New Years Resolutions for Your Website

Make Your Point Newsletter

Strategies for Website Results

January 2003

New Years Resolutions—for Your Website

The beginning of the year is a great time to think about goal-setting. Since your website should be supporting your business, the best way to create website goals is to link them to company objectives. For example, if your company wants to increase customer satisfaction, you could ask customers for their improvement suggestions through a form on your website.

Thinking through what you really want to achieve is the first step to getting there. But the best goals are as concrete as possible. Fuzzy goals that don’t have any way of being measured tend to gain fuzzy results, not real ones.

One way to make your goals concrete and measurable is to use following format:

Company Objective	Website Goal	Website Strategy	How to Measure
10% increase in new customer sales	20% more website traffic	Optimize site for 2 key phrases in search engines Promote website on all marketing materials	Compare website hit rates before / after
10% increase in new customer sales	15% more contacts from website	Add promotional coupon to homepage Include contact information on all pages	Track source of all customer contacts
20% increase in sales to existing customers	10% increase from website cross-sales	Add fresh educational content to site monthly Add 3 testimonials for new products	Customer survey

This example demonstrates several strategies that you can use to increase the business value of your website. The way you measure results can vary, but tracking results proves the value of your efforts. You might also want to solicit feedback on your site, through email, by phone, or in person to find out what your visitors like or don't like.

A good website should always be evolving. New ideas can come from anywhere, but you don't want to create a junk pile. Fitting your ideas into your overall company strategy and then following up to check the results is key to growing your site as well as your business.

Ask Crystal

Q: Where can I get ideas for improving my website?

A: One place is from your competitors. Look at their websites and see what they're doing.

Gather ideas and then find some critics. You want people who will tell you what they really think. Some of your competitors' website features are bad ones.

Another place to find ideas is articles or books on effective websites. You can find a number of them from the Resources page of www.crystalpointconsulting.com.

Of course, if you don't want to do the work yourself, we'd be happy to discuss the latest website recommendations with you. Just give us a call at 630-854-4110.

Presentation: What Every Website Owner Should Know

Building a website exposes you to a number of risks, from embarrassment to lost business. Learn the questions to ask and the answers to get that will protect your image and your investment.

Join us on January 13, from 7:30-9:00 p.m. for this presentation at the Gem Communications Education Forum in Schaumburg.

Call 630-854-4110 for more details or to invite Crystal Jurczynski to speak to your organization.

About the Make Your Point Newsletter

Make Your Point is a publication of Crystal Point Consulting. Comments, questions, and suggestions can be sent to Crystal@CrystalPointConsulting.com.

The Make Your Point Newsletter archive is located at CrystalPointConsulting.com/News.

Crystal Point Consulting, LLC • (630) 854-4110 • 895 Winchester, Carol Stream, IL 60188 • www.CrystalPointConsulting.com