Optimisation Essentials
The following essentials simply must be in place before you can start making improvements to your website's performance.
Essential #1: Clear Goals
If you want to see good return on investment from your website you must define a clear set of goals. Start by asking the most important question:
"What could my website be doing for me?"
Really question how much more your website could be doing for you. If you had the best website in your industry what impact would it have on your business?
One Big Goal
We recommend starting with at least one "Big Goal" for your website which should align perfectly with the aims of your business.
Once you know what you want from your website at the highest level develop a series of "little goals" that combine to deliver your "Big Goal". All of your website goals should work into a logical picture that will deliver value to your business. If some of your goals don't fit into this picture it might be time to reconsider them.
If you're already thinking about your website goals why not speak to us about them before finalising your website strategy.
Read the 5 Golden Rules of Website Goals
Essential #2: Website Analytics
The data that is collected as people use your website can be as valuable as diamonds so it's a very good idea to make sure you're collecting that data well.
However, it's only valuable if it's presented (cut and polished, if you will) in a meaningful way so it's an even better idea to make sure you're using a great analytics package and you know how to interpret the data it captures.
Is analytics your chief advisor?
The data collected by your analytics package should be the starting 'point of reference' for all decision-making regarding improvements to your site. If you mine it properly it will tell you everything you need to know about visitor activity on your site. Analytics should be your chief website advisor and one of your best friends.
See our 5 Big Reasons Why Website Analytics Should Be Your Best Friend
"Which analytics package?"
We strongly recommend Google Analytics which is free and powerful, although there are many other good analytics options available which do the job very well.
See our Why Choose Google Analytics? page for reasons why Google is the best place to start.
Essential #3: Conversion Tracking
It's important to have an analytics package telling you how many visitors are coming to your site, where they came from and how they got there.
It's absolutely critical to know how many of your visitors actually used your website in the way you wanted them to.
- Did they fill in the form you wanted them to?
- Did they buy any of your products?
- Did they download a white paper?
- Did they submit an online enquiry?
This is where conversion tracking comes in. A goal conversion 'happens' when a visitor completes a desired action (such as one of the above). Conversion tracking logs each of these instances.
"Where is the highest level of ROI coming from?"
Conversion tracking will give you critical information on the exact level of return on investment you are receiving from each of your advertising channels. This means you can spend your budgets much more effectively.
If you don't track conversions you'll never know how many of your visitors are doing what you want them to do.
Conversion tracking is the final, essential piece of the puzzle. It will allow you to directly measure the ratio of successful visits to total visits; in other words, your conversion rate.
Get in touch with us for more information on how to set-up conversion tracking on your site.
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