Darryl King is the founder of Brisvegas Web company 'ireckon' and is tackling the starting points for evaluating an existing web site's performance

It seems a pretty silly statement in 2008 that people need to understand how to use the web effectively, but it isn’t.

Business owners and managers are expected to have all the knowledge and skills across such broad skill ranges such as accounting, finance, investment, marketing, HR, law, advertising to name but a few and in the last decade Web.

I could have included Web in Marketing or Advertising, but I don’t.

Why?

Because traditionally that has been where it has fallen (or worse still IT).

The Web is a unique animal. It is composed of numerous elements (technologies) and skill sets (design, construction, programming, optimisation, analytics etc) that it deserves to be treated as a speciality in its own right.

Using the analogy of an animal the question is how do you know if your site is a beast or a workhorse? And if it is a beast or perhaps an unruly pet, how do you turn it into a working asset that is of benefit?

Firstly before you head off for greener pastures (the cartoons) taming the web does not mean spending large amounts of money! (I will cover suitable costs at a future date).

In deciding on whether your site is a beast or not answer these questions:

• Do I get any inquiries directly from my website (via email)?
  There is no set number that makes it worthwhile – if you sell services or products worth tens of thousands then 1 inquiry a month that converts might be considered a perfect result.
• Do callers mention they came from your website when ringing your business? (do you ask?)
  The most important part here is to ask. “How did you hear about us? Which search engine? Do you remember what you were searching for?” Remember to thank them for answering, it doesn’t hurt to say something like “That helps us improve our website for people like you”.
• Do you have a strategy, goal or any end result for your website that you can say in 1 sentence?
  E.g. We want our website to generate $1000 worth of new sales per week 40 weeks of the year etc.
• Does your site work in the 3 main used browsers?
  Internet Explorer (6 & 7), Firefox & Safari
• Can you find your website in Google for your basic product / service / business type (on page 1)
  Do a basic search using your main service e.g. Used Cars Cairns and see if you show up, if you don’t show up for your own business name in a search e.g. “Cairns Post” then you better ring me quick!
• Was your site updated in the last 6 months?
  It doesn’t have to be, but I don’t know many businesses that don’t have something new in a 6 month period that they cannot promote, advertise, or write about. This is probably symptomatic of no one at your business paying any attention to your website.
  

Now that isn’t everything but if you can’t answer those clearly and have an understanding there is a pretty big chance your site is not performing as it should. These are the level 1 questions to review your website.

If you passed through those fairly unscathed then you should be able to address the next stages of your web strategy and effect changes fairly easily. This will be covered in future posts.

So what do you do if you failed the initial evaluation of your site?

Firstly don’t panic. You are in a big group of business and website owners.

Secondly start to think about whether you are prepared to start learning how to make your website work better for you or not, and if you will be prepared to spend relatively small amounts of money in improving your website?

And read some upcoming posts on how to move forward in taming your website beast!

You can also view Darryl's ireckon blog or his staff's web help blog.

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