The Importance of Setting Website Goals and Objectives
In this era of reliance on web search to find goods and services, it’s pretty much expected that every business should have a website. This applies to small or even micro-businesses as much as any large corporation.
Your website is a marketing tool
Having an online presence can help you reach a wider audience than you otherwise might. Since so many people now search for businesses online, you could actually be missing out in favour of the competition if you don’t have a website.
To be really effective, your website needs to be more than just a contact reference so people can locate you, it needs to be a powerful resource for marketing in itself. In this post we will discuss online marketing and the importance of setting measurable website goals and objectives.
Setting smart website goals
Like any business marketing efforts, your online marketing should have goals which are measurable and which align with your business’s overall objectives. Very often business owners get a website built because that’s what ‘you do’, or they might have some vague ideas of increasing awareness for their brand and products.
If you aim at nothing significant then your achievements are likely to be at the same level. It’s important you decide what you would like to achieve through your website in concrete terms.
When it comes to setting website goals, the SMART approach may be particularly appropriate and effective. SMART goals are:
- Specific – you know exactly what it is you want to achieve.
- Measurable – you can define the criteria for measuring your progress.
- Attainable – you know what you have to do to make it happen.
- Realistic – you have the capacity and capability to make it happen.
- Timely or time-specific – you want to reach your goals within a certain timeframe.
Using the SMART approach not only clarifies your purpose, but also provides you with the motivation to reach your goals – as opposed to just achieving whatever by whenever.
Setting your goals
You need to define your goals and objectives in specific terms. Examples might include:
- Increase visits to your website by 10% within the next three months.
- Increase sales conversions by 5% by the end of this quarter.
- Improve newsletter subscriptions by 20% this financial year.
There are no hard-and-fast rules for this – only you the business owner can define what ‘success’ will look like for your business.
To be effective online, it’s also important that your website is professionally designed. At Omnific Design in Williamstown, we have proven expertise and experience in building market-driven websites. Feel free to ring or email us to discuss your needs.
