What Makes Your Website Successful?

Submitted by: Adam Quinn, Marketing Coordinator, VQC Designs, LLC

You signed up, paid the deposit, let the developer do his thing and now you have one of the most dashing websites floating around the web. However, this masterpiece remains unknown, mixed in with thousands of other lonely, traffic starved sites. Being successful online is more than just looking good; it requires an understanding of your goals, taking steps to achieve them and sound metrics to measure your achievements.

Establishing Goals

Your goals should be framed around this question: What action do I want visitors to my website to take? Actions on the web range from clicking a “call me” button to reading a page's content to adding an item to an online shopping cart. Defining the desired action sets the stage for pinpointing the overall goals of your website in a measurable fashion.

The following are examples of the goal/action relationship:

Goal: Build brand awareness.
Desired Action: Having visitors interact with pages on the website. Interaction creates stronger associations and leads to greater awareness about the brand.

Goal: Saving time by using web-based automation.
Desired Action: Having visitors fill out a form online to reduce time spent handling requests or phone calls.

Goal: Generate sales.
Desired Action: Having visitors gather information from the website or actually purchase products from the website.

Creating the Right Mix

A few key ingredients are necessary for a successful and effective web presence. First, your website needs a healthy dose of traffic. With no visitors to your site, it is as quiet as the tree that falls in the deserted woods. Mix in an effective site which calls visitors to action and you'll have a sweet Conversion Rate. Conversion rate measures the amount of action being done by your traffic. Managing and understanding this mix will help quantify the progress towards your goals. However, to understand this rate you must have a strong plan for measurement.

Measuring Your Success

Through online analytical software all necessary data can be acquired. The trick is understanding how to apply what you're measuring to your goals and actions. Certain actions measure easily—a customer buys a product, the purchase is tracked in your online shopping cart, et Voila!, you have distinct numbers for that action.

On the other hand, certain actions require qualitative analysis. Measuring value, for example, requires a look into how users are interacting with your page. Reviewing data such as “unique-visitors,” “page views” and “bounce rate” give insight into how many new visitors your site attracts, how deep they are going into your site and how many are sticking.

Aggregating this information together into your website plan is key to your success. Don't let your web designer's masterpiece just float around in cyber-space. Take action towards having your site focused, goal-oriented and providing you a return on your investment.

VQC Designs will be hosting a free seminar to address the above topics in greater detail. The seminar, “Tips to Increase Traffic” will be held on July 14th from 9am to 11am in the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. If interested please register on VQC's website via this link: http://vqcdesigns.com/events/details/41-vqc-designs-philadelphia-internet-marketing-seminar.html

VQC Designs specializes in building custom web solutions and marketing strategies to aide businesses' online success. Our goal is our clients' online success.