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This article appears in our “Online Business” department, but also ties in nicely with a recent article on how “Website Goals Increase Online Success” . Here, we look at a step by step formula to increase the business results at your websites.

by Scott Frangos

There’s an old saying, popularized by author Stephen Covey:  “Begin with the end in mind”.  Quick… ask a web designer, what’s the “end” (goal) for a website design?  A great design.  Next, ask the marketing manager the same question.  New business, is a common reply.  Great.  But what specific goal do you want to reach (or better, your visitors to do) at your website?  And how will you monitor, and make adjustments to improve results?

Answer those questions, and you have a way to focus your redesign team on real business goals, and your online business mission.  Fail to answer them, and it’s like sending your football, soccer, or hockey team out onto a field with no goal posts.   I’m talking R.O.I. people.  If you don’t know what that is, or don’t care about it… then just go throw some money at a designer who’ll make you a good looking website.  If you’re in the group of people who care about getting results — business leads, PR, sales — then read on.

Ask your team if they are studying the expected and actual route through your site to reach those conversion pages — sometimes called the “funnel”.

I’m going to give you a simple way to think through the process of what I call “Conversion Missioning”, and point out two key steps many of your competitors simply don’t use.

Let’s make it simple.  There’s an old 3-step copywriter formula that goes like this (with my notes for our purpose here):

1. Tell them what you have (this is where the “Great Design” usually begins and ends)
2. Tell them what it will do for them (Good copywriters and marketing managers will insist on this… features AND benefits)
3. Tell them what you want them to do — make a conversion (many old-school, “brochure-style” websites fail here)

{smartads}
Make sense?  Good.  This is really what a great Yellow Pages ad does — tell them about your service or product, tell them how it helps them, and ask for the “conversion” — a phone call to you “converts” them from phone book readers to interested prospects.

But there are two more items we can add to this list.  Shsssss.  Most of your competitors aren’t even thinking of these, and they surely weren’t thinking about them when they created their site (remember, “begin with the end in mind.”):

4. Quantify the value of a conversion so you can review R.O.I. (Return On Investment)
5. Track visitor actions and make adjustments to your site so you can improve your conversion rate

The yellow pages can’t help you with these steps — there’s no automatic way to track calls and calculate ROI from a phone page ad.

But a computer can do this for you — that’s the power and beauty of using your website with analytics.  Think carefully about point 4 and 5, and ask yourself if the site map you used to design your site, or your current site map shows the locations on your site where you expect to make key conversions — a contact form to convert leads, a downloadable whitepaper, a newsletter signup.  Why not?   Ask your team if they are studying the expected and actual route through your site to reach those conversion pages — sometimes called the “funnel”.  Why would you not do this?

The most important step: Finally, are you tweaking your site to improve your conversion success rate?  A simple headline or graphic change has been known to boost conversions by dramatic amounts.   C’mon.  This is the mission critical, job one, Lee Iococa jump in your face, primary purpose of your business website… that you should begin with in your mind.  Or, at least address it now.

As you think through this Conversion Mission process for your site, join in the conversation here with questions and comments below.  I will continue this series with more tips on how to work out this process at your site, and in particular focus on Google Analytics, and something called the Google Optimizer as a way to address Conversion Missioning.  And, you may like to go read the first article in the series on using Google Goals.

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About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He always recommends a focus on the Conversion Mission of your websites.  He is also a college instructor for CSS, XHTML and Photoshop courses and enjoys martial arts and digital photography.

About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.