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TODAY’S SMALL BUSINESS SuperiorBMS.com/tsbmag
that page? b. Are the form instructions easy to understand? c. Are you asking for the right information you need on the form, and are you asking only for the essentials? For every field added to a form, the amount of users who will convert drops dramatically. Make sure that you’re only asking for the information you need to initially engage with that lead; you can always ask for additional information further down the pipeline. d. Does the collected form information go where it needs to: the right person at your organization, or into your lead nurturing system? e. Upon completion of the form, can the user successfully access the offered incentive? Is it the correct asset as promised in the form header and instructions? Site Functionality: Measurement Tools Your site won’t do you any good if you can’t measure how it’s performing. Before you launch, check to make sure that you have placed your Google Analytics or other analytics package code on the site, and that it is accurately measuring visits, time spent on
Issue 03 - MAR/APR 2014
TSB
page, and other important site metrics. Additionally, make sure that you have set up your Webmaster tools. SEO: Live URLs Most websites are built on a development server, with a different uniform resource locator (URL) than they will have when launched. When a site is taken live, the URLs are all moved from that staging area, and change. Every single URL on your site needs to be tested when the site goes live to make sure that they work and lead to the correct destination. This is important for both a functionality standpoint and for SEO purposes. Launching a website is a major undertaking; there are hundreds of moving parts that need to come together in order to make your site a beautiful, functional tool for a business. Although there are dozens of areas that need to be tested repeatedly before your site is ready to launch, these overlooked areas are great places to start – the bugs and glitches that come from these elements are often the most damaging to a small business’s site performance, so it’s better to take a little extra bit of time testing them so that your company can avoid on-the-fly repairs!
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