April 6, 2011 at 22:38Effective and ineffective websites
Now, for many companies, having their own website is not just a fashion trend, but rather an urgent need. Companies themselves develop or order websites in large numbers. At the same time, many turn to the services of various kinds of SEO-specialists in the hope of getting a gigantic effect from the site.
But in reality, few people understand how and exactly what effect they are going to get from the site. In this topic, I will consider the issue of site performance for "small and medium-sized businesses": small companies that operate within their city or region and are sellers (manufacturers or resellers) of any product, such as radio stations or snowmobiles. But, in principle, the reasoning applies to any other type of website, just the area of small and medium-sized businesses is closest to me for several reasons.
I must say right away that the article does not claim to be the ultimate truth, I am always happy with any comments and amendments.
The issue of efficiency has already been raised on the hub , only there a person discusses the effectiveness of advertising, and not the website as a whole.
So, the company decided to create its own website. First you need to decide what kind of information you need to post on the site in order to be effective. Naturally, the director definitely wants a page with his photo, interview, and biography. Of course, the entire track record of the company is needed, in which exhibitions they participate, what awards they received.
But we ask a question: is this information necessary for a potential buyer who visited the site of a snowmobile dealer to look at his equipment? Not! He needs something completely different:
A site consisting of 5 pages about the company and 1 page with a stingy table with a list of models, or even a link to the price in xls format is unlikely to bring many visitors. This is an inefficient site, and you should not waste time creating such a site. If only to amuse the director’s vanity.
A site with 3 pages about the company and 300 pages with a complete catalog of products and open contacts is an effective site that allows you to decide on the choice of a specific model and immediately order it. This is a site that increases sales.
A site cannot be effective if it is not visited. Many companies pay crazy money to SEO specialists to raise their site up for some keywords. But how do they approach the selection of keywords worth moving on? Basically, according to the same principle by which they fit the site - "we want snowmobiles to be in the top 3 upon request."
But if you think about what will give advancement on this request? Nothing. People who arrived at the request of "snowmobiles" do not necessarily want to buy it, and if they want it is not necessary in the city in which our seller is located. Thus, we get high traffic, but a low conversion of visitors to customers. To unwind on such requests is expensive and inefficient.
So what kind of requests do we need? The most specific, for example, "Rotax snowmobiles in Kazan." A person who comes to this request probably wants to buy a rotax snowmobile in Kazan. And he’ll most likely get from Yandex to the page of a specific snowmobile, where he will be able to evaluate all his characteristics, make sure that this is exactly what he wanted to buy, and immediately order and buy it, by phone or by arriving at the address, because we made an effective website with good descriptions of our snowmobiles.
Moreover, promotion of such low-frequency requests is a very simple and cheap business, but it is very effective, because almost every person who comes on such a request is our potential client, and a convenient site makes him a client. To promote such requests, it’s enough to place complete and detailed information about each product, and then, literally within a week or two, the site will be in the top 1-3 most of the low-frequency queries that are most suitable for it in your region. Without any SEO-specialists (of course, if the industry is not too high competition)
Speaking of SEO specialists. I once worked with one such "specialist", and he claimed that Yandex indexes sites for a very long time and adds them to its issuance - about 3 months. Therefore, they posted a congratulation on March 8 in January, so that by March Yandex added this congratulation to the issue. In my opinion, natural insanity. I personally think that it’s enough to make a site according to Yandex’s recommendations for creating sites and then everything will work well and without any kind of SEO “specialists”
Well, now the most interesting part of the article - we made a good site, filled it with detailed and relevant information, did everything according to Yandex recommendations, etc. Visitors came to us. How now to evaluate whether our site is effective?
It would seem that an obvious criterion for the effectiveness of a site is traffic. Allegedly, if the site has a lot of visitors, that means it works well, it is effective. But in fact, efficiency and attendance are completely different concepts , both smooth and soft.
