This really comes down to a fundamental question what actions do you want people to take on your website?

Your conversion rate is a simple calculation based on how many hits you are getting, and how many of those hits take action on your website. Simply put, a conversion is when someone takes the next step on your site whether thats filling in a form, signing up for your email program, buying something, etc. Industry standard conversion rate for companies generating leads is usually right around 1%; for ecommerce websites, this is closer to 2%3%.

If you have no idea how many hits you are getting, or how many of those hits are taking action, call your web developer and make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your website, and that Google Analytics is tracking goals (which equates to conversions). This program is free and will give you all of this information.

Out of every 100 people coming to your website, if you are driving leads, you should be getting at least 1 lead, and if you are selling products, you should be getting 2 sales. If you are quite a bit lower than these numbers, consider a good website design will easily take you to your 1% conversion. So, if you have a .5% conversion rate (which is where many older website designs are at), a new website design can easily double your leads (or sales).

Whats the value of that? Only your company can assign that value. You will need to sit down and determine whether doubling leads is enough to overcome a $10,000 investment.

Formula # 3 Planning on Getting to the Top

The last big indicator of whether its time to overhaul your website would be whether you want your website to rank in Search Engines like Google or Bing, when your prospects are searching for your products and services. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you want to get that great traffic to your website, you must have a good technical website.

As you start to think about the potential of SEO, you should keep in mind that an average website with Search Engine Optimization should see traffic increases by 40% in one year. So, if you are getting 1,000 hits to your website each month, a 40% increase means an additional 4,800 hits/year. For lead generation companies, 1% is a good estimate of a conversion rate on a new site design, which equates to 48 leads off of your increase. Over 3 years, this will be 144 leads. Again, your company will have to make its own calculations of whether this makes financial sense.

Most importantly, for these kinds of results, just a website design wont cut it. These results are more likely for companies who do an SEO and Content Marketing program after a new website is built. That being said, if your company wants to take on an SEO campaign, your website must meet technical best practices.

A website design project can be a huge undertaking for your organization, so it makes financial sense to really think through the ROI and potential before putting your team through this kind of project. Also, to ensure you maintain those return on investment (ROI) goals throughout the project, its important to be very clear with your web development firm regarding the results you are expecting from your website. HBM

Natalie Henley has been in the Internet marketing industry for over 4 years and specializes in the Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search & Social Media Marketing fields. She is the Marketing Manager at Volume 9 Inc. Volume 9 creates custom search marketing campaigns for clients, including a mix of SEO, paid search management, social media, local search marketing, and website development for over 100 clients and 200 managed websites. Natalie and Volume 9s enterprising team leverage search marketing into real bottom line results for their clients businesses. They were recently honored by both the Inc. 5,000 and the Denver Business Journal as one of the fastest growing companies in Denver, and in the US. For more information, please visit www.volume9inc.com .V20-4 Add:10/13 HP: 2/2/14