Accountability of Your Websites!!

The Internet, as a medium of communication, has risen in importance at a breathtaking rate. Regardless of your industry, it has become a key element of the marketing channels which are used to reach consumers of products or services. It is hardly imaginable that an organization would exist without a website, so the general assumption is that your company has one and that you can be found on the web.

In most organizations the true cost of a website is not always realized, and the development and ongoing management of content is never really considered. Direct costs, such as design and hosting are known by the accounting department – but the hidden costs for ongoing management and updating are rarely given a second thought, yet are very necessary and can often be higher than the original setup charges.

What do you expect of your website?
The general expectation from commercial websites is that they should generate revenue or leads, yet I am amazed by how often this ‘sales’ channel is neglected. So when I ask “Can you show me your last quarter’s website statistics?”, most website owners look bemused!

Yet it is a perfectly reasonable question. If I asked you to give me the same information on the performance of your sales people or your telesales agents, you would be able to produce it in a flash, and most of you can probably recite it from memory! So why don’t you have the same information available on your most hardworking ‘salesman’? After all, unlike your sales team, your website doesn’t have holidays, take a lunch break, get stuck in traffic or go off sick – and it never goes home at night or for the weekend!

How do you hold your website accountable?
Let’s talk some specifics . . .

- Hits on your website = Cold calls. How many did he make?
- Visitors to your website = Appointments. How many did he attend?
- Bounce rate = ‘No thanks, you’re not for us’ responses. How many did he get?
- Website visit length = Appointment length. How much time did he spend in prospect meetings?
- Referring sites = Referrals. Where did his sales leads come from?

Now you can see why this is not the ranting of a madman, but is instead a perfectly rational question. If you don’t know the answers, then you may have just found the leak in your marketing budget.

What’s the solution?

A quality web hosting company like ZNetIndia Hosting will provide you with all of this data and more. In fact, reports from your hosting company are more accurate than Google Analytics – as by Google’s own admission, Analytics only captures a percentage of your traffic.

The statistics which your hosting company can provide come directly from the server, where no traffic can hide! These server statistics can even tell you when Google, Yahoo or a host of other search engines have visited your site. The depth of information is mind-blowing and can be invaluable when planning and designing your website, and when reviewing it on a monthly basis. In fact, if you’re not carrying out regular ‘sales meetings’ with your website, taking it to task every month, then you are quite possibly wasting your money.