More than just a pretty face?

It’s never going to be about how pretty your website looks.

You see, an effective site isn’t about the number of visitors it attracts, it’s about the revenue generated for your business.

And I’m afraid only you know what that needs to be – what you will see in six months’ time that makes it all worth it – and that means you have some homework to do before you begin.

So, who likes maths? Nobody?

I don’t, I’ll admit that, but if you’re having a new website built (or you’re unhappy with the website you have), it all comes down to the numbers – how else can you measure the return on your investment in a new site?

I know this is true because I’ve heard so many clients say, ‘well, I’ll know if I like it’. Or, ‘I’ll know if lots of people go to it’ but (without being too brutal about it), if the till’s not ringing, is it making the difference that you wanted it to? And if you don’t know before you set out on the journey just where you’re trying to get to – you’ll never know if you’ve reached your destination.

It’s the same with your website.

Just think how great it will be when you look at your books and think “That site has already paid for itself – everything after this point is a bonus!”

So how DO you identify exactly what you’d like your website to achieve in the first place? I’ll give you a lovely, super easy formula:

1. You think of a good client – not necessarily the ultimate dream client who’s going to walk in with a million pounds in their pocket, but a good client for you. What’s the value of that good client?

2. Next look at your current website, the number of visits that you get.

SIDENOTE: It’s important to count visits – that’s people, not hits. Hits is a whole techie thing that I could really bore you with, but I’ll try not to. You want visits – the number of real people coming to look at your site

3. Then the kicker; the conversion rate. How many people visiting your site actually purchase, make an inquiry, or book a meeting with you? And how many go on to become paying customers? The difference between visiting and purchasing – that’s your conversion rate.

Knowing these three figures is incredibly powerful, because they hold the key to knowing just how much you should expect your website to generate in terms of actual income – and that should always be more than you sent on it.

Note: this does not mean “get the cheapest site you can”! It means that figuring out your expectations beforehand will help you truly objectively gauge your new website’s success.

For example, take the client we worked with who had a successful ecommerce site – but it wasn’t as successful as they thought it would be. We took the time to find out the Visit number, the Value number and the Conversion number and they were all pretty good, so what had they expected? One Director instantly replied “more visitors” – AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as the other Director said “more sales”! Fact was, they hadn’t started with a clear picture on either figure, so had no benchmark to measure against, PLUS neither of them had looked at conversion.

Having identified their Visits were high and the Value per sale was within reach of most of those visitors, we could instantly see that Conversion was the issue – with hundreds of visitors to the site each week leaving without making a purchase. Designing and implementing a more engaging user experience for their specific target market and removing obstacles from the purchase process saw their Conversion rate QUADRUPLE within 90 days – more than repaying the cost of the work carried out and going on to ever-increasing sales thereafter.

It can be done, and it’s really important to remember that, when you’re setting out, don’t set achievable goals, make them BIG. Let’s have some big, fat goals. (Literally, let’s have some big, FAT goals!) Because you deserve a solution that delivers and exceeds the goals that you’ve set. If you’d like to find out more, please book your free strategy session on our Contact page, so we can find out how we can really get the till ringing and give you a website you love – not just for the looks, but the brains behind it and the difference it makes for your business.