Forget to Measure the Impact of your Web Design or Website?

Where’s the accountability on the part of web design companies and traditional agencies? For the most part, they both position themselves as being able to design the website or execute on the marketing after the launch. Most internet marketing companies generally focus on everything related to internet marketing or online promotions. Don’t get me wrong, many of the traditional agencies do very good work. The challenge is that our clients rarely hold the web design or advertising agency accountable for the performance of the website. In this day and age, the website is a critical element of both traditional and internet marketing promotions because customers and prospects review the website for information.

For web design projects, most clients have specific goals and objectives that they would like to accomplish with the launch or redesign of a website. The design of the website should focus on achieving the client’s goals and objectives; however, the majority of the web designers or traditional agencies ride off into the sunset with the client’s money and on to the next project without evaluating whether or not they helped to achieve their end goals. This is an injustice to the client and any other projects that involves promoting the website!

We wouldn’t know about your clients, but we can tell you that our clients want value and for us, as their internet marketing company, to demonstrate return-on-investment. We would have to say that as a business owner, we agree with the need to show value and ROI. But, where’s the value and ROI of the non-functional and that “Web -2.0 thing” your agency or web designer calls a website? We have worked with, for, and partnered with numerous “BIG Name” agencies in the Philadelphia and Cleveland area, but we’ve yet to see or hear of any agency coming back for an end of year evaluation to measure the success of the web design project.

While on the other hand, internet marketing companies, such as ours, are continuously forced to show value and ROI for our search engine marketing and search engine optimization, as well as provide monthly reports. It’s a good thing that demonstrating value and showing ROI through web analytics is part of our culture! The question is when will demonstrating value and showing ROI be part of the web design evaluation process for ad agencies or our clients? We have worked with clients and prospects with long-term MSAs (master services agreements), over $250,000 web design projects, and no web design metrics whatsoever, are you serious? With the advances in website design technology, there is always something that the agency or web designer could be doing cheaply, quickly, and effectively to show value or help clients to achieve ROI. Instead, they’re the first one yelling “show me the money” for the next project that they won’t measure or the client won’t require them to measure. It’s time to stop wasting money on high priced unmeasured web design and marketing initiatives.

Conclusion

Let’s be clear; we have an appreciation for the services that web designers and advertising agencies provide. We just don’t believe that an agency or designer wants to tell the client that they made a little mistake with your $250,000 web design project, and by today’s standards that their website is inadequate! So, how do we change that? Here are my top 5 ideas:

1. Get the metrics for the web design project in writing and as part of the Statement of Work.
2. Schedule a date and time to evaluate whether or not the web design/agency delivered on the goals and objectives.
3. Identify any variables that would have hindered them from accomplishing their goals and objectives that were out of their control.
4. Hold your web design or ad agency accountable!
5. Get feedback from your IT team, SEO consultants, and/or internet marketing company. They can usually see technical, search, and performance issues that would impact the ROI of their initiatives.

We will continue to work with prospects and clients to identify proven web designers and ad agencies. In addition, we’re going to continue to educate our clients and the public, measure results, identify website issues, and turn the heat up on over-priced and ineffective website design projects, that prevent our prospects or our clients from achieving a greater impact through internet marketing.

Web Analytics: An Invaluable Tool

Websites have become the new storefront. Every year, more and more product and service transactions are completed over the internet. With this increase comes the need for functional and visually appealing websites.

The tactics that web design and marketing organizations have taken over the past decade have varied with trends. For a while, the emphasis was placed on having creative, visually appealing websites using platforms such as Flash. These sites were slick and cutting-edge, demonstrating that the company was in-tune with the latest and greatest technologies. All too often, however, this approach affected the usability and functionality of the website across the board. Different browsers handled Flash differently (if at all), and the hardware requirements to actually view it properly were often too steep for large amounts of the visitor base. Perhaps the greatest factor of all was the fact that the websites were not laid out logically, and often sacrificed functionality in the name of style and vanity.

Nowadays, Flash-based sites and the like have gone by the wayside, being replaced with designs that are more functional. Flash has been replaced largely by sites using CSS and Javascript. Companies have gone for designs that maximize the amount of transactions or allow the user to find exactly what they are looking for in the least amount of time. So if a company has designed a website that fits all of their functional and cosmetic needs, they are good to go, right?

Wrong!

The success of that website can and should be tracked. Think about this: Virtually every product (tangible and intangible) ever created and sold has been tested in some way to ensure its success. If your company’s reputation and even a fraction of its success rely on its presence on the internet, you should definitely make sure that website is doing what it should! One of the best ways to do this is to track who is visiting your site and how they are using it. Using tools such as Google Analytics, you can not only view these usage statistics, but also manipulate and present them in a way that you can determine what improvements you can make to your website in order to increase your traffic.

The common misconception is that a web design project is complete after it has been implemented and has gone live. The reality is that it is an ongoing process. Something that may have worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. This is why usage should constantly be tracked and analyzed. The internet is always changing, as is how people use it. Logically, this usage should be monitored so you can act on it immediately. Even if you are not literally selling a service or product, you are still presenting or “selling” an idea or information via your website.