Why 90% of Websites Fail: And How Yours Can Succeed

Before you invest thousands of dollars into a new or newly redesigned website, it’s important to understand the basic principles behind online marketing success.

Managing a successful website is similar to managing a successful business. Even if you have a traditional bricks & mortar location for your business, you must think of your website as a satellite office - and extension of your primary business location. Like your primary business location, your website must adhere to standard business fundamentals in order to succeed.

A fundamental rule of business is that for every X dollars spent, the business hopes to attract Y enquiries and achieve Z sales (Z being a % of Y). Entrepreneurs across the nation understand that in order to generate business one must obtain X number of enquires.

How does this relate to managing a successful website?

That depends on whether your goal is to generate online sales, generate prospects/enquires, and/or raise brand awareness. Below is a quick discussion of typical goals, and the types of sites used to achieve these goals.

Goal: Generate Online Sales
To generate online sales, your site must utilize ecommerce technology and properly designed information architecture. Ecommerce sites allow visitors to purchase products, services or intangibles online. www.amazon.com is an example of a very large, sophisticated ecommerce site that allows for a highly personalized and dynamic user experience. www.tobydesign.com is an example of a fairly simple ecommerce web site. Both serve their purposes well.

The performance of an ecommerce website can be measured by the number of website visits it receives, the rate at which the website converts those visits into sales (conversion rate), and the amount of money the buyer spends each time they make a purchase at the website (average sale).

Goal: Generate Prospects/Enquiries
When the goal is to generate prospect/enquiries, you may use a website that consists of simple html, or your website may have more sophisticated elements such as interactivity (for example a site that has online polls, quizzes, forms, or generates personalize greetings), or a content management system (allows website owner to make updates without knowing anything about programming). Let’s call this a ‘Lead Generation Site’

The performance of a lead generation website can be measured by the number of visits that the website receives, and the rate at which it converts those visits into enquiries.

Goal: Brand Awareness or Disseminate Information
All sites should solidify brand awareness. There are some sites whose ONLY goal is to raise brand equity in the mind of the consumer. Think of sites like Coca-Cola, local tourism sites, the national pork council web site, etc. I’ll refer to this as an ‘Image Site’.

While it is difficult to measure the performance of an Image Site using the aforementioned metrics, Brand Awareness and Information Dissemination still play an important role in website performance.

About the Author:  Monique Danielle owns Marketing Agency and Web Design Firm DivaDesignWorld.com, a full service agency that offers website designt, graphic design, consulting, and a wide variety of creative services.  She is also the founder of divadirectories.com, a free online resource designed to promote the growth and development of female business owners throughout the United States.