Set goals and objectives for your website

When planning a new website, every business or organisation should set goals and objectives for your website. It’s obvious that you might want to skip ahead to the “fun stuff” and brainstorm ideas. Most people find themselves looking at other websites for inspiration and ideas about the bells and whistles they want to have on their website, but features and pretty graphics should not be the starting point—you should set goals and objectives for your website.

While elevated website sales and traffic seem to be the obvious marketing goals, you will quickly find they can be meaningless if you don’t check the objectives necessary to achieve the results you need.

A website is not like the famous Kevin Costner movie ‘Field of Dreams’, you can’t just “build it and they will come.”

A successful website craves an effective marketing strategy beyond presenting just a collection of services, products, images and videos. This means that your website design should be focused on definite goals, along with measurable objectives to obtain them.

Your marketing goals will be different depending on the work you do. For example, a primary objective for a business offering professional services to other companies might be to generate leads. An photography website might focus on attractively showcasing new work or selling it online.

Where do you Start

Disregarding your business for now, first of all start by listing specific goals and corresponding objectives that fit your overall marketing strategy. Some examples might include:

Goal: Increase sales.
Objectives: Search engine optimisation, user-friendly site, valuable content, calls to action, increase conversion rates.

Goal: Becoming an authoritative resource.
Objectives: Providing quality content on your website, regularly adding new information, establishing trust, marketing your site on other websites and social media.

Goal: Improve your user’s experience.
Objectives: E-mail campaigns, online support (chats) and webinars.

Goal: Build your brand.
Objectives: Social media, promotions and brand reputation management.

The objectives above are some examples; you can write you own objectives to achieve similar goals.

Overlooked Goals

When developing your goals, it’s critical to consider your ideal customer. Clients often will say “our buyers are diverse,” but websites aimed at everyone can attract no one. Be specific and really find your niche customers.

Your content should automatically appeal to your ideal customers, it should convince them you are worthy of their valuable time, and thus by making it easy for them to take the next step.

An example is if you sell technical products to engineers using arty slide shows are not likely to grab their attention. An engineer will be more interested with a bullet list of key features, or educational content to help solve their problem, or downloadable specs or technical drawings.

Realistic Goals

Your list of goals need to match your organisation’s capabilities. It’s easy to state “we need to be on Facebook or Instagram,” but does your organisation have the resources to spend hours a week on a creative and social media campaigns that engages your followers?

If the answer is no, then consider other solutions such as a press release, or an opt-in email newsletters, a regular newsletter, or something similar that best suit your ability to produce unique and engaging content.

Measuring Your Success

Part of the planning needs to consider how to measure the success of your website. Converting first-time visitors into a customer is unique. You need to establish some objectives to measure whether your strategies are successful, and then you can adjust them if they fail.

You should always benchmark where you start from. Then once you implement your new website, track and measure the changes.

In Summary

An attractive website is not enough to achieve your goals. While your web developer can help you create a website that works and looks pretty, you really need to start by listing the goals and objectives for your website.

By beginning with a realistic list of goals and measurable objectives, and be mindful of your ideal visitor, you will greatly increase your chances of succeeding online.

Contact us today to start helping you set goals and objectives for your website!