The Ideal Web Site – Part 1 of a Series

Last week a client asked me to define the ideal website, based upon my 11+ years in the web development and SEO business. I don’t always include all of these components in a proposal or even include them in our own sites. However, if I had to describe a site that would be perfect, where client budget and their personal design tastes and requested features weren’t a factor, here is my definition of the perfect website:

The Ideal Website Delivers a Solid Return on Investment

As a business marketing investment, your website is not on the world wide web as a cultural art experience or to provide free information resource; it’s advertising. Advertising that is effective generates plenty of sales, and it represnts a solid business investment. A business website should bring in more than one dollar in profit for every dollar invested. If it doesn’t your Internet marketing sucks.

Developing a ‘web presence’ without revenue and a positive cash flow is ridiculous and bad business.

The Ideal Website Has Plenty of Qualified Traffic

The greatest myth in Internet marketing is: If you build it they will come. I think that only worked in Field of Dreams . Web design, without a solid marketing strategy, perfectly executed, is only going to produce a business liability. (What else would you call an advertising project that costs more money than it ever generates in revenue.) Over 90% of all websites fail. They have little or no traffic. And the few visitors they receive do not convert into customers.

I attended an SEO conference a while back and one of the speakers opened with, “A butt ugly website with a lot of traffic and effective conversion strategy will always outperform a drop dead gorgeous Webby-winning site with little or no traffic. Some of the ugliest sites on the planet have generated millions of dollars in revenue.”