How Well Does Your Website Perform?

The Guerrilla Consulting Blog has a website self-assessment test that you can complete for free. Once completed it will analyze the results and send you a report with suggestions on how you can improve your site.

I think it's a worth while test to do and agree with most of the questions.  Questions include those related to:

• The purpose of your website.
• The importance of your website to your overall marketing strategy.
• Who visits your site.
• How much content is promotional vs educational.
• What people can learn from your website.
• How well different types of visitors can find the content that they want.
• How well your site allows visitors to interact with it.
• What communication tools your site has (blogs, RSS, etc.).
• If visitors can send you feedback from every page of your site.
• If you use pop-up windows on your site.
• If your Web site offers visitors some of your proprietary information at no cost.
• In order to download information from your site, what information you ask visitors to supply.
• If at least five clients tested your Web site before it was released to the public.
• If a visitor scan scan pages on your site and grasp the key ideas.
• If your Web site home page used an attention-grabbing flash introduction.
• If your Web site includes these features: Contact Us, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Privacy Statement, Terms of Web Site Use, and Search.
• If you monitor traffic to your site, and if so, how many unique visitors view the site, what pages visitors look at, how long visitors stay at the site, and what site referred them to your Web site.
• If you use images you use to enhance the appearance of your Web site.
• If your Web site been effective in generating leads for your practice.
• If your site helped you build relationships with your existing clients.

I think it's a very useful tool and agree with most of the criteria. However, like many marketers, I am not big on flash introductions as they can distract from your message. I am also not big on pop-ups. They do work, but they are intrusive and can be somewhat cheesy.  

After having 400 consultants take the test, they have summarized the results here. Here are some interesting statistics from the websites that are successful:

• Less than half of respondents (43%) reported that their Web sites have been successful in generating business and building client relationships.
• 70% of successful websites had updated their sites within the last 30 days.
• 80% of successful websites offered information to clients at no cost.
• 90% of successful websites monitor traffic patterns and 59% monitor those patterns very carefully.

Take the test here.