"An effective web design is one in which your users are able to find information quickly and in a logical fashion."

We all visit websites, leaving many of them quickly for any of the following reasons:

• Loads too slowly
• Too hard to navigate around
• Information you're searching for seems like a game of hide 'n seek

If you’re interested in analyzing and optimizing your page layout Six Revisions has posted some extremely useful tools that you can use to help.

A couple of tools listed on that site include -

ClickHeat, which is an open source visual tool for showing "hot" and "cold" zones of a web page. It allows you to see which spots users click on most, and which spots are being ignored

Crazy Egg, who offers a myriad of analytical tools to help you visualize what visitors are doing.

Check out the rest of that list and see if your site can benefit from any of those tools.

San wants advice on what kind of membership model works best for monetization and customer growth purposes on consumer sites like his. Can you help?

Hi,

... I have two membership models in mind.

The first plan is your "gold standard": In this model, pricing is determined by the features in the the package. A good example is found at CrazyEgg. What I like about this models is that its time-tested and easy for users to understand. It is also good for lump sum income.

The second is a "pay-per-use" or credits-based plan. In this model, a user purchases a number of credits (one-time or recurring) which are used up as s/he performs certain functions on the website. A good example of this is at Dreamstime. (The credits model could also be applied to CrazyEgg, say, where 100 credits were given for every 10,000 visits, just to give you an example).

I personally prefer the second, pay-per-use plan, as it gives the user the option to buy small packages and then upgrade to bigger ones as his/her needs arise.

But then I also feel it can be a little confusing to new users.

So I was just wondering, what do you guys think of these two models?

Pros/Cons?

Any experience you have with either plan would definitely add to my learning.

Thanks.

Regards,
San.

What are your experiences with such membership models on your site? Please share any tips you have on these two, or still other, models you've tried...

San wants advice on what kind of membership model works best for monetization and customer growth purposes on consumer sites like his. Can you help?

Hi,

... I have two membership models in mind.

The first plan is your "gold standard": In this model, pricing is determined by the features in the the package. A good example is found at CrazyEgg. What I like about this models is that its time-tested and easy for users to understand. It is also good for lump sum income.

The second is a "pay-per-use" or credits-based plan. In this model, a user purchases a number of credits (one-time or recurring) which are used up as s/he performs certain functions on the website. A good example of this is at Dreamstime. (The credits model could also be applied to CrazyEgg, say, where 100 credits were given for every 10,000 visits, just to give you an example).

I personally prefer the second, pay-per-use plan, as it gives the user the option to buy small packages and then upgrade to bigger ones as his/her needs arise.

But then I also feel it can be a little confusing to new users.

So I was just wondering, what do you guys think of these two models?

Pros/Cons?

Any experience you have with either plan would definitely add to my learning.

Thanks.

Regards,
San.

What are your experiences with such membership models on your site? Please share any tips you have on these two, or still other, models you've tried...