If you ask most small business owners how much business their website generated for them yesterday to the nearest % the vast majority will be unable to give an answer. Most feel that it does generate business but it is a vague notion, having a website is more based on a feeling that their website is something they should have in the same way you have brochures.

Survey after survey (http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single6737 ) has found that small businesses do not regard their website as an effective channel to market.

This is a big mistake, traditional methods of getting business are no longer working! This is due to the fact that larger and larger numbers of Irish people (http://tinyurl.com/3kytt6) are now using Google to locate new products and services.

What to do? Get a website that does the Business!

What does Omniserve mean by doing the Business? It’s simple, your website must provide a quantifiable, tangible return. How do you go about calculating this return?

There are 3 steps:

1. A is for Appearing: How well is your website appearing in Google Paid and Organic search results for the customer search that you would like to target? Once you are appearing well for the searches that you are targeting searchers will click on your result and land on your home page. That is where the B comes in.

2. B is for Bounce rate. The Bounce rate measures the numbers of searchers that immediately click the back button to the Google results they were trawling when they land on your website. For many websites this Bounce rate can be 70%-90%. Those searchers that don’t bounce are the ones you are after and they will click on the section of your site that offers the most likelihood of giving them what they are searching for. The objective of your website is to minimise the Bounce rate by getting qualified visitors (people who actually want what you are offering) and making your home page very clear so that the searcher can see quickly where to click to find what they want.

3. C is for Conversion: When the searcher has not bounced and has clicked on further links in your site the final test is does your website Convert them to the target action that your website exists for. This could be simple tasks like letting searchers know your opening hours or your location to more sophisticated actions like completing a booking or ordering something.