16 Website Survey Questions That Tell You What to Fix

Discovery and attribution

These questions add context to a visit or a purchase. Ask about the information you don’t already have, and distinguish someone’s first introduction to your business from the link they clicked today.

1. How did you first hear about us?

A customer might discover you in a podcast, visit through Google later, and finally buy after an email. Asking about first discovery complements your analytics; it does not replace click attribution or prove which channel caused the sale.

Offer channels you actually use, such as search engines, social media, online ads, AI search, and recommendations from friends. Include “Other” and, if useful, “I don’t remember.” A follow-up like “Which podcast?” is more informative than putting every possible show into the first question.

This template includes search, social, AI search, ads, personal recommendations, and an Other option. Change the opening question to “How did you first hear about us?” if you want to measure first discovery specifically.

A confirmation page is a useful placement because the visitor has finished their main task. Compare answers from buyers with answers from general visitors separately: those are different audiences. If a referral source appears repeatedly, investigate it before moving your marketing budget.

2. Have you used our service before?

Use this when experience changes what help someone needs. A first-time customer may need an explanation of the booking process; a returning customer may just want to repeat an order.

Keep the choices concrete: “Yes,” “No,” and “I’m not sure.” For a travel business, a more useful version might be “Have you visited Ireland before?” A Vagabond Tours survey asked about previous visits to Ireland. That identifies travel experience, which is different from asking whether someone has booked with the company.

Place it in a trip-planning form or an optional welcome survey. Don’t make visitors answer before they can browse. Use the result to offer relevant guidance, rather than assuming a returning browser is already a customer.

3. How long ago did you first hear about us?

Ask new customers this after signup or purchase if you want to understand how long they had been considering your business. Suggested choices are “Today,” “Before today, but within the past week,” “More than a week ago, but within the past month,” “More than a month ago,” and “I don’t remember.”

The wording matters: “How long have you known about us?” is less precise, and overlapping ranges such as “1–7 days” and “1–4 weeks” create avoidable ambiguity.

If many buyers say they first discovered you months ago, look at what helps them return: saved products, useful emails, or reminders. This survey describes customers’ recollection of the journey; it does not tell you the conversion rate of everyone who discovered you months ago.

Visitor intent and interests

A visit without a purchase isn’t automatically a failed visit. Someone may be checking an order, looking for care instructions, or choosing a gift for next month. Establish their goal before asking what went wrong.

4. What brought you here today?

For a store, useful answers might be “Find a product,” “Compare products,” “Track an order,” “Check delivery or returns,” and “Just browse.” For a software website, swap in tasks such as checking pricing, exploring an integration, or finding help.

This template asks “What best describes your visit?” and includes browsing, product search, and comparison options. Adapt its choices to the tasks your visitors can complete. If you need their main goal, use a single-choice field and say “Choose your main reason.”

Show it after visitors have had a chance to orient themselves. If order tracking is a common answer on a sales landing page, make that route easier to find instead of pushing a discount at those visitors.

5. Which products would you like to hear about?

This question works well alongside a newsletter signup because it explains how the answer will be used. A homeware store might offer lighting, furniture, and textiles; a hobby store might ask about the collections people follow.

A Graded Gamer signup form paired an interest question with the subscription. The useful part is the connection between the choice and the emails that follow, not merely collecting another profile field.

Allow multiple selections if someone can reasonably want more than one category. Make the preference optional if it isn’t needed to subscribe. Then send the lighting release to lighting subscribers, rather than sending everyone the same campaign with a different subject line.

Experience and satisfaction

Recommendation, satisfaction, and ease of use answer different questions. Keep the measure tied to the experience you want to improve, and use consistent wording when comparing results over time.

6. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?

This is the standard Net Promoter Score question. Use a scale from 0 to 10, with endpoints labeled “Not at all likely” and “Extremely likely.” Ask customers who have enough experience with your business to make a recommendation.

The template below adds an optional “What is the main reason for your score?” field. That comment can explain whether a low score reflects a product problem, a late delivery, or a difficult website experience.

In Bain’s NPS method, scores of 9–10 are promoters, 7–8 are passives, and 0–6 are detractors. Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. For example, 50 promoters and 20 detractors among 100 valid responses produce an NPS of 30, not 30%.

Don’t pool first-time visitors rating the website with customers rating a delivered order. For an order-specific survey, ask after delivery and name that experience in the question. Keep the audience and timing consistent if you want to track change.

7. How did this experience compare with your expectations?

Name the experience: “How did booking your appointment compare with your expectations?” is easier to answer than a question about the entire website. Use a balanced scale from “Much worse than expected” through “As expected” to “Much better than expected.”

Ask after the task, then follow up with “What was different from what you expected?” Someone may like the final result but be surprised by the time required or an unexpected step.

For a tool such as the email scrolling text generator, the relevant moment is after someone has tried generating their animation. A simple rating can measure their experience; an expectations question goes further by asking whether the result matched what they anticipated.