Attendance is just the number of visitors to the site. Attendance can be increased artificially, moving on different keywords, or buying traffic. But from this the site will not become effective and will not be profitable.
Comparing with an offline store, if you put a monkey in a cage in the center of the snowmobile salon - most likely the attendance will increase. But will people who come to gawk at the monkey buy snowmobiles? Not! The number of people coming to buy a snowmobile will not change from such an action, although attendance will increase.
Therefore, if you go to Google Analytics and see that your site has only 20-30 visitors per day, no need to be upset. Just think, how many people go into your salon a day to look at snowmobiles? The same 20-30 people. So, in fact, you doubled the number of people interested in buying a snowmobile and at the same time visiting your salon! So the site is quite effective.
High attendance does not mean greater efficiency.
Some people believe that the depth of viewing, or the time spent on the site, is an indicator of the effectiveness of the site. Allegedly, if a person walks around the site and looks at the pages, then he is interested in the site. But this is not always true.
Think about it, maybe on your site is so confusing navigation that people find what they are looking for, only on the 5-6 page viewed and because of this spend a lot of time on the site? Or maybe they don’t find what they were looking for and leave the site? Maybe looking in Google analytics on the number of “6 pages viewed per 1 visit on average, the duration of 1 visit is 10 minutes”, you should not be glad that your site is interesting to users, but rather, sound the alarm that nothing is possible on your site to find?
And vice versa, if the average number of pages viewed is 1-3 and the average time on the site is 2-3 minutes, do not sound the alarm that the site is not interesting to anyone, maybe you should be glad on the contrary that people quickly find the information they need?
Obviously, the bounce rate, or the percentage of people who left after visiting the first page, in our case, is also not an indicator of effectiveness. Because people who immediately got to the product page from Yandex, found on it all the necessary information and immediately left counted as “refuseniks”, although in essence they are just effective visitors.
Greater viewing depth does not mean greater efficiency
How to evaluate the effectiveness of the site, if all the "standard" indicators, as it turned out, mean almost nothing?
This is the best method. You just have to ask the sales managers to find out where the person came from. Thus, you can immediately assess how many real buyers the site brought to you. In this case, it is not necessary to force the buyer to fill out a huge questionnaire, just ask “if it’s not a secret, how did you find out about us?” Such a question will not cause negativity on the part of the buyer.
It is important to keep track of what kind of requests people come to. If people come for non-targeted requests (for example, instead of snowmobiles they look for service centers or some other information), it is necessary to review the information contained on the site. Such people are garbage visitors and one should not rejoice at the increase in the number of visits. On the other hand, if the number of people arriving on targeted requests falls, then again measures must be taken.
You need to understand that a site selling snowmobiles in Kazan most likely will not have a traffic of 1000 people a day, because in Kazan they just don’t buy so many snowmobiles. If the number of visitors is approximately equal to the sales of snowmobiles and most of the visitors come for targeted requests, then the site is quite effective.
It is necessary to analyze the entry and exit pages. If people enter some wrong pages (for example, more people come to a page with a description of the company than pages that describe snowmobiles) - most likely there are some problems on the site. Similarly, if people leave the site in the middle of some chains (for example, a person came to the main site, used the search on the site and left instead of going to one of the search results) - most likely there are some problems on the site (the person did not find what I was looking for how he got to the site then, or the search results are poorly visible among tons of ads, etc.).
If a person enters the necessary pages (for us, these are pages with descriptions of snowmobiles) and leaves pages where it is logical to complete the path to the site (for example, from the contact information page or the product page, if there is contact information on it), then the site is enough effective
If your site has any targeted actions, for example adding a product to the cart or going to a page with contact information, they must be monitored. In all statistical systems, this can be done, and this must be done because this way you get a picture: how many people are interested in your contact information, and what percentage of visitors add goods to the basket.
Learn more about goals in Google Analytics.
