There are lots of analytical programs out there ..
…. the most well know being Google’s free analytic’s program and no one seems to have a problem with this service including lots of real estate agents.
Now there is a new app called Clixpy which allows site owners to record how visitors use their site, including mouse clicks and movements, form inputs and scrolling.
Clixpy say’s it is a web usability testing tool, easy to install with just a few lines of JavaScript code. Then when visitors browse your website everything is traced and recorded ready for you to play it back for you.
So is this sort of spying on your visitors ethical?
Basically, it means that Clixpy keeps track of everything that your visitors do when they are online on your real estate site or blog.
If you have a site that you have invested money and time building we suggest that you might well want to learn how visitors interact on your site, learning how visitors scan your well crafted pages and what appeals most to them.
From Clixpy’s site: “Clixpy helps you find out which features are difficult to use and which are easy, where your users spend more time and why they leave your website. Clixpy can help you optimize landing pages and convert more visitors to clients.
This tool will let you optimize your site and give those who land there something more appealing to look at. An interested visitor is one millisecond from becoming a customer, and anything that helps you achieve that goal does make a true difference.”
Conclusion. Frankly, we think this might be the best way that you could improve on their experience and make continual improvements that will keep visitors on your site. However, the decision to use this tool will be yours alone, so you will have to decide if you want to implement it and get into the head of the users to your real estate website. Clixpy says they don’t track passwords and other sensitive data and user session data will not be shared with third parties.
If you are at all concerned with your privacy they also provide a link so that anybody can disable Clixpy for their browser. If you install the code and monitor your visitors you might want to change your privacy/terms and conditions pages.
So tell us what you think – is this sort of “spying” wrong?
This a brand new service with no other subtantial reviews that we could find, if we come across any we will update this page. Check out other free “must have” tools for Realtor’s.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
THe clixpy domain is registered in Bulgaria. Considering that much of virus, spam amd identity theft action is coming from Eastern Europe and Russia these days, and that almost every mention of this ’service’ on the Web is obvious astroturfing, you’d have to be a fool to install this.
I’m not saying you may be wrong, but surely not all Bulgarian/Russian programmers are thieves and spammers? That’s like saying all Texan’s are loud and obnoxious!
Here is the Wikipedia link to astroturfing: – i’d be facinated to learn how this applies here …