As Zac discussed last week, your website has the unique potential to scale your sales efforts. In his post, he outlined the idea that you should measure the success of your website a lot like you would a salesperson.
You might be thinking, “I know my people and I know my business, but I don’t know how to define and evaluate the success of my website.”
Which begs the question: “How do you measure the success of a website?”
Before we dig into the measurement aspects, let’s look at what should be part of an effective website. Here are a few primary factors to consider for website development:
- Usability
Consider how to make your website more user-friendly. Ease of use is one of the most important factors between visitors staying on your site and leaving as quickly as they arrived. Consider, also, the varied devices people use in viewing websites. A responsive website is designed to be viewed on laptops, tablets, and phones alike, and can further improve user experience on your website. - Good Content
Content is King. We’ve all heard it. Much has been written about the need for good content, and with good reason. People don’t like to be “sold to” by a company as much as they appreciate being related to as a valued partner in business. While there is certainly room on your website for sales-oriented text, be sure to balance that text with content that is more resource-like in nature. - Clean Design
If you’ve spent any time at all on the Internet, you know there are plenty of ineffective websites out there. Sites using outdated technology, Flash®, auto-play, and lots of other unnecessary bells and whistles are among the worst offenders. A website using a clean, easy-to-navigate design, paired with current technology, is a website that holds the attention of visitors.
Just as you would a human sales rep, you have to set goals for your website and track the results in achieving those goals. The criteria for establishing these goals might be a little different than those you would use for a human sales rep, but the bottom line remains the same: Are you earning customers through your efforts?
How do you get a clear picture of your website’s performance?
- Establish Goals
What do you want your visitors to do when they come to your website? Identify those behaviors, and rank them in order of importance. - Set a Baseline
This is where analytics come in. Tools like Google Analytics can help you to see how many visitors your site receives, where those visitors come from, what keywords they use to find you, and what action(s) they took while on your site. - Review and Measure
Reviewing the analytics of your site will help you to fine-tune its’ performance. As you move forward with new product or service offerings and relevant content, tracking the analytics will help you to make the necessary adjustments in relation to your goals.
The beauty of online and digital marketing is that you can measure just about everything. Unfortunately, that means you can measure just about everything.
So where do you start?
At Lieberman Technologies, we use our goals and a baseline to define a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for our website. These KPIs drive our “Review and Measure” cycle. The continual review and assessment of our website’s performance supports our content creation, distribution, and services. A set-it-and-forget-it approach simply doesn’t apply here.
But we don’t just measure. We use these insights to respond to the data and make improvements – calculated decisions to continue the growth of our website and our company. You can expect to see more changes and refinements here at LTnow.com as we respond to these measurements.
So how does this approach to your website support sales?
Next week, Rick, our senior solutions consultant, will provide a salesperson’s perspective on having a website that grows with, impacts, and supports the overall objectives of a company.