IDEA for Intern: Study what is wrong with your website. Get user feedback why visitors decide NOT to buy?
Hire an intern to run a study of what is wrong with your website either on the telephone or through emails. Have the intern contact users (internal employees, outside customers, visitors) and ask what on the website is confusing, what seems to be missing, what works well and what does not work well, what is useful and what is not. Ask what the user wants to see that would be helpful and might persuade them to buy. Ask what on the website causes them NOT to buy. Ask the intern to ask users to critique the company’s website from a buyer perspective. When the customers say they search terms are not found, change the process for updating the website to remember all of the ‘tried and failed’ search terms. Use this intern (maybe a marketing or business major) to brainstorm ideas for boosting usability. Use him to followup after website changes have been made to get user feedback (better? improvement? more understandable? still disappointing?).