In order to improve your website's performance, you need to understand the factors that influence the chance of a sale. This area of study is called conversion mechanics. Conversion mechanics is a branch of applied statistical analysis that looks at the different types of "visits" and the factors that influence a person to make a purchase or not. Not all visits are alike. Different types of visits are affected differently by a common set of factors, which means different types of visitors are affected in different ways by the same influences. This article explains the different types of visits and the factors that affect their chance of conversion.
 
Different types of visits
There are three types of visits:

1. Browsing visits are made by people who are just surfing the site for "infotainment." Such visitors are more heavily influenced by elements of design than other people because any purchase they make will be an impulse purchase.

2. Research visits are made by people who do not intend to purchase during the current visit; they just want product information. Some will have the intention of buying later and are doing research in order to make a more informed decision. These are called focused research visitors. These visitors are typically beginning or engaged in a repeat visit cycle and may be actively comparing sites. They are very focused on finding product information and are almost impervious to the effect of design features. The only design feature that can really affect them is navigation that makes it difficult for them to find the information they want.

People looking at car insurance sites for several months before their renewal is due are a typical example. They will purchase when their renewal is due, but not now. By contrast, background research visitors are simply interested in the product area in general and are seeking to increase their overall knowledge. Hobbyists are a typical example. While they also show repeat visit patterns, the time between visits is likely to be much greater than visitors doing research in order to buy. These people are closer to browsing visitors in terms of the factors that will influence them to purchase, as any purchase they make will be an impulse buy.

3. Focused visits are made by people who intend to make a purchase on this visit. On most sites, the majority of these people will be repeat visitors coming directly to the site. After them, the next largest group will be people who found the site via a targeted search in a search engine. The cost and nature of the product directly influences the proportions of these two. The more expensive a product is, and the greater the impact it will have on the purchaser's life, the more likely the purchaser is to be a repeat visitor. People rarely take out loans on their first visit to a site because of the cost and length of the commitment. This person is likely to have visited the site before as a research visitor.

Most visitors start out as browsers or researchers, only becoming focused visitors on their final purchase visit. They then lapse back to browser or researcher until their next purchase, unless you lose them for good.

Author notes: Brandt Dainow is an independent web analytics consultant and the CEO of ThinkMetrics. Read full bio.