But in reality, few people understand how and exactly what effect they are going to get from the site. In this topic, I will consider the issue of site performance for "small and medium-sized businesses": small companies that operate within their city or region and are sellers (manufacturers or resellers) of any product, such as radio stations or snowmobiles. But, in principle, the reasoning applies to any other type of website, just the area of small and medium-sized businesses is closest to me for several reasons.
I must say right away that the article does not claim to be the ultimate truth, I am always happy with any comments and amendments.
The issue of efficiency has already been raised on the hub , only there a person discusses the effectiveness of advertising, and not the website as a whole.
Effective Site Content
So, the company decided to create its own website. First you need to decide what kind of information you need to post on the site in order to be effective. Naturally, the director definitely wants a page with his photo, interview, and biography. Of course, the entire track record of the company is needed, in which exhibitions they participate, what awards they received.
But we ask a question: is this information necessary for a potential buyer who visited the site of a snowmobile dealer to look at his equipment? Not! He needs something completely different:
- Catalog of models that are available and which are on order
- Exact prices
- Detailed descriptions of goods, photos
- Contact information, location map
A site consisting of 5 pages about the company and 1 page with a stingy table with a list of models, or even a link to the price in xls format is unlikely to bring many visitors. This is an inefficient site, and you should not waste time creating such a site. If only to amuse the director’s vanity.
A site with 3 pages about the company and 300 pages with a complete catalog of products and open contacts is an effective site that allows you to decide on the choice of a specific model and immediately order it. This is a site that increases sales.
"Website promotion
A site cannot be effective if it is not visited. Many companies pay crazy money to SEO specialists to raise their site up for some keywords. But how do they approach the selection of keywords worth moving on? Basically, according to the same principle by which they fit the site - "we want snowmobiles to be in the top 3 upon request."
But if you think about what will give advancement on this request? Nothing. People who arrived at the request of "snowmobiles" do not necessarily want to buy it, and if they want it is not necessary in the city in which our seller is located. Thus, we get high traffic, but a low conversion of visitors to customers. To unwind on such requests is expensive and inefficient.
So what kind of requests do we need? The most specific, for example, "Rotax snowmobiles in Kazan." A person who comes to this request probably wants to buy a rotax snowmobile in Kazan. And he’ll most likely get from Yandex to the page of a specific snowmobile, where he will be able to evaluate all his characteristics, make sure that this is exactly what he wanted to buy, and immediately order and buy it, by phone or by arriving at the address, because we made an effective website with good descriptions of our snowmobiles.
Moreover, promotion of such low-frequency requests is a very simple and cheap business, but it is very effective, because almost every person who comes on such a request is our potential client, and a convenient site makes him a client. To promote such requests, it’s enough to place complete and detailed information about each product, and then, literally within a week or two, the site will be in the top 1-3 most of the low-frequency queries that are most suitable for it in your region. Without any SEO-specialists (of course, if the industry is not too high competition)
Speaking of SEO specialists. I once worked with one such "specialist", and he claimed that Yandex indexes sites for a very long time and adds them to its issuance - about 3 months. Therefore, they posted a congratulation on March 8 in January, so that by March Yandex added this congratulation to the issue. In my opinion, natural insanity. I personally think that it’s enough to make a site according to Yandex’s recommendations for creating sites and then everything will work well and without any kind of SEO “specialists”
Imaginary performance criteria
Well, now the most interesting part of the article - we made a good site, filled it with detailed and relevant information, did everything according to Yandex recommendations, etc. Visitors came to us. How now to evaluate whether our site is effective?
Attendance
It would seem that an obvious criterion for the effectiveness of a site is traffic. Allegedly, if the site has a lot of visitors, that means it works well, it is effective. But in fact, efficiency and attendance are completely different concepts , both smooth and soft.
Attendance is just the number of visitors to the site. Attendance can be increased artificially, moving on different keywords, or buying traffic. But from this the site will not become effective and will not be profitable.
