Having clear performance objectives for your web site is absolutely essential if you want to be able to assess and maximise its ongoing performance.
But setting unambiguous performance standards at the outset is sadly often overlooked in the excitement of designing and launching a new web site. And sometimes the question isn't even explicitly addressed because the answer or answers are thought to be obvious.
Here are just some of the objectives that are often put forward with great conviction but little thought:
getting the maximum number of page hitsgetting the maximum number of visitorsgetting top rankings in the major search engineshaving a great design that reflects the desired organisational identity
Let's look at each of these objectives to test their validity for the majority of web site owners.
Maximum Page Hits
How meaningful is this if you don't know who is doing the clicking, you don't know the number of visitors involved and if the hits don't result in the action that you want your web site to achieve? Do you really want just a few visitors with hyperactive trigger fingers?!
Maximum Number Of Visitors
Perhaps a little more logical as an objective, but not much! Surely it is the quality of visitors that you want not the quantity? Surely you want visitors who are visiting your web site not as a result of random chance or act of God, but because they are interested in what your web site has to say and what it has to offer?
We once had a client, for example, who was extremely pleased with the visitor numbers that were being achieved but slightly concerned and mystified by the low conversion from visit to action - after all, the design of the web site was great, especially the graphics.
When the web site traffic figures were analysed in a little more detail, it was quickly established that the impressive visitor numbers were largely the result of Google image searches that were giving very high search rankings for image file names from the site including such popular keywords as 'cool lady' and 'frustrated man'!
Great for visitor figures but little good for the web site whose business had little to do with cool women or frustrated men!
Getting Top Rankings In The Major Search Engines
Surely no-one can object to this as a desirable objective? Well, yes, they certainly can - and should - unless the objective is made far more specific and relevant.
Having top rankings for keywords that are unrelated to your web site's content may help boost short-term traffic but it will do little for the likelihood of repeat visits and nothing for the all important conversion of visits to desired action.
And similarly, having top rankings for keywords that only you use - and use frequently to confirm your supposed success! - may well give you a warm feeling of satisfaction but little in the way of increased web site traffic.
Having high search engine rankings for relevant and popular keywords - now that's a desirable objective!
Having A Great Web Site Design
We think - and hope - that attitudes are changing but we still see all too often an imbalance between the emphasis and resources devoted to the design and construction of web sites and that given to achieving desired visibility.
Sometimes there is an assumption that great design will somehow magically attract attention and the number and type of visitors that are wanted. Often there is a feeling of frustration and unfairness when the magic fails to work.
If ugly and popular and beautiful and invisible were the only choices we know what our decision would be! OK, exaggeration to make a point, but there is a point there.
The Bottom Line?
It's often said that search engine optimisation is really a simple business overcomplicated by those with vested interests. And it probably is simple if you are the only person selling bananas in Basingstoke! (See article) But, for the rest of us - the all too many of us competing for high volumes of relevant visitors who will convert into profitable customers, life is a little more complicated.
Reducing that complexity through setting unambiguous performance objectives for your web site is a good first step. It may give you a headache now, but it will help avoid chronic migraine into the future! |
