Let’s start with a simple question.
How much money has your website made you in the last 3 months?
If you know the answer to that, then that’s fantastic!
If not, no worries, most businesses don’t.
Websites make money right?
Every business that has a website does so in order to make money, and if done properly, your website will do exactly that.
However, lots of businesses can’t actually tell one way or the other.
In fact, in our opinion, this is the case for the majority of smaller businesses.
Why is this a problem?
Maintaining a website requires an investment of time, effort and money.
You’re far more likely to continue to invest in your website if one of these two things is true:
- It’s making you money, you’re tracking things, and you know why.
- It’s not making you money, but you’re tracking things, and you know why.
Investment stops when you’re not tracking and you have no idea if your website is making you money.
And one thing’s for sure. Websites that are not invested in do not make money!
Why don’t businesses know this information?
Quite often, businesses get a website and mistakenly think that’s the end of the journey.
However, content needs to be continually created and things must be tracked.
The old adage of what gets measured, gets managed is very applicable when it comes to websites.
What gets measured, gets managed
Tracking is great with websites.
If you have one that is not performing, you change things a bit, track, then look at results.
Then rinse and repeat until you are successful.
Not particularly complicated, but also something very few businesses do.
But tracking is complicated right?
It isn’t really, but it definitely feels that way.
Logging into a Google Analytics or Google Search Console dashboard can be overwhelming and whilst we highly recommend using those tools you can start much simpler.
A really simple example for website forms
1. Track your enquiries
If you have an enquiry form on your website, then create a very basic spreadsheet with 4 columns like the one below.
| Date | Source | Became customer? | Sale value (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Jan | Website form | Yes | 600 |
| 6 Jan | Website form | No | 0 |
| 10 Jan | Website form | Yes | 400 |
| 14 Jan | Website form | No | 0 |
| 20 Jan | Website form | Yes | 500 |
2. Work out totals for the month
- Enquiries from form = 5
- Customers = 3
- Total revenue = £1500
3. Work our conversion rate
3 (customers) / 5 (enquiries) = 60%
4. Work out the value of one enquiry
£1500 / 5 = £300 per enquiry
5. Take a high level look
Now you can project somewhat, if I get 20 enquiries next month, then I can expect to make £6000.
Having even that small amount of hard evidence is really motivating in terms of investing some time into your website or marketing.
Also, you’re going to want to understand why people who filled in your form didn’t become customers.
This normally comes down to in-house processes such as how quickly you get back in contact with people once an enquiry is received.
What if my form is getting no enquiries?
Websites need fine tuning so don’t panic.
It’s simply time to do some investigation.
Some steps to follow would be:
- Is anyone actually visiting the page with the form?
- Is the form working?
- Is the form easy to find and easy to use on both desktop and mobile.
- Is it clear why a visitor needs to fill in the form?
- Is the form too long?
- Is it asking for too many compulsory details?
Action, track, repeat if necessary
Once you have investigated the above, actioned any issues, then you can track again.
If you’re still seeing no submissions then the next logical steps would be:
- Add a telephone number and email link and track those too.
- Add the form to ‘high-performing’ pages.
The point is, everything should be trackable.
Data is more valuable than opinions
You may have an opinion on why things are working or not working, but the great thing about websites is they provide the data that you need to take the guess work out of things.
Of course it feels like a pain, but guess what.
When you’re tracking things and things are going wrong, you’re getting an insight into what needs to be fixed.
And when you’re tracking and things go right then that’s very motivating.
You now have a recipe for success.
Personally we love that light bulb moment when clients see the benefits of tracking what’s going on within their websites.
If you’re website is underperfoming in general then you will need a more robust approach to improving your website, but tracking will still be an essential part of that.
Tracking the right things – a simple example
Whether it’s you doing it yourself, us, or a third-party, ensure that the right things are being tracked.
Traffic is not necessarily money
One of the things you can tell very quickly with a free Google Analytics account is how much traffic is going to your website.
However, an increase in traffic does not mean an increase in money generated.
Quality not quantity
All businesses should value quality over quantity when it comes to traffic.
As web designers and web developers, we are looking for customers with high intent to purchase those services.
We’d rather have 10 visits to our site a month with that kind of intent than 10000 visits from people who are never likely to become a customer.
How can you tell if traffic is quality?
There are some key things you can look out for which include:
- Visitor looks at multiple pages.
- Time spent on services / pricing pages.
- Forms are filled out.
- Scroll depth on important content.
- Returning visitors.
On the flip side things to be wary of are:
- Bounce rate near 100%. Bounce rate is how many visitors leave after looking at a single page.
- Visitors spending less than 15 seconds on your website.
- No interaction at all.
Always ask how a customer found you
Another very common issue is that businesses don’t ask every customer whether they visited their website during any stage of their purchase journey.
They might have come to you via ‘word of mouth’ but if they visited the website at some point and then gave you a call saying a friend recommended you, then you need to know that information.
Sure they didn’t fill in a form, but your website did play an essential role in them becoming a customer.
At the very least create another basic spreadsheet to record this information.
Summary
When you decide to get a website, your web developer should be talking with you about tracking upfront, and now that you are in the know, vice versa.
Without tracking, and the hard data that comes with it, opinions can drive ‘improvements’.
You can track things by yourself for sure, but we are also happy to do this on your behalf if you would rather not have to worry about it.
It’s certainly a conversation that we have with all our clients who are interested in making money from their websites.