Why most businesses can quickly double website performance

Our team runs digital strategy workshops for clients or prospects most weeks, and often the themes that arise are quite similar.

For example, many people quickly recognise they don't yet have a fully developed digital strategy, or they are wasting some time or budget on marketing activity that isn't delivering any return.

In recent months we spotted another trend that many businesses aren't fully understanding or tracking the numbers that are determining how well their website is performing, and are overlooking huge opportunities as a result.

Many seem surprised when they realise how much untapped opportunity there is with their web presence and by how quickly the leads, sales and visibility their website generates can double, triple, or better.

Playing percentages with your website

Here then are some key areas businesses often overlook with their website. Just changing one or two of these numbers can double the performance of a website. In one recent case we have rebuilt a website for a law firm and within 3-months the number of leads generated has more than doubled, as a result of metrics like these changing.

1. Impression share

When people search the most important keywords in your industry how often do they see your website or ads? Most businesses we met were appearing in less than 50% of searches. So even before we began looking at issues with their website 50% of their potential market wasn't finding them. How much of your potential market doesn't even find your website?

2. Click through rate

Of the people who see your website or ads how many actually click through? None of the businesses we met had a click through rate above 10%. So their listings are visible, but most prospective customers aren't interested in how it is presented so they choose somebody else's website instead. How many people see your ads and search results and choose not to click through?

3. Website conversion rate

Of the small percentage that do visit your website, how many actually click through? Most businesses we met had a conversion rate below 5%. None would run a shop where 95% of the people who came in just turned round and left yet they had let this happen on their website for years. What is the value of the opportunities that find your website and click away to take their business elsewhere?

Performance improvements are permanent

From the digital strategy workshops we have run in the last six months several businesses have now redesigned their websites, and some are live and seeing more enquiries coming through.

What has struck us in workshops is that marketing teams had often allocated lots of budget to one-off activities such as exhibitions, trade-shows and event sponsorships, which are valuable but have a short, finite lifespan.

Whereas their websites, which once revamped would work for them like a 24/7 digital salesperson every day, had been put off in some cases for several months, and in one case, for several years.

It's a relief to get our hands on some of these underperforming websites and replace them with a proper, professionally designed lead-generation website.

But sitting on the digital agency side of the table it is often a jaw-dropper to see how much of an untapped opportunity there is with most websites, given that they can be transformed so quickly and easily.