Great Article: Black Hole eats Web Resources, claims Survey

Black Hole
eats Web Resources, claims Survey

Great article about how very few websites are positive ROI generators.

The reasons for this aren't discussed in much detail, but the
inference is pretty clear from the statement: "...you do not have to
be a big spender to make money from the Web. Small budgets are just as
capable as big budgets of generating good returns". This is all pretty
self evident from the money thrown at websites by many companies.

So, how does a website generate a positive ROI?

Firstly, a website has so many goals to achieve, and these are often
in competition. Post sales support, an online marketing, sales and
lead generation tool and a portal for using various online resources.

To be successful, a web has to manage all these competing goals. To be
profitable, and generate a positive ROI, a site needs to acheive all
these goals while keeping costs down..

A big problem with ROI on a website is that: "Over half of 465
companies surveyed have not analysed the cost/benefit equation." How
can you know if a website is worth the investment if you don't track
the Return on any spend?

Websites can generate a positive ROI in one of two ways:
1. Generate additional sales. This is the obvious omeans, and needs no
explaination.
2. By reducing costs. This is the least measured, and least well
tracked, even by comapnies that do track ROI on their site.

As an example of reducing costs, take a company that currently answers
around 100 emails a month from customers on various topics. Of these
100 emails, 60 are requests for information that exists on the site,
but is hard to find. If 48 of these 60 emails (or aroung 80%) could be
stopped by improving a website, and each email took 10 minutes answer,
that is saving per month of 8 hours (I fudged the Math a bit to make
it work neatly). That is one working day per month, and 2 working
weeks and two days per year saved. That is a significant reduction in
cost for any SME, and an ongoing benefit year in year out.

The tools to achieve such a reduction are well known: usabuility,
SEO, fleshing out content via an FAQ or improvements to existing pages
and adding take away content for downloading.

To few companies focus on their web efforts on any tangible Return. By
setting out with targets for cost reductions via pre- and post-sale
cost reductions, the true usefulness of the web as a 24/7/365 tool for
a business can be harnessed, and a positive ROI generated.