Website maintenance boosts business's bottom line,
experts say
Author: Jenna Weiner
November 17, 2009

Having a well-designed website is a crucial tool for driving revenue, increasing visibility and engaging a broad base of consumers. But the next step - making sure it is running smoothly and achieving its desired aims - is also crucial, and is often neglected, experts say.

Allen Moon, marketing director of the Internet Marketing Center, recently published an article in Entrepreneur magazine about the importance of "popping the hood" of a business's website to ensure it is running as it should.

Using web analytic tools or consultants, small business owners are advised to check the website statistics and functionality, as well as the linkbacks and search engine results.

For example, a company selling t-shirts on their website would want to find data on how many users visit the site without going to the product page, how many go to the product page but leave before purchasing a t-shirt, and how many attempt to make a purchase but abandon the shopping cart.

These kinds of conversion rate statistics give small businesses valuable data on what parts of their websites are running smoothly - fixing any problems in this area is likely to have an impact on revenue, Moon wrote.

According to a recent study by PayPal, approximately half of online shoppers abandon their purchases before completion.