Give Your Website a Health Check

...Because Looking Good Just Isn't Enough

Greetings!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Inside Edge--your monthly report on Internet trends and advancements that can turn your business into a more profitable e-Business. In recent times, a lot of attention has been paid to ensuring that an organization’s website reflects its culture, corporate identity and professional work ethic. The result is an abundance of really good looking websites. Maybe your site is one too. In this edition, we urge you to look beyond the surface to the actual "health" of a website. A healthy website should effectively draw greater qualified traffic and influence customer conversion. Read more.

There is no underestimating the power of good looks – a beautifully designed and maintained store, a well-groomed model, a bountiful garden, an aesthetically laid out buffet – all of these will attract attention. So will a great looking website. Provided it is found by the people who are looking for the goods and services it provides. And then goes on to deliver what they need in an efficient manner so that they keep coming back, and bring others along.

With the variety of graphic design software, multimedia technologies and Web designing skills available today, it is fairly easy for a business to have a website that looks good. This is wonderful because you do want your "house in order" before inviting people in. What you don't want is for visitors to come in and find a leaky roof (broken links), shaky furniture (typos and other errors), old, peeling paint (outdated information) and dusty corridors (poor navigation).

It helps to be aware at all times that a website of any nature must have a persuasive purpose. Start by defining your business objectives and matching these to your target customers / audience. Keep in mind, that your audience is profiled primarily on their needs broken down into demographics, psychographics and where they are in the buying cycle (which decides their behaviour on your site). Your goal then is to ensure that every element of your website persuades visitors to take the actions that lead to the delivery of your objectives (conversion). Monitor and measure your results to ensure that your efforts are bringing results. Visitor satisfaction with every click on your site should build confidence until they reach the final click where they convert into a customer. If your Web solution isn't bringing customers through the door and driving profits to your bottom line, it's probably not in good health and it's time you gave it a vitamin boost! Read an industry example.

For instance, customer conversion is pivotal for the success of businesses in the online retail industry. A retail website in need of a "vitamin boost" can benefit from benchmarking against industry best practices. A few basic health checks have emerged as the must-haves for a retail website:

• Must offer estimated delivery times
• Must offer information on the product page regarding in-stock availability
• Must answer an e-mail question within 24 hours
• Retailers that also have physical stores must offer in-store pickup of orders
• Must offer free shipping for certain areas or with bulk orders and special packages
• Must provide shipping costs early in the checkout process
• Must have a checkout process with less than four steps
• Must offer customer reviews

If you have an online store, take a moment to think about how your website would rate on all of the above best practices. Read on to find out how your WSI Consultant can help.

Knowing where on your site and your page is the best place to put your permission request, or your order button to get the most visitors to use them cannot be shown by past Web statistics alone. All the numbers can tell you is how many did or did not click that button. A clear diagnostic can instead determine the "health" of your website and provide useful suggestions on remedial actions for overall improvement. Using the WSI WebScan™ report, your WSI Internet Consultant can give you an accurate picture of:

• Your business' ranking in the top search engines as compared to your competitors'
• A high level review of key elements on your site that may be hindering your business' ability to attract and convert visitors into customers
• Recommendations on what you can do to improve your competitiveness on the Internet

To secure your competitive advantage, contact your local WSI Consultant today to request your WSI WebScan.

This edition of the Inside Edge has been brought to you by Jennifer Green, Certified Internet Consultant. For more information about WSI Internet Solutions for your business contact us today! WSI Conversion Matters London Office: Jennifer Green 1-519-642-3222 611 Wonderland Road North, Suite 102 London, Ontario N6H 5N7 Toronto Office: Jeff Green 1-416-628-8411 2365 Queen St. E., Suite 404 Toronto, Ontario M4E 1H2