Overstat – Self-Diagnose Your Website

Overstat is a tool that people can use to test their websites and find out what areas or sections are drawing the most interest from visitors online. The analytics tools to run these types of optimization tests have been around for a while, but what makes Overstat unique is its simplified format. With Overstat, virtually any web publisher can optimize his or her site without spending the time or money that is oftentimes necessary to hire an expert consultant for the job.

The way you use Overstat will depend on your individual needs, based on the type of website you run. Let’s say your job includes managing the website for a retail store and you want to know why more people aren’t clicking on your “store locator” tab. Sign up for an account with Overstat, launch it as an overlay on your retail store’s homepage, and check out the heatmap feature to see where people are clicking on your page. If you notice a lack of action around your “store locator” button, then that might be a sign that it’s time to move it around. Before making any rash decisions, click the “top links” button to directly see which links are being clicked on most. For further testing, you may want to create a clone of the page and make certain variations—such as bolding the link or moving it around on the page—in an effort to see what will work best. Once you’ve tested a few variations, you’ll be able to see which layout changes will make the biggest impact.

Overstat offers a number of useful tools for advertising executives, web designers, and anyone else who is expected to achieve certain online marketing goals. Among these is the “form fixer,” which automatically tweaks forms to make them more functional from the user’s perspective. By using Overstat to its full capabilities, people can optimize their homepages and reduce bounce rates without any help from outside professionals.

Practical Uses:

• Find out why more people aren’t signing up for your online mailing list
• Visually see which of your homepage links are being clicked on the most
• Use Overstat’s analytics tools to improve your homepage’s SEO
• Make changes to your web copy or design and track how visitors respond

Insider Tips:

• Top link pins show how often people are clicking on each homepage link
• Overstat’s JavaScript doesn’t actually change the functionality of any webpage it is embedded on
• The size and transparency of Overstat’s heatmaps can be adjusted
• Change the text or layout and use A/B testing to see how visitors respond

What we liked:

• Anyone who can copy/paste code into their website can use Overstat’s tools
• Users can see which pages in the registration ‘funnel’ are turning their visitors off
• Any site that aims to generate sales can benefit from A/B testing
• Heatmaps are a great tool for people who favor visual representations over streams of numbers and data

What we didn’t like:

• People can’t operate Overstat on their iPhones or iPads

Alternatives:

• Optimizely – http://www.optimizely.com
• Visual Website Optimizer – http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
• YouEye – http://youeye.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California
• Founded by: Leah Edwards, Matthew Cordasco, and Trevor Hughes
• Web site: http://www.overstat.com

Costs:

• Tester plan is $49/month
• Optimizer plan is $199/month
• Converter plan with custom pricing