|
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
|
Psst!...Have
you Heard the Buzz? 
