Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects into Leads
Web Design for ROI challenges you to look at your website in a new light and to begin treating it as a powerful tool that offers the most for your Web investment, rather than treating it as just another cost.
Web design with profit in mind isn't rocket science; it's a simple matter of following some tried and true formulas to increase your bottom line. It will cost you the same amount in time and money to design a bad site as it does to create a great site; but the net effect on profit can make or break your business.
About the Authors
Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus have over 22 years combined experience working in the Web space. This book is the result of their ongoing effort to correlate and articulate their expertise in a clear simple way; what they do, why they do it, and what they think is most important.
Lance and Sandra have worked together at Closed Loop Marketing since 2004.
Your website is a business - Design it like one
From the book: Web Design for ROI
1. Identify your needs:
Determine what you want your website to do. Ironically, although many businesses have an online presence, most cannot answer this question easily. Do you want to increase sales, generate leads, reduce support costs, foster loyalty among customers? Once you have a clear idea of what you want, take a look at your competitors and see what they're offering and you're not.
2. Understand what your visitors are doing:
User testing has traditionally been reserved for larger organizations, but with the growth of the Web, user testing is now available to all. Morae (TechSmith) is our choice in user testing software. Relatively inexpensive, it's a small price to pay to "get" your audience.
3. Treat your website like a business:
Do you have a website strategy - a plan of attack for your online presence? Most people don't - successful businesses do. Think of it this way; if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. You've spent time and effort on your business plan, now expend the same energy on your website plan - then marry the two.
4. Measure the right metrics
There is no one common standard to measuring the success of a website. As a result, many organizations look at the most prominently displayed metrics in their chosen analytics system; traffic, time on site, hits, page views etc - it's not enough. The right metrics are usually a combination of business metrics (sales/leads), site metrics (web analytics software), and user metrics (user testing).
5. Test, Learn, Repeat
In this always on, 24/7 world, organizations cannot sit back when their websites are "done." Websites need continued monitoring, testing, updating, and enhancing. This does not mean you need to lock yourself up with a PC and an Internet connection, it's more about setting aside time to regularly review your site, perform user tests, check out the competition, and determine whether your site is delivering what it should.
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Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads
Amazon Price: $26.39 (as of 07/05/2009) 
