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Evaulating Web Site Performance
(C) Michael
Rasmussen
All Rights Reserved
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com
Setting up a website
is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or
failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your
website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will
most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in
developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online
announcement that you are in business.
If you expect your site to
stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a
representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you
can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of
the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out
the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement
is a month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional
activities.
However, just because hoards of people have passed
through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want
those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to
monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is
called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy
of your website. To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors
per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the
action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your
site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate
equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that
figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result
by 100 (25 ÷ 2000 X 100).
If your website is set-up to get
visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference
is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is
because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your
customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or
to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure
the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.
You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing
strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are
several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website,
particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is
targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers
can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you
need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine
optimization company to do the work for you. In either case, after your have
improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by
regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.
Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your
website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your
goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or
does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too
difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to
another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your
form or ordering page quickly accessible.
Finally, have a
professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get
your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be
specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job
from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between
profit and loss in your online campaign.
Michael Rasmussen
is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling
eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows
what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and
subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for
successful web site promotions that can help YOU!
Go to
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com
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