Is Your Winning Web Site a Potential Loser?

by Ash Nallawalla
http://www.sem911.com

OK, so you have just won an award for the best web site on the planet and you are feeling pleased with yourself. The boss is happy; your web design people are happy; but you have some doubts.

What could be wrong? Perhaps the web site has consumed a large chunk of the marketing budget and you cannot show if it is bringing in any customers. While this is easy to see in a business that is entirely online, it is not so easy to see in a bricks-and-mortar enterprise that has many sales channels or the web site's address is well known or can be guessed from the company name.

So what can you do to convince yourself that your site is a winner? Ask yourself the following questions and give each answer a score of 2 for "yes", 1 for "don't know", and -1 for "no". All questions assume the use of Google, presently the most popular search engine.

1. If you search for your brand name, is your site #1?
2. If you search for your most popular product, does your site rank between 1-20?
3. If you search for your most popular product, are any of the other top 20 sites "friendlies", that is resellers, affiliates, or product reviews?
4. If you search with a generic phrase that your customers might use, e.g. "cheap hotels in Goa", is your site in the top 20?
5. Do you know which sites link to yours ("backlinks")?
6. Are your backlinks in the same business (or cover the same topics) as your site?
7. Have you tried to get other sites to link to your site?
8. Can you identify all sales that were initiated through a visit to your site?
9. Can you say how many uniques (unique visitors) your site received last month (as opposed to "hits")?
10. Is your site listed in an online directory under the correct topic?

Scoring

• 15-20: Congratulations - you have a potentially winning site, once you get the right kind of traffic and large numbers thereof.
• 10-14: You are nearly there but you need to work on the questions where you scored low.
• 5-9: You have many areas to address; work your way down the list of questions.
• 4 or less: You have your work cut out for you. YOu need to find a competent search engine marketing consultant.