Why Would You Pay for Website Reports?
Do you get excited about website reports? Does anyone? Let me put it this way:
Do you sprint to the mailbox and excitedly tear open your retirement account statement when it arrives every quarter? No?
What about regularly checking in on the status of your other assets: equity in your home, real estate holdings? Still no?
You’re not alone; most of us don’t. Just like most of us aren’t eager to read those website reports.
But if you look at it objectively, it seems as if we should be really interested and motivated to know how to get even more value out of our existing assets.
What’s that, you say? That sounds boring and you’d rather get back to your Bridgerton binge? Hmmm… okay. I get it: Shiny and exciting feel better than challenging and long term. Aren’t humans weird?
Listen to Season 1: Episode 19
The Challenge with Reports
Part of the issue with regularly reviewing the status of assets is that it doesn’t seem urgent, and usually, most of the information in these kinds of reports and statements can be hard to interpret (yeah, boooorrring).
When it comes to your retirement accounts, likely you meet with your financial advisor at least annually and rely on them to guide and educate you in this area. Right?
But what about your business assets? How do you know what to do with those assets?
Short answer: you don’t, so you guess.
Or you might be avoiding the information because that just feels more comfortable than wading into uncharted waters, potentially full of insights you’d maybe rather not have.
Rabbit holes, chasing your tail, uncertainty, and shotgun approach; yup, these are some of the traps we’ve fallen into when wading into uncharted territory.
And let’s face it, website reports just aren’t your area of expertise. It’s hard to get the data, not to mention trying to compile it into a report.
Why Websites Are Important
My position on websites is that they are one of the most valuable assets in your business. But this is ONLY true when you treat them as an asset instead of just an expense.
The key differentiators between a website being an expense vs an asset are:
1. defining the role of your website
2. tracking its performance in that role
If your business website doesn’t have a clearly defined role, hit pause and go fix that. Seriously; it’s critical. If you need help, check out our previous blogs.
And that brings us to tracking your website’s performance. Certainly, you don’t NEED website reports to do this, but they do make the task a hell of a lot easier.
For a moment, let’s set aside the word “report,” as it tends to carry a lot of baggage with it. Instead, let’s call this collection of information about your website a Progress Tracker. It’s likely you might be tracking your progress toward other goals, such as fitness, reading, journaling, writing, etc. There are business goals that you have for the website, and you use the Progress Tracker to see how things are going and to make adjustments along the way to ensure you get to your goals.
The Benefit of Website Reports
When you invest in website reports, you get three distinct advantages:
1. Data you can trust. To trust your Progress Tracker, aka report (I’m determined to help you “unload” this word), you have to have accurate data. This is one big reason to invest in reports. Inaccurate data is usually a landmine: the consequences aren’t really expected until you step on it.
When you invest in reports by working with an expert, they make sure that tracking is implemented correctly and reconcile data against other sources to ensure the information you are getting is accurate. Besides incorrect setup of tracking, there are some other issues, such as analytics spam, that can mess with the real picture your Progress Tracker is giving you.
2. Consumable information. Too much information can be even worse than no information. At least with no information, you aren’t overwhelmed. Truth is, you don’t need all the data, just the stuff that matters. Clearly this begs the next question: What matters? That, my friend, depends on what role your website plays in your business.
Stick with me; I’m not going to totally cop out under the “it depends” banner. For any website, at a high level you need to know who is coming to the site (the number of eyeballs you are getting) and where they are coming from. Then you want to know what they are doing and if they are doing the things you are asking them to do. And… (Ready for the call back?) that depends on the role of your website.
3. Expert access. Getting the right information in a format you can use sets you up to make informed decisions. Staying in that place as things change means needing to routinely update and upgrade your progress tracker and your understanding.
This is why access to an expert is advantageous. It’s why you have a financial advisor. When things change, or when your goals change, you need to upgrade your information and your knowledge.
Consider Website Reports an Investment
When you invest in website reports, you are able to confidently evaluate your asset and can more readily see and act on using it to grow your business. Seeing the who, how, when, and where on your site gives you the right data to make your decisions, thereby reducing guessing and trial and error.
This data means you know where you’re leaving money on the table in your business—and what to do to pick it up.
It’s Time to Up-level Your Game
Ready to make smarter business decisions, waste less time on trial and error, and have an overall line of sight on your business health and growth? We can help. Our analytics and reporting service, Insight Pro, properly sets up metrics in your business and serves them up to you so you can make decisions based on the information that matters to your success.