Comparing with an offline store, if you put a monkey in a cage in the center of the snowmobile salon - most likely the attendance will increase. But will people who come to gawk at the monkey buy snowmobiles? Not! The number of people coming to buy a snowmobile will not change from such an action, although attendance will increase.
Therefore, if you go to Google Analytics and see that your site has only 20-30 visitors per day, no need to be upset. Just think, how many people go into your salon a day to look at snowmobiles? The same 20-30 people. So, in fact, you doubled the number of people interested in buying a snowmobile and at the same time visiting your salon! So the site is quite effective.
High attendance does not mean greater efficiency.
Depth of viewing and time on the site, bounce rate
Some people believe that the depth of viewing, or the time spent on the site, is an indicator of the effectiveness of the site. Allegedly, if a person walks around the site and looks at the pages, then he is interested in the site. But this is not always true.
Think about it, maybe on your site is so confusing navigation that people find what they are looking for, only on the 5-6 page viewed and because of this spend a lot of time on the site? Or maybe they don’t find what they were looking for and leave the site? Maybe looking in Google analytics on the number of “6 pages viewed per 1 visit on average, the duration of 1 visit is 10 minutes”, you should not be glad that your site is interesting to users, but rather, sound the alarm that nothing is possible on your site to find?
And vice versa, if the average number of pages viewed is 1-3 and the average time on the site is 2-3 minutes, do not sound the alarm that the site is not interesting to anyone, maybe you should be glad on the contrary that people quickly find the information they need?
Obviously, the bounce rate, or the percentage of people who left after visiting the first page, in our case, is also not an indicator of effectiveness. Because people who immediately got to the product page from Yandex, found on it all the necessary information and immediately left counted as “refuseniks”, although in essence they are just effective visitors.
Greater viewing depth does not mean greater efficiency
Real performance criteria
How to evaluate the effectiveness of the site, if all the "standard" indicators, as it turned out, mean almost nothing?
Surveys on sale
This is the best method. You just have to ask the sales managers to find out where the person came from. Thus, you can immediately assess how many real buyers the site brought to you. In this case, it is not necessary to force the buyer to fill out a huge questionnaire, just ask “if it’s not a secret, how did you find out about us?” Such a question will not cause negativity on the part of the buyer.
Search queries
It is important to keep track of what kind of requests people come to. If people come for non-targeted requests (for example, instead of snowmobiles they look for service centers or some other information), it is necessary to review the information contained on the site. Such people are garbage visitors and one should not rejoice at the increase in the number of visits. On the other hand, if the number of people arriving on targeted requests falls, then again measures must be taken.
You need to understand that a site selling snowmobiles in Kazan most likely will not have a traffic of 1000 people a day, because in Kazan they just don’t buy so many snowmobiles. If the number of visitors is approximately equal to the sales of snowmobiles and most of the visitors come for targeted requests, then the site is quite effective.
Login and Logout Pages
It is necessary to analyze the entry and exit pages. If people enter some wrong pages (for example, more people come to a page with a description of the company than pages that describe snowmobiles) - most likely there are some problems on the site. Similarly, if people leave the site in the middle of some chains (for example, a person came to the main site, used the search on the site and left instead of going to one of the search results) - most likely there are some problems on the site (the person did not find what I was looking for how he got to the site then, or the search results are poorly visible among tons of ads, etc.).
If a person enters the necessary pages (for us, these are pages with descriptions of snowmobiles) and leaves pages where it is logical to complete the path to the site (for example, from the contact information page or the product page, if there is contact information on it), then the site is enough effective
Target Actions
If your site has any targeted actions, for example adding a product to the cart or going to a page with contact information, they must be monitored. In all statistical systems, this can be done, and this must be done because this way you get a picture: how many people are interested in your contact information, and what percentage of visitors add goods to the basket.
Learn more about goals in Google Analytics.