You launched your site, got some traffic, and maybe even some business. But is your site all that it can be? There are several good analytics solutions (like Google Analytics) that give you all of the information you may ever want about who is visiting your website, what other sites those visitors are coming from, which pages are browsed the most, and even which pages visitors leave from.

You basically get the “what”, but you don’t get the “why”.

• Why do visitors leave the site without clicking on any of the navigation links?
• Why do visitors add items to their carts but don’t complete the transaction?
• Why don’t we get repeat visitors?
• Why do prospective clients prefer our competitor’s website?
• Why is it so hard to find our website in the search engines?

Answers to these questions are critical to increasing your site’s conversion rate. A site’s conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who go beyond a casual visit and perform a desired action, an action set by you, the site’s owner. Sample actions can be: signing up for your newsletter, purchasing an item, calling your 800 number, and so on.

So how can you evaluate your own website?

We recommend you review your website in terms of 6 key areas:

1. Design
   Does your site look appropriate yo your industry? Does it look like visitors expect it to look?
2. Content
   Does your content appear current? Has it been optimized for the web?
3. Navigation
   Are your main sections labeled logically, from the visitor’s perspective, not yours?
4. Usability
   Is it clear to users where they are within the site at all times?
5. Marketing
   Is there a significant number of sites linking back to yours, improving your page ranking?
6. Technology
   Is your site platform and browser compatible?

These are just some sample questions to help you get started. There are many, many more. If you focus on these 6 key areas, you will be able to perform a thorough review of your website. The point is that a good website is more than just design, or content, or its functionality; it is a good combination of all of these factors.

Ask your web developer to pick 5 good questions per key area to start with. Then have him or her evaluate each answer from 1 to 5. Work on improving your results, and go deeper. If you’re curious right now, submit your URL to us for a complimentary evaluation.