How many people visited your website last week?

How did they get there?

How many people clicked your Call To Action button?

How many signed up for your email list?

How many opened the first email you sent them?

…these are just a few of the things you might measure to see how effective your website is…

Every person that visits your website will go through a journey, often made up of a number of steps. Each step in this journey can be tweaked and refined to improve the experience they will have, and improve the likelihood of them moving further through your sales process.

These measurements may also include things that happen before and after someone visits the website itself, because an Effective Website is part of an overall strategy, that includes getting people to the website in the first place, and follow-up moves like automated sequences of emails to build trust with potential customers over time.

But to understand what needs optimising, you’ll need to measure how your website is performing at each step in this journey right now.

…to understand what needs optimising, you’ll need to measure how your website is performing at each step in this journey right now

If you want an Effective Website that can grow your business, then you need a way to see these kinds of numbers. Then you can take steps to improve them.

You wouldn’t drive a car wearing a blindfold.

In the same way, you wouldn’t want a website without being able to see some key numbers that show you how it’s helping you – and what could be improved.

There are plenty of good tools out there for getting this kind of data. Analytics software can show you how many visitors your website is getting, from what countries, how long they stay, and where they click or tap. If you’re getting in to email marketing, then your email marketing system can show you how many people are opening your emails, clicking links to take further action, and more.

Numbers like these can help identify where in your marketing “funnel” people are getting stuck, and prompt you to seek out solutions. For example, if many of the people visiting your website on their mobile phones leave immediately as soon as they arrive, maybe the site needs better optimising for mobile? Or if no one is opening the emails you are sending them, maybe the wording of the subject lines need some refining.

If you want to improve the results you’re getting from your website, spend some time making sure you have visibility of key metrics – so you can see what’s already working, and what needs work.