Failure is Important in Website Optimization
So, you want to optimize your website to create the perfect customer experience? Well, that is a reasonable expectation if you have a million years to achieve it. The trick word is “perfect,” right? Right.
Optimizing a site assumes there is an “optimal,” not a perfect existence. This is mainly due to conflicting needs. Last time I wrote about writing for the right crowd, which is complicated when you have several target markets. Today, I am saying you have to pick the optimal existence, is your site 80% focused on sales and 20% focused on servicing current clients? Or, is there some other mix? An optimal mix will support your web strategy and business goals.
Many folks get discouraged when they focus on conversion rates and traffic volumes go down, or they focus on getting paid search impressions and bounce rate goes up. Your goals, like your audiences, will often conflict, particularly when you have limited resources. So what should you do? Pick a strategy mix and test it out.
If your goal is increase your brand recognition, you can bet your website’s overall profitability (ROI) will go down. It is a fact of life. Now, in the long term we may expect to reap rewards from our efforts today, which is what branding is all about. So, with the conflicting goals at hand you just have to pick a mix that you are comfortable with and GO.
The fun part is watching your efforts “move the needle.” This is also where the failure part comes in. Typically, a newsletter/opt-in email list is the gift that keeps on giving, but not always. Let’s say you want to increase relevant traffic to your website so you start collecting emails and running a bi-weekly newsletter.
In time you will be able to look at the metrics and determine whether the campaign is working. If it doesn’t work, then you have freed up resources for other types of marketing. You see the concept? If a campaign fails, you will know what not to do (at least for now). That may not sound encouraging because your resources are precious, but it really is a huge help in the Internet marketing world.
First of all, it is not hard to come up with options for online marketing, so eliminating options is very helpful in the selection process.
Secondly, failures help you understand your market. Maybe your industry is not well-suited for the email type marketing and banner ads on your local newspaper site are the ticket. You will never know until you try, and once you do know, you can select similar types of marketing for future campaigns. It also gives you some insight in how to craft and present your message.
Failure will be part of your website optimization process, like it or not, the key is using it as another tool for improvement. This concept isn’t unique to online marketing, or even marketing for that matter, but I hope it gives you some hope. As a general rule, people typically learn more from their failures than their successes anyway. And, remember, no failure ever need be final :-).
