When it comes to creating your website, it is important to establish just what you intend the site to accomplish in terms of your business and marketing goals.  Used properly and strategically, a website can be a transformative tool for a brand, boosting sales, creating awareness and positioning a company top of mind in its industry.

Website goals

Whether your website is aiming at increasing a newsletter subscriber base, augmenting social media campaigns, increasing prospective customer conversion or providing customer support, having written, clear goals will help establish the current position of your website in relation to your business objectives.  Moreover, it will give a clear destination point of where and what you want your website to be in order to achieve these goals.

Starting point for goal setting

In order to establish what the goals are, all website stakeholders will need to be interviewed and consulted.  Stakeholders are the different people and departments which can benefit from a strategically designed, goal-orientated website.

Examples of stakeholders and their goals may include:

Marketing

• Providing information about the brand
• Creating brand awareness
• Connecting with customer
• Promoting visitor engagement
• Subscribing to newsletter

Sales

• Attracting new prospects
• Moving visitors further down sales funnel
• Converting Prospects into customers
• Increase online sales
• Filling out of customer contact forms

HR

• Position brand as exciting company to work for
• Attracting relevant, top talent
• Communicating company culture
• Showcasing of internal aspects of the business
• Establishing business as a solid, trustworthy entity

What to consider when setting goals

Goals should focus on outcomes which drive the business forward.  To this end, they need to reflect the business objectives and provide an optimal user experience, offering value while growing a valuable customer base.

Using the acronym of S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) provides a structure for effective goal setting which can be implemented as follows:

Specific:  What do you want your website to achieve?  This can be a quantifiable goal such as increasing traffic, increase conversion rate of leads, get more blog subscribers.

Measurable:  Decide on specific values that you want your website to achieve.  Keeping the examples from above, this could mean – increasing traffic by 10%, increased conversion rate of 25%, 50 new blog subscribers.

Attainable:  This step helps you find the middle ground when it comes to goal setting and goal achievement.  While it is good to set high goals, it is better to make goals achievable.  Rather break a big goal down into smaller, achievable steps then set a goal which may not be achievable at this point.  For example, depending on circumstances, 50 subscribers may be too high. In that case, set the number at a challenging, yet achievable point such as 35.

Relevant:  Whatever goal you decide upon, make sure that it is part of the overarching company goals.  So, for example, a goal of increasing website sales by 5% would be in line with an overarching marking objective of increasing revenue by 10%.

Time-bound:  Set a date by when the goal needs to be completed.  Again, you want to stretch and challenge the current status quo, but you want to have a time that is realistic and won’t result in burnout either.

Setting goals for a website provides a solid strategy and direction for the site’s development, giving the designer a clear outline of the elements needed in order to achieve these business goals.  In turn, the brand is more supported as the website plays a central role in increasing traffic and conversions, helping the business to continue to grow and flourish.

Establishing goals for your website

When it comes to creating your website, it is important to establish just what you intend the site to accomplish in terms of your business and marketing goals.  Used properly and strategically, a website can be a transformative tool for a brand, boosting sales, creating awareness and positioning a company top of mind in its industry.

Whether your website is aiming at increasing a newsletter subscriber base, augmenting social media campaigns, increasing prospective customer conversion or providing customer support, having written, clear goals will help establish the current position of your website in relation to your business objectives.  Moreover, it will give a clear destination point of where and what you want your website to be in order to achieve these goals.

Starting point for goal setting

In order to establish what the goals are, all website stakeholders will need to be interviewed and consulted.  Stakeholders are the different people and departments which can benefit from a strategically designed, goal-orientated website.

Conclusion

Setting goals for a website provides a solid strategy and direction for the site’s development, giving the designer a clear outline of the elements needed in order to achieve these business goals.  In turn, the brand is more supported as the website plays a central role in increasing traffic and conversions, helping the business to continue to grow and flourish.