In the October Issue:
Having a top-notch website can take your company to new heights in many areas. Among other things, it can increase brand awareness, establish your business as an authority in the industry, and boost overall sales. However, there are many moving parts to a successful, high-performing website. And your job isn’t over when you’ve designed a great site.
Monitoring your business site for server availability, function, page loading speed, and other elements will help keep your company growing. Establishing the proper monitoring tools, and processes, will help reduce the risk of your site crashing, improve search rankings, increase conversion rates, and more.
Knowing Which Metrics to Measure
First, you must know what to look for when monitoring your website. There are many metrics to consider, but we’ll only mention two of the most important ones here.
You could measure the amount of time website visitors stay on your site. This metric is a good indicator of whether you have high-quality or poor content throughout your pages. Also, you can track the transaction/conversion rate to see how many customers are submitting information to the website or purchasing your products or services. These data points and others will provide your team with the necessary insight for enhancing your online presence, brand awareness, and business overall.
Aligning Your Site With Customer Expectations
Ideally, your website will exceed customer expectations. But at the very least, it must meet expectations, and engage your customers enough to move them along the buyer's journey.
One sure-fire way to accomplish that, is to incorporate business process management (BPM) to automate workflows and tasks through data analysis. When administered effectively, BPM will produce valuable insights for re-designing your site to optimize the user experience. We could discuss many tools and techniques in the context of BPM, but start by creating a solid framework, and religiously tracking its impact. As you monitor the framework, be sure to act on the insights, so you can maximize its output.
Protecting Sensitive Information
It seems that the digital space becomes more dangerous by the day. Cybercriminals are not limiting their reach to large corporations, but targeting smaller websites that are less likely to have the necessary systems and protocols in place.
Website security is challenging, even when you have all the right tools. Your company might always be susceptible to vulnerability exploits, malicious scripts, and any number of other potential threats. Regularly updating all areas of your website with the most recent security patches, and installing high-quality defences, are essential.
Improving Performance
You will not know how to improve your website performance, unless you understand how it is currently performing. While many techniques can reveal key performance metrics, regular monitoring will provide you with the most reliable data.
Your site's performance will significantly influence your search rankings and the user experience. Consumers these days will leave your website in seconds, potentially giving their business to your competitors.
Preventing Loss of Revenue
Finally, regularly monitoring your website can help your company prevent a significant loss of revenue. Your site has the potential to reach a wide audience. Many of these visitors are not willing to wait for very long for your web pages to load, and will quickly abandon your site if it’s difficult to navigate. Don’t let that happen — remember that every visitor is a potential customer. Keep your website in service.
Maintaining a stellar website will do wonders for your company's growth strategies and goals. Take time to learn about the various metrics worth measuring, and use BPM, and other disciplines, to better align your site to your target customers. And remember that website monitoring can boost your website's security and performance, while ultimately increasing your company's profits.
Courtney started Gig Spark to be a resource and the first step for people who are looking to join the gig economy, either to supplement their income or as a way to fulfill their dreams of becoming an entrepreneur."
Connect with Courtney HERE!
