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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