Check average response time for a contact from your Website. One of top complaints about major company sites is that e-mails are not answered in a timely (hopefully 24 hours or less) manner. 5. Does your Website support your internal operations and employee needs?

This question relates to whether you're making best use of all available technologies, and integrating them with your online operations.

Example applications to consider include:

* Instant messaging, fast becoming a serious business tool * Knowledge bases - continually updated databases that can provide automated customer support on a 24/7 basis * Streaming media, perhaps for just-in-time training or on-the-spot manuals for your operatives * Intranets and extranets, which are really just fancy names for password-protected employee and client areas

6. Does your Website integrate fully with your "real-world" activities and processes? One of most frustrating visitor experiences is to complete a form, an application, or to submit a search on your Website, only to receive an error message.

Customers want security of an e-mailed purchase confirmation. They want to know that they'll be taken off your mailing list quickly and without need for multiple requests.

With complexity of technology and programs today, sometimes a change to a seemingly unrelated system can wreak havoc. Do you regularly check all input forms and processes on your site to ensure that no unexpected gremlins have crept in?

7. Does your Website provide you with a justifiable return on investment? This is probably most important question of seven, and possibly also most difficult.

That's because answer depends on a clear understanding of goals of your site, both in direct financial terms, and in other less tangible benefits, such as name recognition.

The keys to evaluating ROI, to improving your site, and often to further business development ideas can be found in your traffic reports. These show what visitors are looking for, how long they spend on site, where they go, where they leave, and what rate of response you get to various calls to action.

These reports can be daunting - a mass of figures, graphs and URL's. But I'd strongly suggest that someone in your organization should understand them. Otherwise, you're shooting in dark with your Web investment.

(c) Copyright Philippa Gamse, 2003. All rights reserved.

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I hope this article has been helpful. Happy page building!