Value of a Website

How is it possible to value a website? This question is quite difficult to answer and the value should be determined by considering its aim. Perhaps, questioning how successful the website is much better – finding out how much success it has achieved towards its goal.

A few metrics can give insight to how much a website is being used, but that may not define its value or success. Imagine a website being visited only by five people. Weather the five people are world leaders or top CEO’s of top five national companies, could make quite a difference. Therefore it’s not easy to make a quick assumption just by looking from a quantitative perspective, as qualitative aspects also matter.

Same can be said for the social media. Who viewed you on Linked In? Who is following you on twitter? Who has liked your Facebook Page? Who has re-pinned your images and is following your board on Pinterest? These are just as important questions as “how many?”
For a long time, we know Google’s most valued criteria for a website has been its content quality and flawless functionality. Its performance and the way it is prepared for crawlers also determines its rank in the search results. Advertising can put a website on top of the list but it still ranks for targeted keywords.

So we have organic value with powerful content on one hand, and paid commercial value in the other. Experience shows you could be very successful if you are conducting a research about a certain topic with Google, but not so much if you are looking for a freelance writer. Google will list quite a bit of commercial or academic results regarding the topic than other search engines like Bing for example. Searching in twitter with a hashtag may be easier to get in touch with a #freelancer.

It seems with the ever changing use of the Internet, It is getting more and more difficult to raise the value of a website. The combination of the following features for a website that has a defined target could produce a score: SEO Criteria (visits, google rank, speed, error free pages, social media, backlinks, consistent and powerful content, well targeted keywords, rich meta tags, friendly URL’s, schema tags etc.), Lead Generation and Marketing (Blogging, Newsletters, RSS, Content Marketing, Landing Pages, website forms, e-mail marketing, paid programs, CRM integration, e-commerce, webinar infrastructure, paid advertising), reach and functionality (Mobility, responsive design, social media presence, site search features, user friendliness on all devices, social sharing, promoted posts etc.)

With the upcoming mixed reality, smart watches, cloud computing innovations and connected game consoles, we can expect to have more and more criteria in the future. These aspects need to be continually measured and optimized to stay ahead of the game. Commercially speaking, it is very important to pronounce what needs to be achieved, who to reach and what to say, and then measure all aspects relative to competition to keep improving. Web has become a platform that rewards creativity (not just graphics) if you can keep up.