A recent study has found that the COVID 19 situation has accelerated our online journey by six years in just four months. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/12/covid-19-accelerated-e-commerce-growth-4-to-6-years/
That is an amazing transformation, and it means that your website is far more important than it was. So it is vital that you are able to answer the simple question:-
“How successful is my website?”
This Step helps you define what a “successful website” means for your business.
Many years ago, a consultant shared a great analogy with me to help me understand what one of my business websites was doing wrong. Their analogy was simple “Think about your website in the same way you would think about your trade stand at a £20,000 exhibition.” (increase or decrease the value until you are uncomfortable spending that much on a single event). If I was planning an exhibition that cost that much, then you can bet that I would have a clear vision on why I was doing it and what I needed to get from it (or be fired!).
You may be selling something to the public on the stand and need to be able to sell £100K of product to justify the expense, or you may be selling services and needed to generate £100K of new business from inquiries to the stand on the day.
Your website is a booth in a very large exhibition.
You need to attract passers-by (web traffic) you need to engage them and interest them (web copy) and then you need them to complete your call to action (buy something or give you their details to continue the discussion at a later date).
Your website is not an online version of your brochure or your life history! Read that again – it is very important.
If you don’t have a goal for your website then imagine this large exhibition with your brochures printed and stacked in a pile on a table in an empty booth. Remember this booth cost you £20K and your job is on the line for the success of this event!
Your success is not determined by how many people saw your brochure (visitors to the website). It will be determined by how many people interacted with you.
Step: Write down the ONE goal for your website
Remember it is a £20K exhibition booth.
Examples and ideas:
- Generate one lead a week that converts into new business.
- Sell £1000 of products a week
- Generate 20 new members of our newsletter service
Don’t fall into the following traps
- “Get 100 visitors a week” – this is a measure of the success of your marketing is not the success of your website.
- “Increase the awareness of my brand” – this works if you are Coke, Apple or Nike but is a fantastic way to waste large amounts of money for small or medium businesses. Impossible to measure and very expensive – if this is your goal – buy some Facebook or Google shares as this is how they make a lot of money from small and medium businesses.
I hope you find this analogy as useful as I have in standing back and thinking about your website. If so (or if not) please add to the comments below.
If you want to improve your website, you must first define what success looks like and then track it! We will look at success tracking in a separate Step.
