Analyzing a golden path is crucial for understanding how users navigate through your website or application, identify any friction points, and optimize the user experience.
The golden path typically represents the ideal user journey you want your users to take, such as completing a specific goal like signing up for a service or making a purchase.
Define Your Golden Path
- Start by clearly defining the user journey you want to analyze. This could be a sequence of steps or interactions leading to a specific goal (e.g., signing up, making a purchase, or completing a form).
Set up
If you do not have the following mappings, goals, and segments already saved to your Contentsquare platform you will need to create them before getting started.
- Create a high-level mapping that groups your important pages, especially those crucial for the golden path journey.
- If you don't have an e-commerce site that tracks conversions as a main goal, make sure to create a conversion goal for your specific website (e.g., lead generation, sign up for an event, etc.).
Step-by-Step
Open Journey Analysis and apply the segment 'Sessions with transactions' (or the segment of users reaching your site's goal) in the Analysis context.
1. Open Journey analysis, and apply the segment 'Sessions with transactions' (or the segment of users reaching your site's goal) in the Analysis context. When using “All journeys from landing pages” look at the following:
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Are visitors landing on the expected pages? Do users typically follow the golden path or transact through alternative routes?
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What are the top journeys among converting users?
2. When still in Journey analysis, toggle on Comparison mode and compare the following segments: 'Sessions with transactions' and 'Sessions without transactions'. Analyze the following:
- Where do transactors land? Are there differences with non-transactors?
- Are there standout pages among non-transactors (e.g., more likely to change account information or encounter an error page)?
- Is there any looping behavior among non-transactors that might indicate friction or confusion
- Do users who transact have fewer or more page views?
3. Navigate to Funnels, set up the golden path as your funnel steps and look at the following:
- Check step completions and drop-offs. Where do users drop off on key conversion journeys?
- Look at the percentage split between step drop off and site exits by examining the step drop off details. Are the users dropping from the step or abandoning your site altogether?
3. Use the sequential segments to create a segment of users not following the golden path (e.g., key landing page, subscription page, payment page, confirmation page). You can that directly in Funnels by right clicking on the drop off part of the step.
4. Navigate back to Journey analysis and apply the newly created segment.
- Where do users go and what they do when not follow this ideal journey?
5. Optional. Create a sequential segment of visitors that follow the golden path journey. You can do this by right-clicking on the highlighted journey in Journey Analysis.
6. Optional. Open Site overveiw and in a Comparison mode apply the 2 segments: 'Sequential segment of users following the golden path' and 'Sessions with transactions'. Analyze the following metrics:
- What is the share of users who have followed the golden path vs users who have transacted?
7. Optional. Repeat the previous analyses by segmenting the user data:
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- Segment users based on various factors such as traffic source, device type, location, and user demographics. This will help you understand if certain segments are experiencing different issues along the golden path
Take action
- If you observe many users looping back to view a key page in the golden path (e.g., Subscription page leading to Checkout), experiment with new formats for that page. Provide users with the necessary information before they proceed to Checkout.
- In case of a high drop-off rate for a key page, conduct a thorough analysis of the page's performance and UX. Formulate hypotheses and test ideas to enhance the page, aiming for improvements in both performance and user engagement.
- If the majority of transacting users are not following the intended golden path, streamline the navigation process. Eliminate unnecessary steps or distractions that might lead users away from the desired path.
- Recognize significant differences in how users from various markets or channels convert. Consider making targeted adjustments to key pages for these specific markets or audiences, ensuring a more personalized and effective user experience.
Go further
- Gain insights into potential site errors that could impact your conversions by watching our on-demand webinar.
- Explore the following Help center article to learn how to streamline the process of identifying pain points on your site.