When talking to clients about their website I commonly use this analogy: think of your website as another employee. You wouldn’t spend money to hire a team member and then never check their productivity, never check on their output – the worth they provide to the business as a whole. So why spend money on a website and then ignore it?
Unfortunately, many businesses still don’t get it. They think building a website is one thing on a long list of To Dos, when it’s done it’s ticked off and not thought of again.
Today in the Sydney Morning Herald, there is a story “Online Sales reach a trillion“, it’s a big number and easy to gloss over. The story goes on to say that Australia’s part of this one trillion ($USD) is about $US36.2 billion. That again is a big number and should be enough to make you as a website owner think “how much of that revenue came via my website”?
If that’s not enough to get you excited and re-thinking your online strategy here’s another statisitc from the same piece and for me I think is the more important fact because it demonstrates that the ‘buying online’ trend is only getting bigger…
“More than 10 million people, or almost half the population, bought something online in 2012, spending an average of $3,547 per person”
So, what to do?
Get an idea on what is happening on your WordPress site right now.
Each time we publish a WordPress website before we hand over the keys we setup Google Analytics. It is the best way to have a quick health check of the traffic coming to your site as well as what is happening when your visitors arrive. If you’d like to learn more about using Google Analytics talk to us to arrange some training.
If your website was designed and built more then 18 months ago, it’s worth checking that it is keeping up with the changing face of the web. We’ve blogged about Responsive Design a few times in the last year, have a quick review of these posts to ensure you understand what it’s all about. With more and more users visiting your website on smart phones and tablets it’s important that yours performs well on these tools.
Earlier this year there was a similar article “Net customers with a smarter site“, again from the Sydney Morning Herald talking about the huge uptake in mobile traffic and mobile e-commerce – it’s also worth a read to get your inspired!
“I don’t sell anything on my website”
Just because you don’t sell products or services directly via your website does not mean that none of this applies!
Every website has an enquiry form, maybe that’s the unit of measurement for you – how many enquiries are you getting? It doesn’t even have to be about sales or enquires. For more than one of our Digital Marketing clients we promote job vacancies via their website – so for them getting a good candidate on the line is a measurement of success.
Feeling overwhelmed?
We regularly get clients come back to us for advice. All of the partners at TheDMA have started and run online businesses for many years, come and have a chat, perhaps with a little guidance we can get you back on track and help you grab your share of online sales.