How to Tell If Your Website Is Helping or Hurting Your DTF Business

It’s easy to tell if your heat press works. The same goes for your DTF printer, shaker/dryer, or any other equipment you use on a daily basis. If one of them is not working, your alarm bells go off. You immediately call tech support and probably start panicking. 

When equipment stops working, you can see, touch, and feel how this directly affects your business.  

Your website is a little different, but maybe even more important. 

Of course, you can tell if your website is “on” or not. If you get a 404 error message when you plug in your url, that same kind of emergency response would be triggered.  

Websites are tricky though because they can appear to be working fine, but in reality, they can be costing you thousands of dollars. 

What does “working” mean for your website? 

Simply put, a website has two primary goals:

1. To attract new and potential customers based on a Google search. 

2. To convert shoppers into customers.  

This is completed by inspiring customers to:

• Call your business or communicate via web chat
• Complete a request for quote form 
• Place an online order 

We’ll address attracting potential customers via search (SEO) at a later date because there are things you can do to rank higher, but in the end, your opportunity is based on Google’s algorithm.  

Finding out if your website is working for your business once someone gets there (no matter how they got there) and improving that is something you can do.  

Get Visual: Follow your Customer Journey with Heat Mapping 

Heat mapping software like Hotjar provides insights into how visitors interact with your website in ways that traditional metrics from Google Analytics do not.

Here’s what Hotjar can tell you about your website visitors: 

• Visual Click Data: Hotjar shows where users are actually clicking on your page, which can reveal what catches their attention and what does not. This is particularly useful for understanding how well page elements like buttons, links, or images are performing. 

• Mouse Movement and Scroll Depth: It can track mouse movements, showing how users move their cursor across the page, which often indicates where they are reading or focusing their attention. Scroll depth tracking helps you see how far down the page users are scrolling, helping identify if key content is being missed. 
• Heatmaps: These provide a color-coded visual representation of data where the warm colors (like red) show high engagement and cooler colors (like blue) show less interaction. This helps you quickly understand which parts of your site are hot spots for engagement and which are not. 
• Session Recordings: Hotjar can record actual user sessions, showing you a video of the user’s actions on your site. This allows you to see user behavior in real-time and actually flags the times/places your visitors get frustrated.  

Watch this video to see how you might use heat mapping software to improve your user experience and make more sales. You can try Hotjar for free here.

Remember, the website has to suit the way your customers shop, NOT the way you think it should look. Let your potential customers show you how they use the site, make the necessary changes, and then watch the money roll in. 

(Are you in the UK and want to see what this site looks like now? Visit yesltd.co.uk)

Get Technical – Measurements and Metrics with Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is likely going to be your go-to resource for acquiring website data.

Here’s what you’re looking for: 

• Bounce Rate: This measures the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. Hence, they visit and “bounce” away. A high bounce rate could mean the page they landed on is confusing, unattractive, or doesn’t show them what they expect to see. 
• Pages Per Session [Engagement]: This metric shows the average number of pages a visitor views during a session. More pages per session means the visitor can see the value here and is interested enough to shop around your site.  
• Average Session Duration: The total time visitors spend on your site divided by the number of sessions. Basically, you want people to stay on your site! You want them to shop, learn, and check out. Google uses this to help determine if they should rank your site higher, too.  
• Conversion Rate: Many small businesses don’t have conversion actions set up at all, but they are KEY. You tell Analytics what you want your visitors to do, then Google figures out the percentage of visitors who do that. Things like making a purchase, filling out a form, tapping the phone number, and clicking the “Quote” button are all good conversion actions.  

 

If you have an ecommerce site, you have even more options with monetization measurements of: 

• Ecommerce Purchases 
• Purchase Journey 
• Checkout Journey 
• Promotions 
  

These metrics will really give you insight into how well your site is working and where it needs help. 

Don’t have Google Analytics yet? Get instructions on this free software here.   

The Advantage 

The reason to go through all of the technical headaches of getting Analytics configured is the better these metrics are, the more money you’re going to make. Identifying where your site is letting you down is the first step in fixing it.

You’re not advertising more, going to more tradeshows, or making more sales calls. You’re not creating new products or investing in new DTF machines. You’re simply making changes to your website. 

Let’s say you analyze the data and make changes accordingly and those changes boost your conversion rate by 10 percent. Let’s imagine you made $20,000 on 2000 visitors. With 10-percent better website performance this means you’d make $22,000 next month from the same number of visitors.  

This process could result in an extra $24K per year. These changes can impact your conversions for months or years to come! Once you do this and see the results, you’ll want to do it all the time.

Take the First Step Today 

Ready to help your website do the work for you? Start by experimenting with heat mapping for free with Hotjar and ensure Google Analytics is set up to monitor your site’s performance. Your journey to becoming a more profitable website begins with understanding and action. Make the change today because every click, scroll, and visitor matters.