How can I determine how successful my web site is? How productive is it?

These are questions that we are asked all of the time by our clients. The answers are probably different for each individual client, but I will try to outline some ways that Visionary Enterprises can help you determine how successful your site is and how productive it is (in reality these are one and the same question).

#1 From the first launch of your new site or re-designed site set goals for your site like: I want to get x hits by x date or I want to do x amount of sales by x date. Visionary Enterprises can assist clients in setting realistic goals and a plan for measuring and meeting these goals.
A) Measuring hits or visits to your site – Every hosting account we setup has measurable logs in the form of Webalizer Statistics. We can customize these stats pages to reveal the information that is most useful to our clients.
1) Sometimes number of visits isn’t as important as WHO is visiting and whether those visits turn into sales or contacts. Visionary can assist in helping you determine the success of these visits to your site.
2) Some of the new pay-per-click advertising services such as Google and Yahoo! have code that you can use to track visitors to your site from their service. In particular they allow you to track contacts or sales that are made as a direct result of visits from your pay-per-click advertising – this in effect allows you to literally see and estimate the impact of your advertising dollars.
3) Visionary can assist clients in determining their advertising productivity and develop a means for getting these results. This used to mean putting a question on your contact or shopping form asking where a user heard about your site (no one really tracked this information it was just nice to know). Now there are technologies that allow us to help you estimate not only where a user came from to place an order on your site, but how much that user cost you in advertising dollars to make that sale.

#2 Determine how you are going to track the productivity of your site
A) For some clients getting lots of traffic is key to making their site productive – for other clients number of sales – and for still others generating the most traffic/sales for their money is most beneficial.
B) Having set goals and an outline of what productivity means to you are esential to getting what you want out of your site.
1) Visionary Enterprises can assist clients in listing and mapping goals for their site and then tracking the results of these goals to determine the overall productivity of their site.
2) It is first and foremost important to set attainable goals and measurable results and then to track these as accurately and consistently as possible.
C) Determining how and at what intervals you are going to measure your site’s productivity is very important.
1) We have had clients who say things like “I want 10,000 visits a day within the first three months my site is up.” This is very unrealistic. Visionary Enterprises can help you determine what are realistic goals for your site in your industry and can help you compare results to similar sites.
2) Determining intervals of measurement is important as well. To be honest, some days sites do well and some days they don’t. Why? Much of it depends on your industry and who your target audience is.

#3 And speaking of target audiences that brings us to our final productivity tool/hint: Determine your target audience up front.
A) Make sure you know who your target audience is – age, gender, race, status, educational level etc.
1) Visionary Enterprises does not condone the production of websites that excludes or demoralizes any of the above demographic categories, but you should know who your target audience is going to be or is.
2) If you are selling jeans and 90% of the people that visit your site are people who make less than 10% of all jean purchases then you are doing something wrong. If you are selling rock music that is load and the primary audience you are looking for is male between the ages of 16 and 20 and most of the people visiting your site are 60 and female then you are doing something wrong.
B) Visionary Enterprises can assist you in determining not only how many people are coming to your site, but who they really are, what their interests are, etc.
1) How can we do this?
a) Using polls that offer a % off for completion
b) Using demographic information as part of the signup process
c) Using coupons that are used in specific ad campaigns etc.

There are many ways to determine if your site is productive and many ways of determining what is productive for your company or site. Visionary Enterprises is capable of helping you determine the success of your site as it relates to an advertising campaign, the launch of a re-designed site or a new product or just the overall effectiveness of your marketing.

Visionary works with marketing companies all over the world when asked. We can work with your marketing agency, division or firm to find out how your overall marketing strategy is working with regards to your site.

Call us today at 260-569-0260 to determine how we can assist you in determining the productivity of your web site.