reading site stats

Impossible Client - Please Help

[ddesign]

Although I am canceling our agreement soon, I have a web client who always thinks there's something wrong with his site. he says it looks bad, yet wont let me redesign it due to cost (it was originally designed by another company), he says his hosting isn't working because people cant bring up his site (tho he has a difficult to spell domain name!) he says his submission form isn't working tho I get copies of all if his site visitor submissions!

One day I was showing him his web site traffic trying to explain that he has very good traffic and so on, indicating in part that my search engine services have worked, and that the site is online. So then he only responded with "well that just proves the form ISNT working because if i have that many visitors and only a few form submissions that doesn't match".

I can't make his site visitors enter his form! If they are there for the purpose of getting information on his products and don't choose to send in the contest form, that doesn't mean the form isn't working! Right?

I was wondering if you could help me with these stats - If his contest form page has had 117 visits/views in a certain period of time, and 13 entries and 21 listed under exit, what does that mean?

I don't get ANY coding errors, I get every single submission that I enter, or have others enter, AND use the same form script for 30 other sites that work just fine. Is there anyway I can PROVE to him that his form is working?!

It's a PERL script tht emails the form to the specified recipient. It's the newest version from Matts Script Archive. Like I said I get copies of submissions, and everyone I have had test and submit has no problem.

- is there any possibilities that some can successfully submit the form, and others cant depending on their email program, operating system, email address they entered, age of computer, browse, etc.?

- how in the world do i show and communicate to him that it's working?
Many thanks.

[chopin2256]

I am not sure about why your stats dont add up, but I can tell you that just becuase the site owner gets alot of visitors, does not mean that alot will use the form. I have about 500 uniques a day, and I am lucky if I get 1 email a week or every 2 weeks, or even sometimes for the whole month, through my submission form. In the 6 months I have marketed my site, I had maybe a few ask me about my services, (never to get back to me again) and one that I probably will make $100 off of. 6 months and 200-500 uniques a day, and I only made $100 from my services. What does this really say? Visitors probably do not trust the site, especially through email. I dont have a phoneline that I am willing to use, so that may have something to do with it. Furthermore, I do not state my pricing, and only offer paypal, so I have a feeling that plays a huge role too. Why don't I fix this? Because I am still trying to build visitors and I am more concentrated on getting 10,000 uniques a day right now. So in the meantime, I decided to change my site revenue plan after seeing such low numbers of visitors email me even just to ask me about my services! I think I may need about 20,000/day in order to see something happen through my services alone, so in the meantime, I am going to set up a store and stick with adsense.

Alot of people click on my submission form, but rarely submit. He should also have his email address in a shared border, or on a highly visited page, this way, the visitor is not dedicated to just sending through the form.

I dont know why it is hard to get visitors to send an email, even through a convenient form but I am having the same problem, with decent traffic. Perhaps my site is a bit too technical to understand, so I may try to rewrite some things. However I dont think that plays a huge role. Perhaps visitors are just lazy, or have a short attention span. Who knows. Its easier to get out your credit card and purchase something online, than it is to email someone if you have a question! Perhaps visitors do not expect the webmaster to reply promptly, who knows.

[ddesign]

chopin2256 - thanks for your reply! I too get tons of visitors and maybe get a contact form once a month or so. I wish I could make this client see that just because you're getting good traffic does not mean they will enter his contest!

To everyone - I also wanted to mention that after re-reading my original post I realize that I got off on a bit of a tangent regarding the problem I have with this client always thinking something is wrong with his form, what about the web site visitor stats I mentioned, can anyone tell me what that means?

Thanks!

[ogletree]

Tell him to offer something for free or put submit this form get a $1 for a few days he will see an increase and he will know his form is working.

[ken_b]

Visitors using the "back button" could account for a lot of those missing numbers.

[cgrantski]

What's wrong with the stats? I'm assuming, too, that the 117 minus 13 minus 21 (83) backbuttoned out. I'd be wondering what it is about the form that makes people not fill it out or submit it. There are plenty of possible reasons.

It's just a form, not an email button that requires an email program, right?

Are there really 117 visits to the form and 117 hits to the form? That's the only puzzling thing to me about the numbers you mentioned; you don't see that too often when numbers get above 100.

[dcrombie]

AFAIK a page only show up as an 'exit' if it's the last one they see. If s/o looks at the form, then goes back to the home page, the form page won't be their exit point.

If you have access to the logs, you can grep for "GET /form_page.html", sort by IP address to see how many unique visitors there have been (and robots, spiders, worms, ...). Then grep for "POST /path-to/perl.cgi" to see how many times the form was submitted.

That's much more reliable then using generated reports. You'll probably find that Google+Yahoo+MSN make up a large part of the total.

;)

[killroy]

If this is from raw log data, the 117 could include search engines. Since on my own sites SE traffic can be 90%+, having 13 submissions could actually mean that every single real visitor to the form filled it in.

SN

[carguy84]

What kinds and how many questions does the form ask?

[ddesign]

Thank you sssoooo much for everyones replies and suggestions!

carguy84 - the form is for a mother's day contest, it's a perl script mailto form. It has fields for the name (of person submitting), email address, mailing address, name of person they want to nominate, and a comments field box .

I use these types of forms for all of my clients with no problem, but this particular client claims that it isn't working. I know it is because although he doesn't get even 10 submissions a day, I get copies of each submission.

He thinks that because the contest is on his web site, plus he advertises it in the local paper that automatically means that he should have tons of submissions! Plus he KEEPS telling me that people he knows that have submitted the form to either test for him, or to enter, submits it and he never gets it. I don't know how to explain that except for USER ERROR!?

If there is something wrong with my form, I want to FIX it! But why do I never have a problem with my 35 other clients?!?

Thanks again everyone =)
-d

[cgrantski]

I once had a mentor who believed that three percent of any audience or client group is likely to be ... well he used the word "pathological" but that's a little strong. "extreme in some negative way" is what I'd use - likely to hate something for no apparent reason, likely to fall asleep no matter how interesting the presentation, and so forth. That was some of the best advice I've ever had, because when I encounter those people I don't expect to be able to do anyting about it unless the percentage is a lot higher than 3%. Your percentage is 2.7% and I'm guessing you've met your random extreme person and you CANNOT do anything about it. When you terminate the relationship it may be a first time for you, but I'll bet this guy experiences being terminated all the time and thinks the whole world is incompetent and doesn't understand him.