When I think about the tools we use, few are more impressive than Lucky Orange. The idea of site recording makes sense to me, but it is still a sort of magical technology. This particular type of tool is one that I think everyone should use whether they have a small, niche site, or serve millions of visitors. If you are intrigued, then this post will be worth your time, and we will review all the features Lucky Orange has to offer.
Site Recording is Inexpensive
The first thing I want to be clear on is that this powerful technology is very affordable. You can try all of this out with a free seven-day trial or start a monthly subscription for as little as $10/per month. To be honest, that $10 tier is going to cover the vast majority of sites (up to 25K views per month). That cost can be reduced by ten or twenty percent if you pay ahead for a year or three. Complete details can be found on their pricing page here.
Note that each pricing tier has full features and the differences are just the amount of visitors and sites you can support. You can even find ways to get your customers to pay for your coverage. As low as the $20/month tier you can pay annually and charge nine dollars per month to two customers while still having a third site supported under the account. Bam, you have a free account.
What Is Site Recording?
For those of you that are not clear on what site recording is, allow me to summarize it. A site recorder tracks the actions of visitors to your site and creates a video of what they saw and did while on your site. It is like sitting behind a visitor while they navigate your pages and you even see exactly what they do whether it is a mobile visitor or on a desktop. This is hands down the best way to review and improve your site to provide the best user experience.
How Does It Work?
The nice thing about Lucky Orange and some similar tools is that the implementation is just a matter of copying a little code and placing it on each web page you want to track. A site that is architected well often has a footer or header script included on each page so just drop the tracking code there. That is all there is to it. You can be up and recording in minutes. For example, here is how to get your site going.
- Register with Lucky Orange.
- Log in to your account.
- Click on the settings menu item in the top right of the page.
- Click on the Tracking Code menu item.
- Copy the code that appears.
- Paste into your header or footer file.
That is all. You will start seeing data shortly including visitor properties (location, browser, etc.) and the all valuable site recording.
Anything Else?
I am glad you asked. Lucky Orange is a tool I initially looked at to record visitors. However, it offers much more. There is a dashboard full of stats, live chat, polls, heatmaps, and form analytics. These are excellent tools for managing your site and communicating with users. Thus, we will look at each of these individually as well.
Live Chat
I am sure you have seen this feature on other sites. After a little while on a website, a popup appears that says something along the lines of “How can I help you?” The live chat feature not only makes it easy to add a chat to your site, but it also provides some canned responses and questions. These allow you to provide users with the feel of a live support person without actually having someone on your end. This can be an excellent way to give your users a high-end experience without a high-end cost. A few minutes spent on the settings for the chat can cover support on your site and significantly improve first impressions.
Polls
This is another feature that you have probably run into while browsing the Internet. In general, you are presented with a pop-up box asking a question after spending more than a few seconds on a page. The answer may lead to another question of might even be a short poll of items on the pop-up. Once again, this is a simple feature to implement with Lucky Orange. You can also see an example by visiting the Develpreneur site. I bet you have already seen and closed that window. 😉
A poll is easy to create. Click on the Polls menu item and then the “Create Poll” button. You will be presented with some defaults and a preview (in the bottom right of the page). Note that you can change colors, trigger behaviors, and adjust how to post answers. The poll results are tracked once you make it live and you can even see the related recording. This will help you determine if the user was influenced by their site experience or the poll impacted their flow.
Note the Decision Tree option at the top of the poll page. You can ask some follow-up questions based on the answer to the primary one. For example, you can tell the user thank you for the response unless they select the “other” option from your poll. In that case, you can present them with a text entry field to provide the “other” value they wish to use as a response.
Heat Maps
The heat map feature is an excellent summary tool. You are presented with a graphical overlay of a page that shows where people clicked on that page. There is a way to watch dynamic heatmaps as a user is navigating the site. However, there is also an option to view a heat map across many visitors. This approach is a little better than some other tools as you can dynamically build a heat map from recording history instead of having to “turn on” a heat map and then wait for visitors to fill it with data.
We have talked about heat maps before and highly recommend using them as a way to validate your site design. I have also found this to be an excellent way to debug issues related to layout and styles. Of course, the bonus is that this is part of any subscription to Lucky Orange.
Our Experience
We have used this tool for a few years and across several sites. I have even recommended it to some customers and still find myself not using it as much as I should. Launching your website is just the beginning. When you have a tool like this, you will be positioned to grow and improve your site well after the launch. We love this tool and we do get a little kickback if you tell them we sent you. (hint: Lucky Orange).
