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How To Measure Your Website's Perf0Rmance
Written by Charlie Cook
Do you know how to get the numbers you need to accurately evaluate the performance of your companys website? Before selling one of my early sites, I had no idea.
In the late 90s I had a web site Id developed that was getting well over a million hits and over three hundred thousand page views a month. When ZDNet approached me about buying the site. I thought Id hit the jackpot and that it must be worth tens of millions. Before we even started negotiating on price, though, they wanted to run a test on my site by adding code to the homepage so they could do their own evaluation.
The numbers I had been tracking, hits and pages views, didnt help them determine the value of the site. Hits are the number of individual gifs and items that load each time someone visits a page. Page views tell you how frequently different parts of your site are being seen, but you could have a large number of page views triggered by a small audience.
ZDNet wanted to put tracking code on my homepage to determine the number of unique visitors to my site. This would tell them how many visitors I was attracting per month and what percentage of these were unique visitors; new visitors who hadnt already been to my site or visited one of their own sites.
The more unique visitors you are attracting to your site the better, but you could attract a zillion visitors a month and it wouldnt help you at all if none of them contacted you or bought from you or at least clicked on the ads on your site. The key question in evaluating your web sites performance is:
What percentage of site visitors take the action or actions you want them to take, whether it is subscribing to your newsletter, emailing you, calling you to inquire about your services or making a purchase?
To evaluate your sites performance first look at your web usage statistics to identify the number of unique visitors your site receives each month. Once you have this number, divide it by the number of people who took the action you wanted them to take. This is your sites conversion rate and is the second number you want to look at each month to determine how well your site is performing.
Lets say that you had thirty thousand unique visitors each month and generated 30 sales. Your conversion rate would be one-tenth of a percent. If you generated 300 sales, your conversion rate would be one percent. A 1% percent conversion rate is a healthy rate for most businesses on the web.
If you offer a free newsletter, your objective is to get as many people as possible to sign up for it, to maximize your conversion rate. While you may only get 1% of people to buy your products during a given month you should be able to get 5-15% of site visitors to give you their contact information so you can stay in touch with them.
Try the Free Web Site Conversion Calculator with this link. http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/marketing-calculator4.html
Want to increase your web sales?
1. Increase the number of unique visitors to your site.
2. Get more people to contact you and buy from you.
Track your conversion rate as a first step to identifying where and how you can increase your online profits.
2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Strategy eBook, 7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
ccook@marketingforsuccess.com
Additional Articles by Charlie Cook
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Building Web Pages That Move People To Buy
Catch More Clients Using Strategic Networking
Creating Marketing Fireworks
Creating Sales Conversations
Explaining What You Do in 15 Seconds
Frugal Marketing
Get Business Now Play by the Marketing Rules
Getting Lucky with Systematic marketing
Getting Noticed by the Search Engines
GOT MEME How to Attract Your Clients and Customers Attention
How to Avoid the Marketing Blues with Your Offers
How To Generate Leads And Grow Your Business
How to Get the Right Clients and Avoid the Wrong Ones
How to Grab Attention with your Headlines
How to Keep Your Business Healthy
Is Your Marketing Full of Holes
Is Your Marketing Message Holding You Back
Is Your Marketing Strategy Killing Your Profits
Let Your Mistakes Improve Your Marketing And Your Profits
Marketing Smarter to Earn More
Moving Beyond Marketing Rituals to Increase Profits
Open the Door to More Business with Your Ideas
Overcoming Objections to Price
Overcoming Your Biggest Marketing Obstacle
Removing Obstacles to Sales
Shift to Full Power Marketing
The Key to Eliminating Objections and Increasing Sales
Use Product Research to Position Yourself as the Expert
Using Your Web Site to Grow Your Business
What Is the Most Effective Way to Advertise
What Is Your Marketing Really Costing You
WHERE TO FOCUS YOUR MARKETING
Which Of These Words Attract Your Clients
Why Some Web Sites Sell and Others Dont
Marketing Tricks or Treats
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