Intendance Series > Chapter 1> ROI: Making your website work

Accountability requires the setting and monitoring of goals, and it is essential to give the website - like any ‘employee’ - the means to reach its goals.

Setting the goals

Setting goals will establish priorities for your website. Consider the website’s purpose and how it is integrated in your overall business model. How do you want the website to contribute to your business? Is your website for purely marketing purposes? Do you want your website to support your clients actively? Is your website a means of attracting and recruiting high quality job applicants? Do you want your website to drive online sales?

The means to reach the goals

The website’s quality and effectiveness is key to achieving its goals and in the first instance the effectiveness of content, usability, design and ‘marketing message’ must be taken in consideration:

Content is not only about the scope of the information made available – basics such as static ‘About Us’ and contact information, through to client briefings delivered via innovative delivery technologies - but also the quality of written copy. You should take in consideration that reading text on a screen requires more effort than on paper, so ‘less is more’. Particular attention should be applied to the quality of the copy writing on the Home page: how informative and accessible the information is both to the human visitor and to search engine ‘spiders’ (see Chapter 2 in this series: SEO: ‘Black Art’ or Pure Science).

The usability of a website concerns the ease and means by which a visitor can reach website content.  This includes amongst other facets: clear navigation, clear hierarchy of content, the inclusion of a sitemap and how much of ‘scrolling’ is required. Closely related to usability is accessibility: the ease with which website content can be reached by those with visual – and other – impairments.

Design is synonymous with the presentation of the website. Is the website professional in look and feel? Does the firm come across as forward thinking? How distinctive is the website? Are the design components original and appealing?

Good design is essential, but it must also be remembered that a website does not exist in isolation and hence must be harmonised with all offline corporate communications: your website’s design must reflect the branding and positioning - or ‘marketing message’ - of your company by ensuring that it reflects your values clearly and consistently and has a clear call to action.

Website management

Once a website goes ‘live’ it must always maintained as current and relevant. Content will vary between sites, but sections to be considered would include company news and publications, new product announcements, job opportunities, corporate information and staffing changes.

Good website management applies also to usability issues. For example, there should be no broken links, navigational changes must be reflected across the site (including the site map) and accessibility compliance must be maintained as new content is added.

Website management also plays a crucial role in helping to establish and maintain a good search engine ranking. Although the rules by which search engines rank websites change constantly, search engines such as Google will look for evidence of content changes as an indication of the topicality of a website, and hence the site’s worthiness of a prominent listing.

Without a proactive website management strategy, that includes a search engine optimisation programme, a website can easily become outdated and 'lost' in search engine listings.

Monitoring

Unlike other media, the performance of a website can be measured exactly and thus a clear indication of its success - the ROI (return on investment) – can be calculated.

Each time an individual visits your organisation’s website, information about their visit can be captured by a website usage monitoring tool and reported in real time online. The statistics generated can be applied to marketing, communications, and sales initiatives: information that can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of search engine optimisation and online marketing campaigns.

Information captured by a website usage tool could include:

• Pages visited following an email campaign - the data will demonstrate the effectiveness of the campaign.
• Traffic levels showing an increase in visits following the publication of a recruitment advertisement, for example.
• Increase in visits following modification of the text of the homepage (text changes can help improve a site’s search engine ranking – see Website Management above).
• The route taken by a website visitor: direct or via a search engine. If so, which search engine and what search terms did they use?

Monitoring your website traffic will also give you the basis to set quantifiable goals, such as:

• Number of visitors to the site
• Number of online sales
• Number of people who sign up for your newsletter
• Number of applications via the recruitment pages
• Number of visits to the FAQ/support pages.

Monitoring website traffic will show how far you are from your goals, and which strategies work.

The information should be fed back into ongoing website development, and appropriate improvements should be applied to the website. This continuous cycle will help derive the best results form your website.

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