Four Key Metrics of Web Redesign Success

Over a year ago I had a chance to participate in an extremely complicated web redesign for a large business-to-business client, but for a variety of reasons didn’t pursue the project.

Now the redesigned web site is finally live.  

During discussions with the potential client and partners, the idea of measuring how users behave on the website was not a priority. 

This viewpoint concerns me, because when it comes to an integrated and strategic marketing communications program, the point of a b-to-b website is to figure out what the site’s goal is (increased conversions? More qualified leads for the sales pipeline? Increased time on site?  Increased contact us forms?) and build the site to support the overall goal.

One can only know if the web project is successful, or achieves a positive ROI, if the goals are clearly established at the outset. 

First Ask Why

Anybody who has worked with me in past 5 years has heard me say the following rant a zillion times:

When it comes time to redesigning a B-to-B website, take time to ask why. The most important first step is to establish the overall goal of the site (lead gen? awareness building? encouraging user participation in a forum? encouraging downloading collateral?). Then, make these tasks extremely fast and obvious to do. Less common actions should certainly not be any more complicated than necessary, but priority should be given to the key user goals.

Home Page as a Political Football
Now that the site is launched, it is clear that the home page became a political football inside the organization.  I counted at least 13 “calls to action” on the home page.  Download this. Click here. Read this. Buy that. View this. Watch that. Visit here. See this.... oy vay!!  It is hard to determine the "key user goals" on the home page. 

Resource Intensive
Complex web redesign projects are significant undertakings, and represent a tremendous amount of effort. 

After a relaunch, it's important to focus on the following key metrics, which are available via Google Analytics.  

After about 3 to 6 months from the launch, the web team should share the following data: 

• bounce rate (the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page), which should go DOWN after a relaunch
• time on site - which should go UP after a relaunch
• page views - which should RISE after a relaunch
• conversion rate (which should go UP, measuring percentage of visitors who fill out a form; take an action like signing up for newsletter, etc)

While certainly not the full picture, these four metrics provide a good "snapshot" to indicate how the site has optimized user behavior.  


Next Step: ROI 
In fact, these four key metrics help calculate overall ROI, a topic addressed here.  


When calculated along with cost of the website; the percentage increase of visitors to the site; number of closed sales to leads; and average revenue of a closed sale, one can then determine the Return on Investment of the site redesign.

If More is Better, Then Less is More

I recently attended a Marketing Roundtable event at Ann Arbor Spark.  The group is a gathering of marketing and online communications professionals that provide useful business information.  

Google Analytics

This particular “Roundtable” focused on using Google Analytics to track web visitors, time on pages, conversion rates (how many of your web visitors take an action like download a paper), and other important metrics that indicate how visitors behave on your website

As you likely know, Google Analytics is a free tool that delivers web traffic reports in the form of easy dashboards, summarizing page views, the most visited pages, trends showing time on site, referring websites, etc.

Does Your Website Work?

The event was a great reminder that in marketing, if the purpose of a website is lead generation, the most important consideration is to keep tabs on how folks behave when they visit your website. 

Google Analytics is an easy way to ask: are you getting web visitors to “do something?”

Q&A

At the conclusion of the event, one of the most interesting questions from the gathered attendees came from colleague Jen Jendo of IPD Solution, who asked the panel a great question about the significance of watching the behavior of web visitors when a business-to-business sales cycle is extremely long (12 – 18 months).

With such a lengthy sales cycle, she asked, how can a website support the sales process?

The presenters made the case that, even with lengthy cycles, a website is a useful marketing tool for prospects in the early stage of discovery.  Complex purchase decisions can be supported with white papers, online demos, case studies and other collateral. 

Make it Easy

The key is to make it easy for the prospect to scan over the resources, select what is of interest, and download.   

Don’t overwhelm visitors with highly technical information that folks won’t even read, since people only spend seconds scanning a website. (very hard to keep this focus with some projects I can yell you!)

Instead, provide summary titles of materials in a Knowledge Center. Make the content easy to scan and digest.  Let the visitor select the material of interest, to get to the next level of detail.  

Then be sure to follow up with a call or other outreach to move those folks to the next stage of the buying cycle.

In this way a business to business website supports the decision making for those early in the cycle, and moves them along in complex decision making.

Less is More

What hit a nerve with me was when one of the panelists made the case  “if more is better, then less is more” – don’t overwhelm with information on a b-to-b website.  

Marketers need to choose carefully how much content the website delivers, then be sure to follow up with those visitors who have taken the time to request additional levels of detail.

It’s tempting to slap a bunch of content on a website, especially in-depth details about complicated business software solutions for instance.  

Research and analytics prove otherwise.  

The best way to help your prospect is to present digestible bites of information that lead to more complete content. 

Ask and You Shall Receive

It’s easy for a website project to get off kilter. Understandably, those on the web team have their own ideas of what works and what doesn’t work in terms of web design, features, navigation, content and so on.

Everybody on the internal team has an agenda, and a stake, when it comes time to building a website.

But for a business-to-business web project, whether you sell software or professional services or widgets, it pays big dividends to keep the typical, average user in mind. Why? If the goal of a website is lead generation, it should be extremely fast and obvious for a prospect to take action (sign up for a newsletter; follow social media; complete a contact us form). It should also be obvious, within seconds, what it is you sell. If it isn’t, your prospect will quickly click away.

What Do Your Prospects Think?

How would you know if your website is easy to use and navigate? You would ask your prospects. That’s right! You would seek out typical users and buyers of your product and ask them a few questions about the flow of the site, the navigation, the content and other key elements. Ask them informally - sit along side them with a few open ended questions and note what they do. (future blog post: ideas for a simple, DIY user testing project)

From design to content, the user can shed light on the following:

· Information architecture that matches the users' model of the information. Would your prospects be more interested in a menu list of your services, or do they want to see a description of how you serve their industry. How would you know this. You ask them.

· An intuitive navigation system to move people around this architecture. How would you know if the navigation was easy to use? You ask them.

· Chunked text, short and with liberal use of bulleted lists and highlighted keywords. Users scan, so content should support scan ability.

· Reduced use of jargon. Are you speaking the prospects language? How would you know this. You ask them

· Prioritized content availability – can your prospects find what is important to them? And how would you know what is important to your prospect? You ask them.

Parting Thought

Websites influence 97% of prospects’ purchasing decision. Doesn’t it make sense to take some time to ask a typical prospect if your website makes it easy for them to evaluate your product or service?