Evaulating Web Site Performance
(C) Michael Rasmussen - All Rights Reserved

Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website. To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ÷ 2000 X 100).

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you. In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.


Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!

Go to http://www.search-engines-revealed.com
 

How to Start a Freelance Career
Imagine being able to work from your own home, doing a job you love, and getting paid handsomely for doing it. Millions of people worldwide have established highly-successful careers as freelance professionals. Writers, designers, programmers and many other home-based consultants have discovered that freelancing offers the perfect combination of freedom, creativity, flexibility and profitability. [read more...]

Fast Track Your Journey to Online Success
No one has ever logged onto the Internet for the first time and started pocketing dollars in a really short period of time. As with all things in life, there is a learning curve. [read more...]

Understanding the Difference Between Marketing and Promotion
Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply promote affiliate programs? Marketing is truly the most misunderstood word in use today on the Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue just a bit. [read more...]

How To Measure Advertising Success Online
It is easy for me to tell you that you need to track the success of your online advertising. It is also easy for me to tell you that you must do so in order to know which of your advertising is helping you to make a profit, to break even, or to break the bank. Far too many advertisers get caught in the online money
pits in an effort to develop their online business. [read more...]

Starting Your Home Based Business On A Shoestring Budget
Whether seeking a supplemental income or a full-time income, many folks have undertaken the task to discover a viable home based business solution to meet their personal needs. [read more...]

Your Home Business: Turning Pennies into Dollars
Henry Ford taught us that to simplify the manufacture of automobiles, that the best way to do so was to install the assembly line. That one change revolutionized the auto manufacturing industry permitting the industry to build cars at a cost whereas the average person could afford to buy one. [read more...]

Advertising Your Home Business on a Budget
When you are starting out in a new home business and no one knows who you are, one of the greatest challenges you will face is how to drum up new business. [read more...]

Keeping Your Email Box Organized & Ready for Business
Learning how to get the most organization from your email software is very likely the most important skill you can learn to conduct a successful online home business. [read more...]

Networking Your Home Business within Circles of Influence
When you need an auto mechanic or an air conditioning repairman, where do you turn for help? Sure, some people turn to the yellow pages. But most will turn to friends and family and ask if they know of anyone who can do the work. [read more...]

Understanding the Different Methods of Offline Promotion
No business can survive the long run without some form of consistent advertising. As a result, most business owners will eventually consider using advertising to promote their business. [read more...]

Understanding the Different Methods of Online Promotion
Did you realize there are only three types of online promotion?... This statement may seem odd and even untrue in your mind, but I am speaking in more general terms than you might be thinking.
[read more...]

Promoting Your Business with a Copper Wire? Think Again.
So many people launch their first or second business with the misconception that they can survive without advertising. It is their fear of failure that almost single-handedly assures their failure. They fear spending the money that they need to get and keep their business running during those early years of their operation. [read more...]

How to Win the Advertising and Promotion Game
I am certain that, as a business owner, you have often entertained the question as to how much to spend and where to spend your advertising dollars. For most small business owners, these questions can add to the headaches suffered in the course of normal everyday operations of their business.[read more...]

Tracking Offline Advertising Success by Measuring ROI
The great promise of online advertising has always been that advertisers will now be able to effectively track the successes and failures of their online advertising efforts. This promise has been met. [read more...]

How to Maximize the Value of Your Time
How is your business doing? Is it growing, stagnating or losing ground? If your business is not growing, it could be the result of a poor business idea or plan, a lack of advertising, or the mismanagement of your business’ resources. [read more...]

Follow Our Lead
The Follow Our Lead program is based on empowering people through knowledge and team support along with quality tools and services at affordable prices to give the average person the opportunity to create long term residual income. [click here...]

Global Virtual Opportunities (GVO)
The foundation to every online business starts with great Hosting, incredible marketing tools and systems! Without it, your business can fall apart overnight. If you are a leader in the internet marketing or Network Marketing world then we want YOU on our team! [read more...]

eFoods Global
Building your food reserves for your family is one of the most prudent actions you can take. No one knows what can or will affect the functioning of society or food distribution. With food reserves, you eliminate the worry. [read more about eFoods Global...]

Global Domains International
,Also known as GDI, has exclusive license agreement to distribute the dot WS domains (.WS) which is their main offer to customers. But GDI has actually developed a Multi Level Marketing Strategy to distribute and market these domains. The strategy has worked well, which offers huge potential incomes to members with minimum work and technical knowledge of the internet. GDI pays $1 per signup, which seems to be too little for your effort, but remember GDI pays you on 5 levels, which means that the revenues can add up pretty fast. The cost of GDI is $10 per month. You can sign up for a free trial for 7 days to see if you like it.

30 Days To Success
Step-by-step Internet marketing guide takes you by the hand and walks you along the path to Internet marketing success! If you can follow simple instructions, YOU CAN START EARNING MONEY from the comfort of your home using a personal computer and Internet access... [click here...]

Building a "targeted" Email List of Your Own
Building a quality "targeted" list is the most important thing you can do for your business. This is where the game begins... to find leads or to find people to talk to..." [click here...]

A Swarm Of Traffic To Your Website
There's a new, fully automated traffic-generation system that can send 1000s of targeted prospects to your website, every single day, for FREE! It takes just 5 minutes to set it up, and it's totally "viral"... Check it out and create a FREE account today! [click here...]

I still can't believe I'm doing this...
I've spilled the beans about how ANYONE (no matter who you are OR what your background is) now has the opportunity to build a wildly successful Internet business*... And I've wagered over $68,792 to prove I can show even a complete beginner exactly how it's done! [click here...]

Allen Says' Internet Warriors - The Only Home-Based Marketing Group On The Internet That Has Actually Helped Thousands Of People Start Making Money From Their Homes!
If you have been looking for a way to make money on the Internet from home, you can stop looking....you just found it. I can almost guarantee you have heard about us already, but it's hard to find out who really does come through for you and who doesn't isn't it? [click here...]

Discover The Insider Secrets To These True Internet Marketing Success Stories...
Real people are making $30,000 to $2,000,000 each year with their Internet home-businesses — hear their stories and learn how they did it... Straight from the horse's mouth! [click here...]