The worth of a business’s assets can be tricky to define. Deciding how much your website is worth to your business is even more perplexing. At Hash Interactive we have noticed that the return on investment from a good quality website is very high. How do we know this? How can you figure out how much value your website is adding to your business? Here are a few guidelines to follow when evaluating your own website:

1. How Much Do You Save?

   Having a good website not only attracts more business but it can save you a substantial amount of money. A website that supplies information to customers may not generate income, but it can save you time if designed well. A well formatted and accessible FAQ page saves you money in the long run. If customers can go online and access general information without having to call in and talk to customer service you can have your employees focus on more important tasks.

2. More Local Business

   The internet is a global technology, but that doesn’t mean your website can’t cater to locals. Search engines give precedence to local businesses when people perform searches. With more local customers reading and writing online reviews it is more important than ever to have a web presence as a small business. One great exercise is to look at your competitions websites and compare their website to yours. Does their website look better than yours? Does it have functionality that yours doesn’t? If so it may be time to invest some time and money into improving your website.

3. Build Trust

   Today 94% of users form their first impression of a company, organization, or brand based on the quality and design of their website. For branding purposes alone it makes sense to invest money in quality web design. We see many businesses in Fargo spend their advertising budget on things other than their website. In our experience the businesses that build the most successful brands are those that understand the value of a first-rate website and invest in their online presence.

4. Web Analytics

   In order to get a better understanding of how important your website is to your business we highly recommend installing some kind of  web analytics on your web site. By using good web analytics software you can easily monitor how your customers are using your website. Things like trust and public opinion can be hard to quantify, but by using web analytics you can have raw data on how much work your website is doing for you.

5. Your Best Employee

   Your website can be your best employee. It works 24/7 to make life easier for you. It helps give customers the information you need, advertising, getting found on Google and attracting new business all while you sleep at night. How much is that worth to you?  Try to envision your website as an employee. How much value is it creating and how much is saving you?

By going through and examining your own website you hopefully will have a better idea of how your website is representing your business. So now what? Once you assess how important your website is to your business what can you do to improve upon it?

The next step:

1. Install Web Analytics

   If you haven’t already this is by far the easiest step you can take to start improving your web presence. By installing some kind of analytics software you can begin to receive raw data and begin examining things more closely. Plus its a lot of fun to see where all of your web traffic is coming from and how customers are using your site.

2. SEO

   Search engine optimization is a hot topic these days. If you are not ranking as well as you would like on Google and other search engines but are happy with the overall look and feel of your site then you may want to look into SEO. Improving how you rank on search engines can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Writing a weekly blog post is a great simple way to improve search ranking while creating and implementing a back-link building strategy could be a lot more expensive and time consuming.

3. Frequent Updates

   Often good websites turn into bad websites after being neglected over a long period of time. Making sure everything is up to date and functional is a small step you can take to ensure you are taking care of your web presence.

4. Redesign/Rebuild

   Eventually sites get too old to update or are just plain outdated. If this is your case then it is probably time for a site revamp. Whether it is just redesigning your current site or reevaluating your entire online presence this can be a large undertaking. If you are still curious about how much value your website is adding to your business or are considering improving your online presence please contact us and we can set up a consultation.