Online polls are often sold as one of the “whiz bang” reasons that you need a content management system. The sales person will say something like,  ”An online poll helps build a sense of community.”

Intangible concepts like “community” are often peddled in the web world to avoid accountability.

Whilst it’s nice, there are no real measurable business outcomes for “community.”

If you’re marketing your small to medium business with a lead generation or an eCommerce website, then a website poll is probably not going to add much to the real performance of your website.

There is an appropriate context for website polls. On news websites and popular forums they can be interesting to participate in, and are therefore engaging. Website polls work when:

• Your site already has massive amounts of traffic (hopefully it will get more than 7 votes)
• The question matters to the audience (The outcome of the poll might actually be interesting)
• Your poll fits into the context and content of your website.

If you disagree with me, then you can go and have your say on ABC’s The Chaser’s War on Everything website poll (above) here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vote/default.htm ;-).

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too !

Contact us on 1300 248 362 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages®is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.