Grow Online Now: How does Your Website Compare

On December 4, 2011, comScorereleased “$6 Billion in ‘Cyber Week’ U.S. Online Spending Sets New Weekly Record as Three Individual Days Surpass $1 Billion Threshold”. Did you get a large or small piece of that action? If you did not, perhaps we might be able to help.

If you were to ask the question “how does my website compare with the competition”, how would you answer that question?

It is just as good
It is not as good

If it is not as good, can you answer the question why? Another question is how do your customers look at your website? Is it easy to navigate? Are visitors able to get right to the product in order to make the purchase? Is your site getting exposure on different social media channels?

If you are serious about getting more customers and a bigger piece of online consumer purchases, here are some things to consider:

Compare your website with your competition
- Google your products or service… where are you coming up compared to your competition?
- Take some time to compare your website with others in your industry or market.
- Put yourself in the shoes of customers; navigate through their site, now your site; see any difference?
Although you should be concerned to what customers say about your products and services, you should be equally interested in what they think about your website. Connect with your customers by sending out surveys. Use services such as Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) to get customer input on:
- The quality of your product
- Customer service satisfaction
- Ease of use in navigating through your website
- Ease in purchasing products on your website

Connect with your customers by using Facebook and Twitter
- Promote specials
- Provide educational information
- Stimulate discussions

Interacting with your customers and website viewers provides invaluable information and guidance for optimizing your site and increasing sales. Here is an example of a website evaluation questionnaire:

1. Please grade our website on the overall content.

Excellent Good Average Poor Very Poor Undecided

2. Please grade our website on the ease of navigation.

Excellent Good Average Poor Very Poor Undecided

3. Please grade our website on overall look.

Excellent Good Average Poor Very Poor Undecided

Please tell us how much you agree or disagree with the following statements:

4. The vocabulary on our website is appropriate for the intended audience.