Reviewing Your Website’s Performance in 10 Minutes
May 13, 2009 by Alan Lee
Filed under Web Design
Here’s the situation: your boss stormed into the office this morning and called you to his office. He then gives you 20 minutes to identify any problems with your company’s website and propose solutions. He says that he’s been paying the web designer an ungodly sum every month since 1998 and it’s about time it delivered some returns. And yes, it falls upon you because you are the marketing manager. You spend 5 minutes recovering from that ringing sound in your ear and make a note to get that long overdue analytics package, then proceed to:
Check Contact Forms, RSS Feeds, Shopping Cart
These are usually tied to the KPIs of most websites. They allow users to perform desired actions like subscribing for your email newsletter or even make a purchase from your website. The Javascript and PHP files supporting these functions rarely break down but it’s a good practice to check them from time to time.
Check Last Update
Here’s a webmaster secret. Website performance is tied very closely to the frequency of your updates. If your website has not been updated for a while, chances are that you will experience low traffic. Static sites without updates give little incentive for visitors to return to your site again, effectively “killing” it. Usually in the case of a long-dormant site (more than 1 year), it is a good idea to redesign the site and relaunch it.
Quality Content
Just as important is the quality of your updates. Frequent postings of poor quality content is.. just not a good idea. It may be tough to determine the quality of your content yourself, especially if you’ve had a hand in crafting it. If you have an analytics package you can be able to tell by the number of repeat visitors and the average time spent on site.
Missing Images and Broken Links
Don’t wreck the user experience by having missing images or broken links on your site. This usually happens when you change your site directories or after a revamp of the site. These may also be due to deleted or misnamed files.
Browser Compatibility
Most users in Singapore are still on Internet Explorer, followed closely by Mozilla Firefox. Test your website out in these 2 browsers (at least) to see if your content is displayed correctly and that all your forms and important functions work.
Check for Extra/Redundant Steps
A furniture site I recently visited took 6 clicks for me to get to the tables page, when I felt 3 would have sufficed. Make it easy for your users to find the information they need in the shortest time possible. Another common problem is that of the Flash Introduction ordeal that users are forced to go through every time they visit a site.
XHTML Navigation Menu & Sitemap
On the note of making it easy for your users, your navigation menu is crucial to a good user experience. Decide if you have too little categories or if they are nested too deep. It is good SEO to create a non-image, non-Flash navigation menu since images and Flash content are harder to index for search engines. Also creating a sitemap both helps to give your users an overall view of the content on your website as well as any spiders visiting your site.
Take the remaining 5 minutes to compile your findings, grab a quick cooler break, then present them to your boss. No problemo, amigo.
Web Analytics: Measuring Websites for Success
Web analytics exist because resources are scarce. It is a constant struggle to generate the maximum return out of limited resources, especially time and money. The point of web analytics, or the practice of website analysis, is to provide a forecast of the potential returns based on dedicating X amount of resources to Internet marketing.
Accounting for Ad Spend
If you advertise in a magazine today, one of the first things that you check with the publisher is circulation numbers. You want to know how many readers the magazine has every month, as that will be an indicator of the potential number of readers your ad can reach. You will want to know the demographics of the readers and if they fall within your target group. After the ad has been published you will try to track the response to it, maybe in the form of a cut-out coupon or monitoring sales levels. After the whole exercise, you will decide if the ad has generated a return and whether it is worthwhile to continue advertising (in effect, utilizing limited resources).
Web Analytics = Accounting for Websites
Most websites in Singapore are not designed for accountability, simply because business owners are not aware of web analytics and the benefits it offers. This results in websites built on purely aesthetic factors for the purpose of having an online presence. Since no form of analysis is carried out on such websites, it is not possible to gather information on visitors, their preferences and their online behavior. This leads to 2 undesirable outcomes.
1) You do not know what you are doing wrong on your website. Are certain elements on your website causing you to lose potential customers? Are you directing your resources at elements that do not perform? To be able to rectify any problems, we first have to recognize them.
2) You do not know which elements are converting visitors to customers. Maybe visitors are coming back for your weekly column, maybe because of the promotion through your newsletter, maybe.. By identifying (instead of guessing) the factors that contribute to your success, you can allocate more resources to it and replicate its success consistently.
A Brief Web Analytics Walkthrough
1) We start by providing clients with an idea of the demand of their services online. Like the readership of a magazine, we find out the number of potential customers our Internet marketing efforts can reach. This is also reflective of the number of searches performed in a month for a particular service or product.
2) An initial analysis of the website will show us how it compares to its peers, its standing in the industry, and its online market share.
3) Based on the initial analysis, an Internet marketing plan is drafted and targets are set in actual numbers (number of repeat visitors, search ranking etc).
4) Modifications are made according to the marketing plan.
5) Weekly/monthly reports are generated and used to determine if targets have been met. Using Key Perfomance Indicators (KPIs), we are able to tell why targets were met/not met.
6) We update the marketing plan according to our latest findings and set new targets. Improvements are made to the website, giving visitors more of what they like. Elements that are affecting performance are removed or rectified. Keeping visitors happy eventually turn them into paying customers.
7) Repeat
Start tracking the performance of not just your website, but all of your Internet marketing initiatives today and you will be amazed by the amount of insights it can offer. In a world of homogenized products, business intelligence is the key factor to beating the competition!
Want to gain a competitive edge? Read more about our web analytics solutions.
