A Good Web Site Is a Web Site That Works!

How can you know if your web site is a good website, or what is a good website? A good website is a website that works, if you have created your website to sell some products, you can say that your website is a good website if it does sell products.

• But are you selling as many products as a good website sells, or you are only selling a few products now and then?
• Are your sales pages good enouth to consider your website a good website?
• Do you have enough visitors to your website to consider it a good website?
• Do you have enough return traffic or all your visitors are first time visitors?
• Do your visitors stay enough time to consider your website a good website?
• How can you know for sure if your website is a good website?
• What kind of questions should you be making to yourself to know if your webite is a good website

ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO KNOW IF YOUR WEBSITE IS A GOOD WEBSITE

• Who cares?
• What are you looking for?
• What kind of visitors do you have?
• Which is your priority?
• How should you mesure your success?

WHO CARES?

If the website belongs to a company, then the web pages don´t belong to a single person, there´s not only one person that can say if you have a good website, so you will have to round up the people that are vitally interested You will find the techno-geeks, the sales people, the public relations people, etc. etc. and everyone of them will have their own idea of what is a good website. But once again as the website belongs to ALL the company, the people on your company who care enough to judge the website, should be asked to join the team and take some responsability about the design of the website.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Every one of the people who cares about the website will have their own idea of what they want out of a good website. Many of them will just be talking on behalf of their own departments, but you must force them to think on behalf of the company. Every department can have their own objetives, goals and aspirations, every one has his own idea about what is a good website, but they need to think as a company, and the conclusion must satisfy most of them, and if you can, your must create a good webpage for all of them.

WHAT KIND OF VISITORS DO YOU HAVE?

 Every website has first time visitors, returning visitors, curious, buyers, people that arrived by mistake, people that spend a short time at the website, people that spend a long time at the website, etc. What kind of visitors do you want, the ones that show more often, the ones that read the most pages, buys more stuff, buys more frequently or spend the most money? Which are the most important visitors for your company, to think that you have a good website? Once you get them you can be satisfied that your site is a good website

WHICH IS YOUR PRIORITY?

Once you know what everybody wants, you will have to prioritize everybody´s goals. Will you go after increasing visits, selling more products per visit, provide more information about the company and it´s products, improving customer satisfaction. After a discussion that will depend on how many people is giving their own opinion about what cares most, you´ll end up with your own list of priorities, and the ones that will not be satisfied with their request, at leas will know why.

HOW SHOULD YOU MESURE YOUR SUCCESS?

How can you be sure that the numbers that you are getting are telling you that your site is a good website, It depends...

• If your main priority is to get visitors, then www.Alexa.com and it´s ranking can help you on that, but you can also use some javacript and or cookies.
• If your main goal is revenue then the sales will have the leading voice.
• If you are going after customer satisfaction then you must agree with the other members of your company how will you gather satisfaction data and how will you weigh it.

All the information that you gather must help you take business decisions. It´s not a matter of getting as much information as you can, because too much information can be as bad as not enough information. Make sure that you keep on measuring your success, make it part of a constant improvement process, because the web changes month after month. Then you´ll really be able to tell if your website is a good website Written by Dr. Roberto A. Bonomi