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Whether a website is worth it comes down to four numbers: visitors per month, times the share that gets in touch, times the share of those enquiries that become customers, times what a customer is worth to you. If you know those four, or estimate them honestly, you know what your site returns per month and after how many months it pays for itself. If you do not, you are paying for a site without knowing whether it works.
The sum is simple; the numbers are the work. This guide explains each number, works through three kinds of business with the assumptions in plain sight, shows a real growth series from our own work, and says why the first months return little. It is written for small business owners and founders, in Belgium or anywhere else, who want to judge a website as an investment rather than a cost. To calculate with your own figures, use the ROAS calculator for ads and the marketing budget calculator for what you can spend.
The sum behind a website
| Number | What it is | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Visitors per month | people who open your site | your analytics, or Google Search Console for visitors from Google |
| Enquiry rate | the share that calls, emails, sends a form or orders | enquiries divided by visitors over the same month |
| Win rate | the share of enquiries that become customers | your own quotes and orders |
| Customer value | what a customer brings you, ideally over several years | your accounts |
| Margin | what is left of revenue after the cost of your work or product | your accountant |
Two numbers usually decide everything: visitors and the enquiry rate. A site nobody finds returns nothing, however beautiful it is. A site that is found but convinces nobody to call returns nothing either. Where visitors from Google come from, and how long it takes, is in how long does SEO take.
What a visitor is worth, for three kinds of business
Local service
4,800 eurosper month
B2B, long decision time
9,000 euros on averageper month
Online shop
2,700 eurosper month
Three kinds of business worked through
The figures below are assumptions for an example, not averages for a sector. They show how the sum works; replace them with yours.
| Local service | B2B with a long decision time | Online shop | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example | an installer in a region | a service provider to businesses | a shop with its own products |
| Visitors per month | 800 | 300 | 3,000 |
| Enquiry rate | 2 percent, 16 enquiries | 1 percent, 3 enquiries | 1.5 percent, 45 orders |
| Win rate | 25 percent, 4 customers | 20 percent, 0.6 customers on average | every order is a customer |
| Customer value | 1,200 euros | 15,000 euros | 60 euros |
| Revenue per month | 4,800 euros | 9,000 euros on average | 2,700 euros |
| At 30 percent margin | 1,440 euros | 2,700 euros | 810 euros |
| Payback time if the site cost 4,000 euros | about 3 months | about 1.5 months, but with big swings | about 5 months |
Two things stand out. For a B2B business with high customer value, a single customer is enough to pay for the site, but that one contract may only come after six months. For an online shop the margin per order is small, so you need many visitors; what an online shop has to reach before it pays is in is an online store worth it. How to raise the enquiry rate with the right page per service, and what that costs, is in our website cost calculator.
What happens when your enquiry rate doubles
For the local service in the example, with the same 800 visitors and the same win rate and customer value:
| Enquiry rate | Enquiries per month | Customers | Revenue per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 percent | 8 | 2 | 2,400 euros |
| 2 percent | 16 | 4 | 4,800 euros |
| 4 percent | 32 | 8 | 9,600 euros |
You do not raise the enquiry rate with more visitors, but with a better page: the service the visitor looked for in view straight away, a price indication, proof from real work, and a call button that sits under your thumb on a phone. That is why a site with a page per service and per question returns more than a site with one Services page that lists everything.
A real growth series, measured
Business Centrum is a payroll office in Ghent. In mid-September people found it in Google almost only by its name. We first laid the technical foundation (one address, titles on the search terms of employers, everything findable for Google) and then built guides, pay scales per joint committee, calculators and city pages. In the first five weeks:
| Measured | Mid-September | Mid-October |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions in Google per day | 220 | 10,200 |
| Clicks from Google per day | 3 | 228 |
| Non-brand search terms on page 1 | 13 | 1,593 |
| Visitors per day, own cookieless measurement | 54 in the first week measured | 395 |
What we do not show: Business Centrum's revenue. That is theirs, and calculating revenue from an assumed customer value would be a guess we will not sell as a result. What the series does show: the first number of the sum, visitors, can rise tenfold or more in weeks with the right work. The Business Centrum case shows how.
Why the first months return little
- Google gets to know your siteNew pages are first found, then shown, only then clicked. That takes weeks to months; see how long until my website shows on Google.
- Impressions come before clicksA rising line in Search Console is the first sign, long before there are enquiries. How to read it is in how to use Google Search Console.
- Enquiries come before revenueA quote request that arrives today may only become an invoice in three months.
So measure from day one: visitors, enquiries per channel (phone, email, form) and where they come from. Without that measurement, after a year you will not know whether your site returned anything. Faster visitors you can buy with ads; what that costs is in Google Ads cost.
What to measure to fill in the sum
The sum is only worth something with real numbers. This is what you measure, and where:
| What | Where you measure it | How often you look |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions and clicks from Google | Google Search Console, per search term and per page | every month |
| Visitors and where they come from | analytics on your site, ideally without cookies so you need no consent | every month |
| Enquiries per channel | forms, clicks on your phone number and email address, counted separately | every week |
| Quotes and orders that follow | your own records, with the source of each customer | every quarter |
| Customer value | your accounts, over two to three years | every year |
Ask every new customer how they found you. A single question on the phone fills the gap no measurement closes: the customer who read your site and then called. After a few months you see which pages bring in real customers, and which you can improve or drop.
If your business serves customers in more than one language, as many in Belgium do, measure per language version too. A Dutch and an English page for the same service can attract different customers with different values.
What a website costs against what it returns
A site with us starts from 1,500 euros; what a larger site costs you work out in our website cost calculator and read in how much does a website cost. Set that amount next to the gross margin per month from your own sum, and you have your payback time. Unsure whether you need a website at all? Read do I need a website.
A site that returns something is built on your customers' search terms, with a page per service, per region or per question. That is what we do in website design and, for those who mainly want more visitors from Google, in SEO.
Return, payback time and measuring
What does a good website return?
Visitors times enquiry rate times win rate times customer value. For a local service with 800 visitors, 2 percent enquiries, a 25 percent win rate and 1,200 euros per customer, that is 4,800 euros in revenue per month, in an example with assumed figures.
What does an online shop return?
Visitors times conversion rate times average order, times your margin. With 3,000 visitors, 1.5 percent conversion and 60 euros per order that is 2,700 euros in revenue per month in our example; at 30 percent margin, 810 euros remain.
How do you calculate the ROI of a website?
Divide what the site costs by the gross margin it returns per month. That gives the payback time in months. Measure visitors and enquiries from day one, or it stays an estimate.
How long before a website returns anything?
Visitors from Google come after weeks to months; enquiries and revenue follow later. At Business Centrum impressions rose from 220 to 10,200 a day in five weeks once the technical foundation was in order.
What if my site gets visitors but no enquiries?
Then the problem is the enquiry rate: the page does not show fast enough what you do, what it costs and how to get in touch, especially on a phone.
What is a good enquiry rate for a website?
It varies widely by sector and kind of visitor; that is why we work with assumptions here. Measure your own rate over a few months and improve the page that gets the most visitors first.