Do you know how your website is performing?
When I meet with CEOs and business owners about their websites, many don’t have the answer to this question.
Sure, sometimes the owners give me numbers of visits per month or say they are fifth in the search results. But rankings and traffic do not necessarily translate to sales and revenue – which are the numbers you’re actually going to use to judge your site’s performance.
Do you know if your visitors are taking the desired actions that support your business goals?
Before you talk to anyone about your website, you should have a list of business goals and a clear understanding of how the website will contribute to those goals.
When I give this advice to prospects and existing clients, I think about one specific site that —on one page—asks visitors to sign up for the newsletter, use the store locator, submit a question, watch product videos, and more (in no particular order, without any clear priority for these actions).
Even worse, the company wasn’t tracking any of this activity. So there was no way to tell which action had the biggest impact on the bottom line, or which should be given priority on the site.
The point I’m trying to make is this: Without knowing your business goals and without an understanding of how the website contributes to reaching those goals, how will you know what success looks like for your website?
Figure this out before you talk to anyone about the idea of getting a new website.
Does my business need a new website (or a website redesign)?
If you tell me you want a new website just because it’s a couple years old, you want your logo to be bigger, or you don’t like the colors then I’ll challenge you to take a deeper look.
Here are some questions you really should be asking yourself:
- Are your visitors taking desired actions on your current website? Do you know what those actions are?
- Is the website helping alleviate current business challenges?
- Are your visitors finding information quickly and easily on all devices (desktop, smartphones, and tablets)?
- Do you have an increase in mobile traffic, but your site is not responsive or mobile friendly?
- Do you collect web surveys/research that shows visitors are frustrated using your website?
- Has your business changed and does your website reflect these changes?
- Does my website represent an extension of my physical business location?
At the end of the day, if you can’t answer yes to all of these questions, it’s time to talk redesign.
