In today’s digital age, a website can be as valuable an asset as physical facilities, equipment, or inventory. A website is a 24/7 digital storefront, providing customers with easy access to information about products and services. Moreover, a website can be a cost-effective marketing tool and generate leads, build credibility, and provide measurable feedback to achieve success.
Just as you invest in physical assets, it is equally important to invest in maintaining and optimizing a website to ensure that it is performing at its best and contributing to the overall success of the business. The easiest way to envision your website as an asset is to first recall what makes anything an asset. Them, consider how a website behaves in these ways. Finally, determine how to maximize its effectiveness.
What We'll Cover
Unique ways a website behaves as an asset
Let’s start with the main ways anything behaves like an asset, and answer how a website can meet these criteria. Overall, a website can be a valuable asset to the bottom line through these features, functions, and effects. It provides a digital presence, generating leads, building credibility, and providing feedback to power success.
- Appreciates in value: Your website increases in value over time as search engines index your pages, other sites link to yours, and your site design reinforces your brand identity.
- Depreciates in value: Conversely, if product offerings are not updated, or your site becomes outdated in appearance, or slows down, it will have less to offer your customers and your business.
- Takes inputs and provides outputs: Inputs to a website include both updates made to the content and experience, as well as traffic inputs such as through search engines, social media, business listings, and more. Outputs include purchases, consultation requests, or attendance (collectively called “conversions”).
- Can be improved upon: Regularly adding new content such as blog posts and product updates, you can keep your website current and provide customers with fresh and engaging content. This can help improve search engine rankings, making it easier for customers to find your website. Moreover, new features or functionality can improve the user experience and make your site more helpful to customers.
What does a website offer specifically?
Looking now at a website’s unique benefits. A website can be a valuable business asset for several reasons. Businesses with a site already may already be familiar with some or all of these benefits:
- Provides a Digital Presence: A website provides a digital presence in the digital age. A business without a website is at a disadvantage as potential customers search online for products or services.
- 24/7 Availability: A website is available 24/7, allowing customers to access information about your business, products or services at any time. This can help to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
- Cost-Effective: A website can be a cost-effective marketing tool compared to traditional marketing channels such as print or broadcast advertising. Your presence can also be updated more easily and quickly at a lower cost.
- Generates Leads: A website can generate leads via contact forms, newsletter sign-ups, and other methods of collecting information for followup.
- Builds Credibility: A well-designed website can help build credibility for a business. A professional-looking website that is easy to navigate and provides valuable information can help establish your authority and expertise in your industry.
- Measurable Metrics: A website’s analytics tools can gather traffic data such as page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates. This data can be used to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions.
Ultimately, viewing a website like any other asset allows individuals and businesses to recognize the importance of investing in their website and ensure that it is contributing to their overall financial success.
Determining the Website ROI
Just as a business invests in physical assets, it is equally important to invest in a website to ensure that it is performing at its best and adding value. Like any other asset, a website represents a financial investment that yields a return. Consider the ways to assess the return on investment (ROI) for a website, and compare it to your other assets:
- Revenue generated: Analyze the revenue generated from the website over a period of time. This can include sales, advertising revenue, or any other sources of income directly tied to the website.
- Cost of development: Determine the cost of developing the website, including design, development, content creation, and any ongoing maintenance costs.
- Cost of maintenance: Calculate the ongoing costs of maintaining and updating the website, including hosting, domain registration, content updates, and any other necessary expenses.
- Conversion rate: Analyze the website’s conversion rate, or the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form.
By analyzing these factors, a business can calculate the ROI of its website and make informed decisions about investing in ongoing website development and maintenance.
Other things to consider
Your web strategy should focus on more than just conversions. Some “soft goals” may include improvements in brand recognition and reputation, increased customer engagement, loyalty, support, satisfaction and retention. These goals may be more difficult to quantify and measure. However, they still have a significant impact on the overall success and profitability of a business.
