Generating a return on investment (ROI) from your web site should be an easy affair. Gone are the days of a brochure based web site whereby the information published to the site becomes out of date over night.

To successfully achieve a ROI from your web site the planning phase of the project needs to meet the ongoing business requirements, increased sales targets and offline marketing requirements of your business. Being able to generate reports based on criteria that are identified as being important to the success of your business and web site will begin to demonstrate that the 24 hour online shop front is returning significant value.

Key reporting variables that is often used includes number of page visits, time of visits to the web site (after hours is a good online indicator), subscribers to your eNewsletter, sales leads, online sales (eCommerce), employment requests, number of changes to your web sites per month and so on. By combining these factors plus many more a business can begin to demonstrate web site ROI.

Gone also are the days where a web developer needs to be paid just to perform updates to the web site. By managing your web site instead of paying a web developer a business will increase the effectiveness of the site as well as reduce ongoing costs of running a web site. Web site publishing tools are prolific today however many fail to meet the ongoing business requirements of an organisation. Just being able to edit some areas of your web site will not generate a return on investment alone.

By following a well constructed plan, choosing a company that will aid you in understanding how to leverage the web and being diligent about the tools you purchase to manage your web site will generate a significant returns from your investment.

So many web development businesses find it acceptable to deliver a project over a series of months if at all! When choosing your web developer ensure references are checked and ask the referees the tough questions that may include; how long have other projects take? Did the web site meet your expectations? and finally; Are we purchasing a supported product or freeware or custom solution? Read the rest of this entry »