Website development and maintenance cost money. That’s why we are all looking for ways to show how expenses associated to the Website shouldn’t be seen as costs but investments.
Measuring the website ROI (return on investment) is a good way to make this point in your annual website reports.
Once the website strategic goals have been defined by executives, it’s time to translate these high-level objectives into outcomes that can easily be measured.
Take the example where the website is supposed to help the admission office meet its goals in terms of student recruitment. In this case, you need to define a few measurable data points that will help you assess the website contribution to the admission efforts. Such data points can include requests for admission information, online applications, admission web page visits, admission publications downloads…
If your college or university tracks the referral information of any requests for admission information made on the phone, in email or by mail, you should also make sure the website is listed as an option.
I’ve been including such data points (page views, visits, online donors, online gifts, online applications, admission info requests, registered alums and website “expenses”) in a table featured at the top of my annual website report since 2003. Current and last years’ results are presented in adjacent columns for every data point. The trend expressed in percentage is included in the last column of the table.
This website dashboard is a very effective way to present critical information about the website performance to executives at the end of the budget year. It’s also a good tool to monitor the website progress all year long and make sure I won’t have any bad surprises when it’s time to prepare my annual report.