8. How easy was it to find what you needed?

Use this for a completed browsing task, with answers from “Very difficult” to “Very easy.” Add “I haven’t finished looking” so an unfinished visit doesn’t become a negative rating by default.

Avoid combining it with “Did you have any problems?” in the same question. A visitor could find the product easily but encounter an error later. Follow a difficulty rating with “What were you trying to find?” to get something you can investigate.

For example, repeated requests for replacement parts might justify a visible “Parts and accessories” route. A generic low usability score would not tell you that.

Usability and navigation

Use page-specific feedback to separate missing content from content people cannot find. That distinction can save you from rewriting a useful page when the real problem is a buried link.

9. Did you find what you were looking for?

Offer “Yes,” “Partly,” “No,” and “I’m still looking.” Show the question after visitors have explored a category, used search, or read a substantial part of a guide.

For a “No” or “Partly” answer, ask “What were you looking for?” A product name suggests a search or assortment issue. “Dimensions” suggests a product-detail problem. “How to contact someone” suggests a navigation problem.

If the item already exists, check the search terms and route the visitor used. Adding another product page won’t help if the search engine still fails to find it.

10. What information is missing from this page?

This open-ended question is useful on product pages, help articles, and service descriptions. Give visitors space for a short answer without demanding their name or email.

A furniture shopper might need doorway clearance, package dimensions, or assembly instructions. A software buyer might need to know whether an integration supports a particular action. These are concrete gaps you can address in the page itself.

Ask after the visitor has read the page. If you want to include people who found everything, phrase it as “Is there any information missing from this page?” and let them skip the comment. Don’t force every respondent to invent a complaint.

11. Is there anything you’re unsure about?

For a store, this is often more useful than “Is our pricing clear?” because uncertainty may concern delivery, returns, or product details rather than the price itself.

The template below asks “Is the information clear so far?” and offers specific areas of uncertainty, plus “Everything is clear.” It also includes an additional-feedback field. You can keep that question or use the broader version above with the same answer options.

On a software pricing page, replace the choices with plan limits, billing frequency, extra charges, and cancellation terms. Ask “Which part is unclear?” as a follow-up. “Too expensive” and “I don’t understand what I’ll pay” call for different changes.

If visitors can be unsure about several areas, allow multiple selections and make “Everything is clear” exclusive, or explicitly ask them to choose the main issue.

Improvements and product value

Not every survey needs a score. Sometimes the most useful response is a sentence explaining what someone would change or what they would miss if it disappeared.

12. What’s one thing you would improve on this website?

Use this as an open-ended question for people who have explored the site. “One thing” encourages a concrete suggestion instead of a general review.

An inline form is a good fit for a feedback page or the end of a guide. This template takes a more structured approach: visitors can select areas such as navigation, search, and mobile experience, then add their own comment. Keep those categories for a broad website review; replace them with a single text field if you want an unprompted suggestion.

Read the comments behind each category. Ten selections of “Mobile experience” could refer to ten different problems. “The size selector closes when I tap it” is a reproducible issue someone can own and fix.

13. Which feature do you find most useful?

Ask people who have used the product, not visitors who have only read the landing page. For a service, you might ask “Which part of the service is most useful to you?” For a store, “What mattered most when choosing this product?” is a better fit.

A useful follow-up is “What does that help you do?” Someone choosing “Export” may rely on it for a weekly client report; someone choosing “Templates” may need to launch recurring campaigns quickly.

Use that context when deciding what to improve or explain more clearly. Don’t turn a handful of enthusiastic answers into a claim that every customer wants the same feature.

Alternatives customers considered

Your customer’s alternative may be a spreadsheet, a local shop, or doing nothing. Leave room for those answers instead of presenting only the companies you already think of as competitors.

14. What other options did you consider before choosing us?

Ask after a signup, purchase, or completed evaluation. An optional text field avoids suggesting brands the customer never considered.

Follow up with “What made you choose us?” A buyer might name delivery speed, compatibility, or being able to speak to a person. Those answers can inform a comparison page or help your sales team explain a meaningful difference.

For a purchase, you can also ask in a follow-up email. Keep the question separate from a product review if the customer has not received the item yet.

Exit and purchase barriers

A departure can mean “I’m done,” “I’ll be back,” or “I couldn’t complete this.” Avoid treating everyone who leaves as an unhappy customer or offering a discount before you understand the obstacle.

15. Before you go, what brought your visit to an end?

This is a gentler alternative to “Why are you leaving?” Suggested answers might include “Found what I needed,” “Just researching,” “Need more time,” and “Couldn’t find what I needed.”

A Mordeco survey asked about departure on a product page. That placement matters: a person leaving a product page has a different context from someone leaving a completed order confirmation.

Use an exit-intent survey where that trigger is supported, and test the mobile experience separately. An inline feedback form or a visitor-opened teaser can be more appropriate when you don’t want an automatic interruption. Set stop conditions so dismissing the survey doesn’t lead to another prompt on every page.

