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Web Site Strategy |
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November 13, 2002 Issue IV Web Site Strategy - Part 2Will Weidman Also available: PDF version of this article. This month's article continues the topic of Web Site Strategy from last month's WC Journal. That article discussed two major goals for any Web site: attracting visitors to the site (through Internet marketing), and converting them (convincing visitors to take the action(s) promoted by the site). This article will provide an outline of the process steps necessary to develop a Web site strategy for a new or updated site. *** Why Do You Need a Web Strategy? In general, things that are planned well are more likely to be successful, and your Web site is no different. Consider that you're making an investment when building or updating your site. The "average" small business spends around $10,000 on their first site, and that amount again in maintenance over the one to two years following. You would think that the "average" small business owner would want to know what the return would be on any $20,000 investment. But for Web site projects, the strategy and analysis tasks are often skipped over, with no justification developed for the investment. Simply put, you need a strategy to increase the odds of making money on your Web site investment. We will define the process by looking at a set of five questions:
(1) Setting Goals Web site goals should be measurable and consistent with your overall business goals. Here are some examples:
There are also goals that aren't so easily measured. "Improving brand awareness" is such a goal, and it is okay to include less tangible goals in the set. When we discuss the business analysis later in this article, we will take into consideration that these difficult-to-measure goals can be factored into the results. Also, keep in mind that you may be able to identify metrics that indicate whether or not some of these goals are being met. For example, you might look at the number and types of unsolicited inbound link requests made to your site as an indication of popularity of the site, and therefore your brand. As part of the goal-setting process, you should look at your company's business plans and strategies (sales, marketing, etc.). If your company's goals are to increase sales and reduce costs by certain percentages, then you should look carefully at how your site can play a role in making that happen. Even if your company's products can't be sold directly on your Web site, don't dismiss how effective the site can be at facilitating sales, and indirectly affecting your revenue numbers. (2) Getting Traffic Last month's article identified several ways to drive traffic to your site. Part of your Web strategy should include an analysis of what methods of driving traffic will be implemented. Developing traffic estimates based on those decisions may require a bit of work, but it's necessary to complete the initial business analysis. For estimating search engine traffic, Overture's search term suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) is a good place to start. Enter a search term, and the tool will show you related search phrases and the number of searches for each during the previous month. Overture's numbers do not represent all Web searches, just those on its own engine and those of its partners (Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, InfoSpace, and MSN are the major ones). The big player you don't get with Overture's numbers is Google. But consider the recent statistics (from StatMarket®) for global usage share for the top three search engines,
Overture's numbers track approximately half of all searches (actually more when you take into account Overture's partners below the top three), so you might proportionally uplift their search count in order to project a total per-month number. Try to be conservative in your analysis, so don't double it. Between a +25% and +50% uplift would be reasonable. This calculation needs to take into account all the keyword variations that apply to your site. If your Internet marketing plans include link strategies, banner ads, and affiliate programs, you should be able to get some idea of the number of impressions that your link or ad will get from your advertising partners. These numbers will feed the calculations in the Business Analysis step. (3) Conversion Conversion is the most fun and creative part of the process. During this step you want to determine what site features will keep visitors on your site longer, encourage them to provide you with information about themselves (like their e-mail address), and eventually "buy." Start by seeking input from current, former, and prospective customers with whom you have a good relationship. Call them on the phone, or survey them if you have access to a large number. Ask them what features they would like to see on your site, what they like, and what they don't like about your current site if you have one. You may very well be surprised by the input you get. Although you've probably done it more than once before, visit the sites of your competitors. Also try some searches on one or more search engines for your products and services. Sometimes the competitors who appear in the search results are different than the ones you might typically think of. You want to emulate the features that you like (without blatantly ripping them off, of course). This analysis can extend beyond competitive sites, of course. Thousands of sites have been influenced by the capabilities of sites from companies like Amazon.com and FedEx. Past asking your (current, former, and future) customers what they want and examining competitive and other sites for ideas, the rest of the process of identifying Web site features is a creative process. Make use of brainstorming techniques, and get input from as many interested parties as possible. What you're looking to produce from this activity is a list of high-level features for your site. These will feed both the conversion portion of the business analysis and the establishment of metrics. (4) Business Analysis The business analysis begins with the development of a site traffic matrix leveraging the traffic data gathered in Step 2 (Table 1). 
*** I hope that you continue to find insight and value in the WC Journal, and welcome your comments, which can be addressed to me at will@weidmanconsulting.com. I encourage you to subscribe to the WC Journal so that you can receive articles via e-mail as soon as they're published.
Full list of WC Journal articles
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