As a web design firm, it has become very apparent that 9 out of 10 sites that we are re-designing were not originally set up to be optimized for search engines and most important, they were not set up to win new customers.

Recently we were meeting with a client who's website needed some help.  The client wanted a flash intro, a big bold headline, he had a great idea of color scheme, and most "important" he wanted a new bio picture of himself. To this we replied "yes…but.”  The big but here is "but Mr. Customer, what is the GOAL of your web site?  The answer every time, "I don't know…make us more money?" Followed by the deer in the headlights look.

Planning: Prior to building out your site, first, establish a set of goals. Once a goal or a list of goals is reached, the next step is to design a plan to reach them and then design a plan to measure them. For example, the standard business-to-business client should first identify its current web traffic and what they are and are not doing to generate traffic to their site. In this process, clients tend to discover their key areas of need in order to increase traffic.  Note, getting more traffic is always good, but high quality traffic is way better. The final stage in planning is have measurable goals that can be measured each week/month. Most of our clients use Google Analytics (free Google Tool that monitors the success of each site visit/visitor). Goggle Analytics allows its customers to view bounce rates (how soon a visitor leaves, how long they stay, what pages they visit, etc).  But by far the most important feature of Goggle Analytics (and any other analytics tool – Google is not the only player in this game) is they give you the ability to measure successes such as "Case Submission,” "Click here to read White Paper,” "To Learn More (about whatever) Click Here,” to learn more read this "Blog", etc.

Execution:  Now that a strategy is in place, it is important to stay focused and stay with your plan for at least three months (no matter the result give your plan at least 90 days to generate some history).

Analyze It: Once you have your Analytics Code in place, you've committed to at least 90 days of tactics, begin to measure your success.  Have you begun to meet (not meet) or exceed your goals?  All of the data should be there each day, week or month in a nice tidy report.  At this point, you should know what activity is working and what is not. By 180 days, any given company should have a predictable marketing model in place for its website.