16. What stopped you from making a purchase today?

Ask when there is some purchase context, such as product browsing or a cart visit. Include an answer like “I wasn’t planning to buy today” instead of requiring everyone to report a problem.

The panel below asks a related question, “What made shopping difficult?” It allows multiple answers, including missing information, prices, shipping costs, navigation, and site speed. Use it to collect shopping friction broadly, or adapt the question and choices to focus on a purchase decision.

Follow up on the selected obstacle. If someone chooses shipping, ask whether the problem was the cost, delivery time, or lack of a clear estimate. If the product was unsuitable, ask what size, feature, or variant they needed.

A coupon cannot fix an unavailable size, a broken payment button, or an arrival date that is too late. Use the answer to choose the response.

Build a short survey that follows the answer

A website survey doesn’t need to ask every visitor the same follow-up. Start with one question, then reveal the next one only when it adds useful context.

Show a relevant follow-up on the same page

Suppose your first question is “Is there anything you’re unsure about?” If the visitor selects shipping, reveal “What would you like to know about delivery?” If they select product details, reveal “Which detail is missing?” Someone choosing “Everything is clear” can submit without either field.

In Getsitecontrol, select the follow-up object and use Display rules to show it when the relevant answer is selected. This changes what appears on the current page. It is also useful for an Other field that should appear only when someone chooses “Other.”

Use branching when the next page should change

For a longer survey, a purchase-barrier answer can lead to a delivery page, a product-availability page, or straight to a thank-you page. Skip logic and branching controls that page-to-page route.

Keep a route for answers that don’t match your specific conditions. Test every path, including changing an earlier answer and submitting without an optional comment. The survey should never leave someone on an irrelevant page or unable to finish.

Write questions people can answer honestly

Question wording can change the feedback you collect. Pew Research Center’s survey-writing guidance explains why clear wording, answer choices, and question order matter. For a website feedback form, a few small changes make a practical difference.

Ask about one thing at a time

“Was our website fast and easy to use?” combines two judgments. Ask about ease of use, then ask what caused difficulty. Likewise, “Did you like the price and delivery options?” leaves you unable to tell which part someone disliked.

Leave room for an answer you didn’t expect

Use “Other,” “Not applicable,” or “I haven’t tried this yet” where they make sense. Don’t offer only positive ratings, and don’t label a middle answer “Good” if you intend it to mean neutral.

When you don’t yet know the common reasons, start with an open text question. Read the responses, then build answer choices around recurring themes. Keep an open option so new issues can still surface.

Make participation easy to decline

Keep the close button visible and the form usable on a narrow screen. Check that long answers wrap, rating labels remain readable, and the on-screen keyboard doesn’t hide the submit button.

Don’t require an email address just to accept website feedback. If you offer a reply, explain why you’re asking for contact details. A feedback submission should not silently become a marketing subscription.

Turn survey responses into a useful change

Collecting more responses is not the same as learning more. Review what people said, who was eligible to see the survey, and which page or task the question referred to.

Separate the symptom from the cause

Imagine a store receives 20 comments about delivery. This is an illustrative example, not a customer case study: 12 people couldn’t find an arrival estimate, five found delivery too slow, and three considered it too expensive.

Grouping all 20 as “shipping complaints” points toward the wrong fix. The largest issue in this example is missing information. Put an arrival estimate near the purchase decision, then check whether that specific complaint becomes less common under comparable survey conditions.

Keep the denominator clear

If 1,000 visitors see a survey and 80 submit it, that is an 8% submission rate among those shown the survey. If 100 people start a multi-page survey and 80 finish, that is an 80% completion rate among starters. Those numbers describe different things.

SurveySparrow’s discussion of response-rate benchmarks covers different survey contexts. Don’t apply a general benchmark to your website without checking the audience, invitation method, and denominator. Track a consistent measure for your own placement instead.

Check the answer against what happens on the site

Someone who volunteers feedback is not necessarily representative of every visitor. Read comments alongside page behavior, support requests, and actual task outcomes.

If people report a broken checkout, try to reproduce it. If they can’t find a product, test their search terms. After a change, keep the survey wording and placement stable enough to make the next set of answers comparable.

Launch your first website feedback survey

Choose one page and one decision to investigate. Start with a template above, edit the question and answer choices, and match the design to your site. Use a popup for a timely invitation or an inline form for feedback visitors can leave without an interruption.

In Getsitecontrol, configure the relevant page and display conditions, then set when the survey should stop appearing. Preview it on desktop and mobile, test the answer paths, and submit a test response before launch. If your platform restricts scripts on checkout or confirmation pages, choose a supported page rather than assuming the widget can appear there.

Give the first review a clear purpose: identify one recurring problem, decide who will investigate it, and check the result after the change. You can add another survey when you have another question worth asking.