I recently visited Hobart and spoke to a few business owners about the effectiveness of their website in regards to brand awareness and sales. The type of questions I was asking were of a typical nature:

• How old is your site?
• Is it regularly maintained? if so by whom?
• Are you doing any online marketing?
• Is your website a current representation of your business right now?
• What is the primary goal of your website?
• Are you seeing any success from your website?
• How are you tracking the performance and ROI of your site?

I was stunned by many of the answers I received especially to discover that some of these business owners recognised they need a site but viewed it more as a mechanism for showing a printed brochure or just an email address.

A website can be much more than a simple business card online. It can be your most profitable sales person, most passionate brand evangelist, well informed educator and market breaker. I am confident that these types of conceptions are not isolated to Tasmania. It is hard to sell an online solution to a company that can’t foresee the true potential of the Internet and potential gains that could materialise.

After taking this into account – I thought it might be a good place to give a bit of guidance and advice on sizing up some markers for measuring ROI.

Track leads

If you aren’t already doing this – ask clients and customers why they bought and how they heard of you, in person or through surveys. It’s important to track where leads come from as well as how many of the leads are converted to sales.

Track advertising

Advertising via the Internet can be measured through click-through rates. However, a good rate does not mean an increase in business. It’s easy to get a high click-through rate if, for example, you offer a series of promotions or straight give aways.

A good way to measure ROI through advertising is to install cookies to determine which ads bring customers in and should get credited for conversion.

Track Web traffic

A key marker is to track web traffic and determine the number of unique visitors coming to your site and how many of them turn into loyal, repeat users or better still, customers. Is the information on your site helpful, insightful and accurate that users are getting to the product page?

Determine how many users navigate through your site and actually read about your product, and you’ll know if your site is working. Do an online survey of a few users once they get to the product page. Ask, “Did you find what you are looking for?” “Is the information we provide helpful?”

Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google and can be installed on your website and used to track all sorts of things like click-through, visits and goal conversions.

Even if you can’t see the benefits of a full fledged online solution, be it social media integration, ecommerce, mobile optimisation and dynamic rich content — your customers will.