Website Marketing

An interesting question came to light recently. When purchasing a website should you pay for the site development or for the benefit it brings? Any developer worth their salt will promise to deliver what you need, but few are willing to commit to a guarantee. Would you be willing to pay for information on a monthly basis?

Similarly when puchasing advertising, all the statistics are there, but no guarantee from the publication. Would you be willing to pay for such a website ‘guaranteed return’ service and what would that be worth? What percentage of your business is worth giving in return for a website that really delivers the results and what and how would you measure the success?

It would be a case of developers looking for products, companies and services with really good web potential and then offering to develop knowing that the return for their skills will only be realised a few days, weeks or months later. A really big advantage for the company is knowing that extra effort is being made to connect with the customer and the call to action is clearly defined.

How would you measure that success?

Some options are:

• Number of visitors to the website
• Number of unique visitors
• Number of returning visitors
• Number of equiries received
• Number of sales made
• Value of sales made
• Number of email newsletter subscribers
• Number of people who purchase as a direct result of a promotional mailer
• Number of people who respond to advertising on other websites
• Number of people who click through from other websites
• Ranking on Google and other search engines
• Number of search words that bring up your site on Google
• Ranking improvements – moving from 2o to 1 on search results

Not to mention the indirect sales that result from customers visiting the site, picking up the phone and making a purchase.

What information would the developer need?

Suggestions are:

• A real understanding of the nature of your products and services
• A real understanding of who your customer is and what makes them buy your product
• What makes you the first choice in the customers mind?
• What needs to change if you want more people buying more product
• How many sales come from people finding your details and information on the Internet
• Product stock holdings – need to know the stock to know what to sell
• Market trends – what is the customer going to buy in the future?

The developer would know a lot about your business from the statistics and related information accumulated. They would have to in order to make sure your website is generating the best possible return. As a business owner there would also be strategic discussions about what can be done to move the business in the right direction based on available information. Website feedback and statistics would be important in that discussion.

Your web developer would no longer be a developer updating the site with information when they have to but an integral part of the company. They would have a vested interest in making sure your business is successful. There would be changes made before you knew they were needed.

Why employ somebody to build a website only to move them on as quickly as possible without an incentive to really make the website work. Why not pay them for every lead received? Why not look at a nominal bonus to increase the ranking and visibility in Google search results?

The ideal way to skin this cat is going to depend on characteristics unique to what you want to achieve on the web. There may even be cases when your incentivised web developer is able to open up new market segments just because he can.

Paying for results is not only a requirement but a necessity if you see your website as an integral part of your marketing and sales process. Only paying for results is the ideal proposition ensuring that your website is the best it can be, now that is worth paying for.