Is Your Website a Star Performer?

We’ve been keeping warm and watching movies around our house lately, and it struck me that your website has — or can have — a lot in common with a movie star.

Just as there are lots of people who want to become movie stars, there are lots of websites whose owners want them to become successful at generating leads and sales for their companies. In both cases, we know that most will fail.

Would-be movie stars know who they need to talk to in order to gain that rare chance of success, and so do you. Just as there’s a lot of competition for the attention of those important Hollywood agents and directors, there’s a lot of competition for the attention of your potential customers and clients.

Now, I don’t actually know what movie star wanna bes have to do to reach their goals. I figure they have to look good, and so does your website, but I bet that’s not enough.

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I know it’s not enough for your website. We checked average year over year traffic for an assortment of good websites that were built and launched with no further activity, and we saw an average increase of 0.17%. Google’s most recent benchmark report, based on the traffic reported by the millions of websites that use Google Analytics, showed that the average website actually lost traffic over the course of the year. Having a good looking website can therefore give you a little better results than the average website can get, but it won’t make your website a star.

Websites with regular blogging, some social media, some linkbuilding, and perhaps some attention to their analytics so decisions can be made strategically — these sites had an average year over year increase of 51.6%. The sites we included in this group didn’t all have the same kind of management, but they all had ongoing management including some or all of the basics: blogging, linkbuilding, social media, analytics. The lowest increase shown by any of these sites was 11.55% — way better than average.

There’s more to web success than traffic, just as there’s more to being a movie star than simply getting a part in a film. Still, whatever your conversion rate may be and however you count conversions, more targeted traffic means more clients and customers.

When you use data-driven strategy to ensure that your blogging, social media, and linkbuilding will support your company goals, you can expect your website to be the star of your marketing mix.