It’s a question that’s on the mind of every business owner. What is the biggest reason business fail? Is it lack of focus?

Is it lack of good management?

Is it lack of organizational structure or support?

Is it lack of planning?

Nope, none of the above…well sort of. The reality is that the biggest reason businesses fail is due to a lack of sales. One can argue that a lack of sales is the result of one of the above issues, but it remains to be the leading most encompassing problem. From the smallest company, mom & pop stores around the corner, to the Fortune 500 companies such as Motorola, if you do not have revenue, you are doomed.

And that is simply why conversion matters.

Having a website for the longest time was a must because everyone else was having a website. Next it was having a blog. Everyone needs to have a blog.

A business activity needs to generate revenue directly or indirectly.

You can spend 15 million dollars on a website and plan for it to generate 500 million dollars in sales annually but if your website does not perform (convert), that is 15 million that could have been spent somewhere else.

I was talking to a CEO of a small company that has annual revenue of 20 million dollars. The discussion turned to his website. He did not see any value in it. They had invested few thousand dollars in making it look nice, but it is an informational website. It is not an income generating tool. What does “an informational tool” mean? How can you measure that? Imagine me coming to the CEO telling him let’s spend few thousand dollars on a print campaign. But we will not measure the results. It is going to be an informational campaign. Will he go for it? Most CEOs will not, few will.

So, where your site is an informational website, an ecommerce, a lead generation, a support site, or content site, you should have measurable business goals for the site. You should assess progress against these goals. Because although few get lucky and succeed without planning, most of us have to plan to succeed!