MEASURING A WEBSITES RETURN ON INVESTMENT
WHY MEASURE A WEBSITES RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Research has shown that depending on the target market up to 90% of purchases are
carried out over the internet and with this in mind a website can be the most important
weapon in a companys marketing arsenal.
Good websites cost money in some cases a lot of money. Everyone these days has a
website and it's all too tempting to pay under two hundred pounds for a website.
There are many reasons why these aren't the best websites to buy, from a
search
engine point of view to effective web design principles.
However no matter what the cost of a website it is important to measure the return
on investment of your website. If your website is aimed at the correct target market
it can open up a whole load of new customers and business opportunities. Aim it
at the wrong target market and the website is a wasted opportunity and wasted money.
So how do you know when your website is generating a return on investment?
ANALYSE THE BUSINESS NEED AND THE BUSINESS PROCESSES
Before any business gives the go ahead for a website careful thought should be given
as to what the website should bring to the business. Increasing visitors to a website
is usually the main purpose of any new website, we are often told by customers that
high Google rankings are important or increasing the amount of visitors is important.
These are all suitable goals for a website but no-one ever considers the following:
- What business processes can a website streamline
- What business processes can a website automate
- Increasing conversions
- Search engine phrases
- Usability
We recently developed a website for a parcel courier company. With his old website
and business model as his business grew the more admin the business brought to his
work life and every time a delivery service was chosen he would manually have to
enter it on to the DHL and TNT systems. Not only was this time-consuming but it
removed him from the other aspects of his business. The parcel delivery website
was developed from the ground up to address several needs. Search engine placement,
usability, and automating business processes. Our customer is now free to concentrate
on the areas of his business that before he may have neglected. Whenever a delivery
service is chosen on the website the order is automatically sent to DHL, any update
to the order such as parcel tracking numbers is automatically handled by the website
and sent to his customers. The website has been developed to be easy to use and
features such as postcode lookups have been added. If a customer has previously
sent parcels to addresses when entering new orders on to the system they can instantly
select these previous addresses.
Why is this important? The way we use websites constantly changes, we look for websites
that make our lives easier, as we find these websites we disengage with the websites
that don't provide the service as efficiently as we have become accustomed and we
are quickly becoming less patient with websites. With any website repeat custom
is important and any feature that can be offered to the websites customers that
isn't offered by your competitors is a strength.
Our customer realised that the benefits and the time-saving features of his website
outweighed the costs of the website. Contact us now on 08456 43
92 43 or via our website quote mechanism to
see how Breed Creative Solutions can help make your business more productive.
MEASURING A WEBSITES RETURN ON INVESTMENT
It can be difficult to understand how to measure a websites ROI but with a little
time and some good analytics software it can be easily measured. Good analytics
software will let you set goals such as getting site visitors to a certain page,
to complete a form or to buy a product. If the main aim of a website is to sell
a certain product then this should be a goal and it should be measured. If a search engine
optimisation campaign has started the main aim may be to increase
site visitors and to increase conversions, for example if you sell a service you
may want a certain form on the website to be completed.
Analytics software will let you measure the success of these goals as well as providing
information on the amount of time that people spend on the site, the page that people
leave from most often, the keywords that brought them to the site and the most visited
page. Knowing which page people leave the site on is extremely important especially
if the page where the site visitor should convert into a lead or paying customer
is the page that the visitor decides to leave the site without completing the checkout
process. A little knowledge can go a long way and a little knowledge can often spell
success or failure for a website.
Without measuring a websites performance the major benefits that it provides could
be missed if for example your website has a good frequently asked questions area
or the website allows the business to provide support without the need for a phone
call this could be saving the business £0000's a year. If a website is redesigned
without taking into consideration these factors it could end up costing the business
a lot of money. In any economic climate especially the current economic climate
these factors could mean make or break. To read more about how to
ensure your
website is working smarter please follow the link
If you feel that your website is not performing to the best of it's abilities try
our
website MOT service alternatively please contact us via our electronic
contact form or by telephone on 08456 43 92 43. For
a free no obligation quote please complete our web design quote form.