The One Thing That Matters: ROI
If I asked what you wanted to get out of reading this book, what would say?
The answer, I guess, would be “a successful website”, or maybe a “more successful website”. But… what does that mean? What does success actually look like?
Do you want more traffic? Do you want people to spend more time on your site? Do you want to be higher up the search engine rankings?
All good ideas. But also… all wrong.
I’ve worked with lots of different companies on lots of different projects. At the start of the project, there will be a huge number of competing priorities, a plethora of “must have” features, and dictats coming in left, right, and centre. The website is the business, so everyone wants to have a say.
That is, of course, before the site goes live.
Once the site is live, there is one metric and one metric only that people then want to talk about - return on investment.
Return on investment is measured in pounds, or dollars, or euros. It’s the simple measure of how much the site generates minus how much money the site costs to run.
Ben Hunt-Davies asked, “Will it make the boat go faster?” I like to ask, “Will that sell more boats?”
To get a return on investment we need measurable conversions - points at which the “visitor” becomes a “customer” and we can put a value to it.
You need to work out what your conversion point is - it might be a sale, it might be the completion of a sign-up form, or downloading a file. Whatever it is, the only true metric of whether or the not the website “works” is the total value generated by visitors reaching these goals and being converted.
All other metrics are steps before or after this point, either contributing to or being a consequence of this one crucial point. I’ve seen clients debate for days the shade of blue on a page, never once asking what shade of blue is most likely to get a customer to buy something (I know the answer to this, but I will take that secret to my grave). All other metrics are steps before or after this point, either contributing to or being a consequence of this one crucial point. I’ve seen clients debate for days the shade of blue on a page, never once asking what shade of blue is most likely to get a customer to buy something (I know the answer to this, but I will take that secret to my grave).
That same client was banging the door of the office down, figuratively speaking, six months after launch wanting to talk about increasing website sales.
Like I say, once the site is live everyone gets a lot more focused on what really matters.
Smart projects, and smart website developers, tie everything back to the ROI from day one.
If you didn’t do this, it doesn’t matter - what’s important is that you do this as of now and you keep your focus on this indefinitely. The only measure of success for your SEO project is Return on Investment.
If I asked what you wanted to get out of reading this book, what would say?
The answer, I guess, would be “a successful website”, or maybe a “more successful website”. But… what does that mean? What does success actually look like?
Do you want more traffic? Do you want people to spend more time on your site? Do you want to be higher up the search engine rankings?
All good ideas. But also… all wrong.
I’ve worked with lots of different companies on lots of different projects. At the start of the project, there will be a huge number of competing priorities, a plethora of “must have” features, and dictats coming in left, right, and centre. The website is the business, so everyone wants to have a say.
That is, of course, before the site goes live.
Once the site is live, there is one metric and one metric only that people then want to talk about - return on investment.
Return on investment is measured in pounds, or dollars, or euros. It’s the simple measure of how much the site generates minus how much money the site costs to run.
Ben Hunt-Davies asked, “Will it make the boat go faster?” I like to ask, “Will that sell more boats?”
To get a return on investment we need measurable conversions - points at which the “visitor” becomes a “customer” and we can put a value to it.
You need to work out what your conversion point is - it might be a sale, it might be the completion of a sign-up form, or downloading a file. Whatever it is, the only true metric of whether or the not the website “works” is the total value generated by visitors reaching these goals and being converted.
All other metrics are steps before or after this point, either contributing to or being a consequence of this one crucial point. I’ve seen clients debate for days the shade of blue on a page, never once asking what shade of blue is most likely to get a customer to buy something (I know the answer to this, but I will take that secret to my grave). All other metrics are steps before or after this point, either contributing to or being a consequence of this one crucial point. I’ve seen clients debate for days the shade of blue on a page, never once asking what shade of blue is most likely to get a customer to buy something (I know the answer to this, but I will take that secret to my grave).
That same client was banging the door of the office down, figuratively speaking, six months after launch wanting to talk about increasing website sales.
Like I say, once the site is live everyone gets a lot more focused on what really matters.
Smart projects, and smart website developers, tie everything back to the ROI from day one.
If you didn’t do this, it doesn’t matter - what’s important is that you do this as of now and you keep your focus on this indefinitely. The only measure of success for your SEO project is Return on Investment.
The One Thing That Matters: ROI
Reviewed by The hand of the king
on
March 21, 2019
Rating:
Reviewed by The hand of the king
on
March 21, 2019
Rating:
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