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Web Performance Measurement and Improvement

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How to Develop a Web Measurement Plan: Methodology

This is a series of articles that will go through a step by step methodology showing how to develop a Web Measurement Plan. The methodology is based on the principles of problem solving used extensively in Quality based practices with the fundamental premise based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.

This methodology is time honoured approach and has proven to be successful in many instances across a wide range of applications.

The focus of these articles is on the PLAN stage. As can be seen by the PLAN description below, it is very general and requires a great deal of thought and development for each application. Consequently for Web Channel measurement we have developed a comprehensive methodology that can be applied either by following the steps in the blog as they are published, or through a facilitated workshop provided by Zanka Consulting.

The methodology to successfully implement a web measurement plan follows the PDCA cycle closely. Once the Key Performance measures are in place as developed in the PLAN stage, then they need to be “implemented”.

Implementation (DO) is designing the web analytics tools to deliver the identified metrics. This may require integrating several different tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook stats, Twitter stats and so on.

The CHECK phase ( sometimes referred to as STUDY) is when the data is analyzed to see whether the information is providing the insights that can be used to ACT.

The final ACT stage is where changes are made to the various web

PDCA Definition

The four PDCA Steps are (Wikipedia):

PLAN

Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the expected output (the target or goals). By establishing output expectations, the completeness and accuracy of the specification is also a part of the targeted improvement. When possible start on a small scale to test possible effects.

DO

Implement the plan, execute the process, make the product. Collect data for charting and analysis in the following “CHECK” and “ACT” steps.

CHECK

Study the actual results (measured and collected in “DO” above) and compare against the expected results (targets or goals from the “PLAN”) to ascertain any differences. Look for deviation in implementation from the plan and also look for the appropriateness and completeness of the plan to enable the execution, i.e., “Do”. Charting data can make this much easier to see trends over several PDCA cycles and in order to convert the collected data into information. Information is what you need for the next step “ACT”.

ACT

If the CHECK shows that the PLAN that was implemented in DO is an improvement to the prior standard (baseline), then that becomes the new standard (baseline) for how the organization should ACT going forward (new standards are enACTed).

If the CHECK shows that the PLAN that was implemented in DO is not an improvement, then the existing standard (baseline) will remain in place. In either case, if the CHECK showed something different than expected (whether better or worse), then there is some more learning to be done… and that will suggest potential future PDCA cycles. Note that some who teach PDCA assert that the ACT involves making adjustments or corrective actions… but generally it would be counter to PDCA thinking to propose and decide upon alternative changes without using a proper PLAN phase, or to make them the new standard (baseline) without going through DO and CHECK steps.

The methodology for a web channel follows the PDCA cycle closely. Once the Key Performance measures are in place as developed in the PLAN stage, then they need to be “implemented”. Implementation (DO) is designing the web analytics tools to deliver the identified metrics. This may require integrating several different tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook stats, Twitter stats and so on. The CHECK phase ( sometimes referred to as STUDY) is when the data is analyzed to see whether the information is providing the insights that can be used to ACT.

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SEO Is it right for your small business?

One of my small business clients – Ottawa Foot Balance – provides walk in service for orthotics ( duh . So it is a very local service dependant upon two critical factors

  1. Exposure to a broad clientele
  2. Health insurance eligibility

Obviously the second point is not something that can be controlled on a website as everyone’s health insurance coverage will be different. So the most important factor to improving the number of clients is exposure through various marketing channels.

Word of mouth is one – actually that is how I found out about this business as i needed orthotics. The other is on line. I built a simple but easily maintained website for OFB which helped but it was just the first step in the process. Business was still not improving as a result of the website so the next step was to start advertising.

This business is highly competitive and getting top Google listings is difficult so we decided to go with the Google adwords approach. Not having used this before, it was certainly a challenge to get it right. I must say though the Google folks were very helpful and I was able to fine tune my keywords.

We have had this up and running for several months now and we are getting 4 to 6 clickthroughs per day. So far only one or two have converted as we are careful to ask where the customer heard about Ottawa Foot Balance. We have also restricted the expenditures to $3.00 per day in order to control our expenditures and run  about $60 per month.

what is also interesting is that Randy has been besieged by SEO marketers promising the world but with very little substance in being able to deliver the clients we  need. The sales pitch is always something like “we will imporve your Google ranking to the top 3″ – but with Google adwords we are already on the top of the search page for our key words so it is very difficult to improve on that.

Another pitch is that ” we will improve your site visits by 200 – 300 visits”, needless to say that sounds great but will these visits be by local potential customers and how can we measure the actual conversion rate.

That being said I have decided to try a local marketing service by 1and1 which is my service provider and I have had excellent service through them. The reason I decided to try this service is that the business owner wants to increase his business and for the initial expense is willing to try this service out.

I was not able to get a really good answer to my question of how will I know that this really works but since I like tracking the website statistics ( Google Analytics) and we will record the number of calls and where the customers heard about the business to gauge the effectiveness of this service.

I will be following up on my encounters with SEO.

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Protecting your Most Important Web Asset – your domain name

Recently one of my customers was held hostage by their service provider who controlled their domain name registration. This whole experience was very messy, it cost the real owner potential business and could have been avoided by a few simple rules:

  • Register your domain name(s) under your own name and pay for them separately
    • The registrar will recognize you as the rightful owner of that name without question
    • You will be able to change hosting providers by a simple change of DNS address – you now have control
    • Your hosting provider can remove your hosting privileges, but cannot prevent you from having another hosting company host your website and this redirection can take effect almost immediately
  • Do not let your third party hosting provider register your domain names under their name
    • It may legally be your name but as far as the registrar is concerned the other company has the right to use it as they are paying for the name and they will do nothing without a legal document to allow you to take control
    • If any billing or other dispute takes place you are at the mercy of that provider who can tie up your website domain name until the dispute is settled rather than settle it through other legal means. As long as the dispute is not settle you can be without your website – not a good situation to be in these days.
  • Use a large reputable firm for your hosting and domain name registration.
    • These companies will register your domain name within your hosting package which is under your name and you pay for it so there can be no dispute as to whom the owner is
      • Of course if you have a billing dispute with them there may be issues, but these companies have means for recourse and generally will not take your website down without a lot of warning
      • There is a process generally to settle disputes so it can take the emotion out of the equation.
    • You can easily switch companies and packages and they do give lots of support.
  • If you do decide to use a smaller organization ensure that you have control of your domain name but you can allow them to access that account to make the right changes
    • All you have to do is to change your password and the hosting provider no longer has access
    • If your password was changed then you reset your password using the “forgot password” feature or go directly to the Registrar to obtain access
  • Register your domain name for longer periods, if you forget to pay then you can easily lose the registration and someone else could grab your domain name.
    • If you are the registered owner you will be notified but if someone else owns the name and they forget to tell you then you can loose the domain name and it can be very hard to get back if at all.

I cannot emphasize the importance of being registered as owner of your domain name. Yes you can get it back but look at the potential cost in time and money to do so. Can you really afford that?

So if you are in the situation where your domain name is registered by a third party then get them to change the registration to your name. If you are not sure who owns it go to www.whois.net and enter your domain name to find out who is the Registrar and other information. If the registration information is private then you may need to go to the registrars website to get more information. Some digging may be required but you will be able to find out who is the holder of that registration. You can then contact the registrar and at least get a contact email so you can resolve the ownership.

Generally you won’t have a  problem, but as was the case of my client not knowing the implications of domain name ownership caused a lot of headaches and money to resolve. Their solution finally was to register a variation of their business name and develop that new brand – a difficult task to rebuild one’s business.