Benchmarking: how does your website compare?
Benchmarking is the most cost-effective way of improving your website, without the need to reinvent the wheel. Benchmarking is an outward comparative exercise, which enables you to learn constructively from the efforts of others and to experience and incorporate lessons learnt by successful organisations. This exercise can be repeated at intervals to build up a series of snapshots so that emerging trends can be identified and monitored.
A website has a life cycle of approximately 3 years, after which time improved web technology, design trends and new internal business requirements can make it obsolete. Organisations are faced with the challenge of reinventing and improving their website on a regular basis to remain competitive. Benchmarking your website will provide an essential means of evaluating your website objectively against its peers, identifying areas of improvement and most importantly to benefit from the experience of others.
What is benchmarking?
Benchmarking is a process that compares business activities within similar environments in order to identify opportunities for improvement. It is a process used in management - and particularly in strategic management - whereby organisations evaluate their processes in relation to recognised best practice principles, usually from within their own sector.
Website benchmarking methodology?
Website benchmarking follows similar steps that are applied in assessing the performance of any business activity: select a number of websites to compare against you own, identify which elements of your website you want to compare (for example, content delivery) and then use the results to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your website. Finally, and most importantly, implement the required website changes to address the revealed weaknesses.
Which websites to select for comparison?
By definition, benchmarking will be successful only when comparing ‘like with like’ – or as close to as is possible. In the case of a website, compare websites in the same industry sector, belonging to similar companies of a comparable size and with analogous business processes.
Comparisons can be made between similarly structured sectors – for example, organisations that are based on a partnership structure – and useful lessons learned. Accountants might learn from the online activities of lawyers; architects from the activities of surveyors. Whatever parameters are chosen it is highly recommended to focus on the leaders in their field. They will be the best practice standard bearers to follow.
Which website elements to compare?
Benchmarking can help to asses almost any aspect of a website, so it is important to identify process accordingly.
Ask yourself: what is the general purpose of your website? Is it a tool to improve your business? Is it to support the development of products and services? To provide after-sales service? To manage client accounts and other external relationships? Is it to communicate corporate information and support investors? Or just a general PR vehicle? This is not necessarily a mutually exclusive list…
Once you have identified the business objective(s) of your website, you can then identify the essential components of your website for comparison. For instance, if the business objective of your website is to communicate corporate information to investors and stakeholders, the site should interest and support investors, enhance your corporate image and culture, and make it easy for investors to find and extract information. In this example comparisons could be made on the basis of the presence (or absence) of the following elements:
- Investor relations information including share price data, financial reports, financial indicators and analysis by third parties
- PR: chairman’s message, mission, values, CSR information, press reviews and press releases
- Expertise: portfolio of achievements, awards and distinctions, testimonials, ISO and other accreditations
- Navigability: site map, tab bar or navigation menu, path followed (breadcrumbs), intuitive search tools and other navigational aids.
Identifying - and closing - the performance gap
The benchmarking exercise will:
- Demonstrate how you compare alongside your peers
- Highlight relative strengths and weaknesses of your website
- Provide a clear, objective assessment of site performance
- Identify best-practice gaps and how to close them
Benchmarking is a key part of a website strategy, but remember that it will ultimately prove a waste of time and money unless there is a commitment to act upon its findings.
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