Assessing the Benefit of Going Digital



Your website's performance is primarily linked to your business's overall success. This is because consumers want to utilize all the information available to them before committing to a sale. Thanks to modern technology, consumers have a much broader selection of options to choose from. In addition, with the expansive reach of online spaces, they can compare different brands from local or international vendors. It's a feat they can achieve by reading customer reviews, browsing social media profiles, and checking a company's website.

Besides the benefit of increased online visibility, maintaining a business website also lets you track the different interactions on your site. This can be the number of people coming in from a specific region or the conversion rate of consumers going down your sales funnel. These engagements are automatically recorded to give you an expansive set of data to analyze and interpret. You'll find more success if you know how to read and interpret these figures.

Aligning Your Website with Your Company's Business Model

Every business has a particular goal to reach, which means the necessary metrics you need to measure will vary. For example, an eCommerce website will be more focused on tracking marketing channels and the spread of social shares for greater visibility. On the other hand, news blogs will focus on content engagement and newsletter signups for better search engine results page (SERP) rankings. Identifying what your company values will lead you to the proper maintenance and execution of your business model.

Once you have your company's plan aligned, you'll have better chances of successfully identifying which KPIs you should regard as notable metrics. Remember that you need to set your sights on the correct performance metrics to track relevant performance.

In this article, we'll share the three fundamental site features you should invest in.

1. Usability

No amount of relevant content and compelling product offers will make your website appealing to consumers who can't easily navigate your web pages. This is why usability should be the number one priority on your list of KPIs. While customer satisfaction can be difficult to gauge, even with surveys and reviews, you can identify some site elements that lead to a positive response in usability. Listed below are three values you need to consider:

• Task Success Rate: This assesses the percentage of users that complete critical tasks on your site. This should point toward closing a sale from a call-to-action on your landing pages.
• Error Rates: In contrast to the metric above, error rates will determine the number of errors a user makes when completing a task. This is commonly due to unchecked boxes, unfilled sections, or misspelled input. Look for ways to streamline these items to reduce online user action. A viable response would be to have a dropdown menu of select options or radio buttons of predetermined answers.
• Task Completion Times: Regarding the statistics above, you need to check the time it takes to accomplish these specific tasks. As a general rule, tasks that take too long to complete rank lower in search engine rankings and can cause a dip in your landing pages' performance.

Besides tracking the metrics above, you can also use the System Usability Scale (SUS) and Task Performance Indicator as online references to gauge your site's usability. Utilizing these online resources will give you a general understanding of the proper way of designing user-friendly websites.

2. User Engagement

Besides determining the accessibility of your site, you also need to check how well your landing pages fare with online users. Unfortunately, many business owners become sidetracked by committing to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Because of this, their websites come off as robotic and too made-for-AI in terms of the site's composition. Although it's essential to value the role of SEO in SERP rankings, you shouldn't undermine the impact of online users on your site.

An online visitor's interaction with your site will play a crucial role in the success of your business model. At the very least, your online visitors should be engaged with the content of your website. This is measurable through the time they spend listening to audio ads or watching videos on your homepage.

Afterward, a user's first impressions are measurable in the time it takes for a user to react after loading the entire landing page. Again, keep in mind that the wording and position of your CTA may affect this value.

Finally, interactions and interaction depths will define how well your online visitors engage with your site. This is measurable through likes, comments, and shares of your site to other platforms.

The better your online engagement is, the higher you will rank for goals aligned with brand awareness and expanded online visibility. However, you shouldn't correlate increased brand visibility with higher profit margins. Otherwise, you will misconstrue more likes and followers as equating to a successful business. Remember that sales conversions are the end goal of all your online marketing efforts.

3. Customer Conversion

Your site's conversion rates will dictate how effective your site is in turning marketing channels into sales figures. You can measure these through actions that directly lead to transactional choices, like checking out a shopping cart or signing up for a paid subscription.

It's generally easier to measure the performance of eCommerce sites by following product sales. However, it may be more complicated to assess the metrics of service companies. This is because generated leads won't always lead to qualified leads. For this reason, you need to cross-reference your mailing lists and prospects with your qualified leads. This ensures that you're not overestimating your metrics.

Remember that it will not do well to generate false beliefs about your company. If you overshoot your company's projections and current performance, the consequences will be much higher than the price of patting yourself on the back.

Conclusion

Regardless of your establishment's business goals, you'll generally read a mix of the three features above to measure your website's success. Remain true to your measured values, no matter how high or low they are. Knowing which specific metrics to assess will motivate you to do better in areas you're lacking and keep on with the ones you're already good at.

Thankfully, you can partner with experts to create, revise, and monitor your site's performance. The Stack Group is a diverse web design agency committed to delivering the right changes and adjustments to give businesses a better-performing site. Contact our web design experts today!