Evestigio

Website Return on Investment (ROI) Design a website that calls your visitors to take action. This will maximise your ROI.

There is much to view on the Internet concerning the subject of ‘Search', Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing etc.

If you want to maximise your Return on Investment (ROI) from your website, make sure that you have designed a website that calls your visitors to take action.

Do not overlook content and navigation optimisation.

You can maximise your website return on investment if you ensure that you are getting the most from the visitors that you do attract.

Follow these 5 steps to success and measure often:

1. Create objective goals. Also known as key activities.

2. Generate the first click. The first towards a conversion. 

3. Call your audience to action. Make this call on every page.

4. Create a simple conversion path. A direct line approach.

5. Measure site performance. Experiment with new formats.

Create objective goals. Much has changed in the measurement

of a websites success.  As technology has evolved so have methodologies. No longer do practitioner's use measurements of ‘clickthroughs' ‘user experience' and ‘usability' in isolation.

Website Return on Investment is measured by the number of conversions that your website achieves. Importantly, this is the frequency or the number given to those visitors that reach your desired goals.

Goals are those activities that satisfy a business objective. Hence the phrase ‘create objective goals'. Without understanding and setting objective goals, you will have no way of measuring your website Return On Investment.

Importantly, if you haven't designed in these ‘objective goals' then it is most likely the case that you will have failed to create those connection points that you really want  your visitors, prospects and customers to find.

Generate the first click. It is important to design in and incorporate in every entry page, opportunities for the visitor to click deeper into your site or to click towards one of your conversion goals. 

If you do not provide these opportunities then the visitor will probably leave. So it is extremely important to ensure that the visitors first click will be on a conversion goal or a click that is navigating through a conversion path. Remember to measure navigation paths by using a site statistics package.

Once you get familiar with your statistical package, look at bounce rates. These are those visitors that you lose from each entry page. Look at what you can change to get the bounce rate down and keep rates low by revisiting this activity.

Don't forget to look at each entry page and its traffic. This

activity will help you find out where your visitors go, how frequently they visit certain pages and what numbers i.e. the conversion percentages,  actually convert their visit to a call to action.

It is likely that your Home page will be the entry page for many visitors. Make sure that your visitors are clear as to where they

can navigate to by using such phrases as ‘Sign Up', ‘Browse',

‘Contact us' etc. Try and get that first click to conversion.

Many websites do not sell a product or service over the Internet.

This does not mean that you should avoid understanding objective goals or the value that each objective goal can have

for your business.

For an e-commerce website or a sales objective, take the

value of the transaction and use this to help calculate a

Return On Investment for each objective goal.

For other types of websites or those with different objective goals, set a value for and against each objective goal. This way you can calculate the Return On Investment.

Applying this thinking to the design phase of your website will help you to consider how the visitor will navigate through your website and what each visitor represents in value terms.

Call your audience to Action. The conversion path is the right

place to call your visitors to action. These are familiar terms that we recognise, once we are reminded of them, examples are:

‘buy now'  ‘add to shopping cart'  ‘compare'  ‘next' ‘learn more'. 

Don't forget to include signposts within your site. Many website visitors are now familiar with sitemaps, but don't leave anything

to chance, always let them know what they can do next. Finally, ensure that there are calls to action on every page.

Create a simple conversion path. Make it as easy as possible

for the visitor to reach the objective. The sooner this is made possible, the more time the visitor will have to consider the offer and convert.

Many objective goals will require that you set different steps

along the conversion path. Just be clear in your own mind as

to how much information you need to provide.

Try not to cloud the offer or the process with too much information.

Likewise make sure that there is sufficient detail to help the

visitor make up their own mind to convert on the objective goal.

If in doubt, get a few friends to read the relevant page and don't

forget to check the site statistics package. This should become

a regular management activity.

Measure site performance. Get your site into a position where

you are confident that you have a content optimised website.

Then consider site traffic reporting. Your highest Return On

Investment will be possible if you use site traffic tracking in

conjunction with marketing reports. This combination will allow

you to see the effect of ad or e-mail campaigns as well as the

impact of the keywords that you have chosen. 

Remember, content optimization doesn't mean that you can

forget aboutmarketing. Both elements are important in attracting

visitors and then turning those visitors into customers.  

If you need a hand with content optimization or marketing

contact us or telephone us on 01789 740182  Over to you!