JCS Development

You’ve developed, or had somebody develop, a website.  How do you know if it was worth your money to put it online, or to keep paying for maintenance every year?   Simple answer, you measure the results.  But what are the results?  Website hits, sales leads or phone calls?  Well that depends on what your product or service.  Lets look at a couple of examples.

First, lets say you’re a restaurant owner.  How do you know if any of your customers are looking at it.  First, ask them.  I would make it a practice that every time a waiter or waitress takes an order from somebody that they ask how they heard about you and put a note on the ticket.  At the end of the day add up the responses and the ticket value and track it.  You could also put a coupon on your website, or create several and rotate them, it’s fairly easy to do since most hosting accounts have database access, and a good web developer can handle the programming.  Setup the ability to take order by e-mail and be sure and track the dollar amount that comes in with the orders.

Next lets say you’re a home builder.  Setting up a contact form is fairly standard.  But are you asking the right questions?  For instance, how did the customer first hear about you?  Is the customer an individual or a real-estate agent?   Think about ways you can use your website to do more than just advertise.  Can the customer request service, send you documents by e-mail?  Can an architect send you plans?  Those things could make your website investment worth the money.

Finally, keep up with your Search Engine ranking.  Google, Microsoft and others.  This is bound to change over time and if it starts to slip downward look at your trends from the data you’re keeping.  Ask your web developer if there is a way to improve those, or look for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist.  That can be worth every dime you spend on it. 

Marketing without a website these days is virtually impossible, but with a little work you can make the most of every dollar you spend on it.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.