas in 4 easy steps

How do you create user personas without leaving your desk or even using Google Analytics? Here's a 4-step method to use, with a real example and a template to use.

6. How to do your own market research in a lean way

What is market research and how to do your own without breaking the bank? Follow this 4-step guide with a real-life example to conduct market research in no time.

7. Psychographics and personas: how to get to the truth about why people buy

How to combine demographics and psychographics with a special focus on understanding why and how people buy—and how to use these insights to make an impact with your marketing.

Understand and improve your customers’ experience

8. Understanding and improving the customer experience

A multi-chapter investigation of customer experience: what it is, why it's important, and how you can improve it to give great CX to your customers. Plus: tips from 100+ CX experts and practitioners.

9. Your introduction to NPS

Everything you need to know to get started with NPS: what it is, why it's important for business growth, how to run the NPS survey and analyze the results.

10. 5 critical questions to ask customers when your product isn’t selling

What do you do when your product isn’t selling as much as expected and the financial pressure is mounting? Here are 5 questions to ask your customers so you can bounce back.

11. Using customer satisfaction surveys to master your market [with examples]

Learn why and how to create customer satisfaction surveys to grow your business and master your market, with 5 templates to copy and re-use today.

12. How to set up an e-commerce post-purchase survey in 7 steps

A quick guide to help you create a simple, post-purchase survey in just a few minutes. It's an easy, non-intrusive way to help you improve your buying experience and boost your e-commerce sales.

Ask for feedback that helps you drive decisions

13. The ultimate guide to survey questions with 50+ examples

New to sending surveys? We've got you covered with a beginner's guide to survey questions: different types, dos & don'ts, as well as more than 50 examples to get started from.

14. How to analyze open-ended questions (template included)

Analyzing open-ended questions helps you to empathize with your audience and gather essential insights. Here's how to do it in 5 steps (template included).

15. The 15 best website survey questions to ask customers in 2019

The best website survey questions: where to survey customers, what to ask, and how to use online survey tools to improve UX, increase conversions, and grow your business.

16. You’ll want to try this yourself: 20+ survey examples from real websites

Over 20 examples of on-site feedback Surveys from real websites: be inspired to use them yourself to collect the actual voice of your users and monitor their sentiment as they experience your site.

Your content team,

Fio and Louis

UX design and analysis

4 steps to being less wrong in UX Design, from Leandro Lima at Google

One of our values is that we challenge ourselves to grow. By hosting external speakers and sharing their ideas, we’re hoping to inspire you, our Hotjar community, to grow too.

Hotjar Team

UX design and analysis

How negative feedback leads to better UX

Before a brand or business launches a new product or idea, it undergoes a long process to get approved. There's always room for negotiation, but you have to get feedback and be open to altering plans accordingly with your team.