![]() ![]() Improve the sales conversion rate by 5%.Increase the number of qualified leads by 20%.Set a quantifiable business objective for your website (make sure there is a concrete number attached to it). Download our SMART Website Goals Worksheet, which will guide you through setting some of the most common website goals. This model helps you set website objectives in a way that focuses on achieving business results. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. A good method for setting your website’s business objectives is the SMART Model. Now that you’ve interviewed company’s stakeholders and benchmarked your website, you’re ready to set some goals. They should be unambiguous and 100% clear. Every situation is different, but it is important to choose goals that directly lead to business success. More page views and longer visits are typically a good thing, but what if your visitors are struggling to find desired information? What might look like high engagement might indicate problems with your website navigation or content. ![]() ![]() Generating more leads might not mean anything if those leads are not qualified or don’t represent the potential high value customers. Getting more traffic to a website is generally perceived as a positive trend, but does this traffic translate into more leads? It depends on whether you are attracting and engaging the right audience. Many businesses set objectives and focus on metrics that don’t necessarily translate into business success: more visitors, more page views, longer visit duration, etc. Avoid Vanity GoalsĪnother common mistake is what I call the “vanity goals trap”. If your goal is to increase qualified (relevant) leads, you should know how many qualified leads your current website is generating now. Before you embark on your website redesign project, you should determine how well (or poorly) your current website is doing compared to where you would like to be. Without knowing your current website metrics, how can you set realistic goals for the new one? Quite simply, you can’t. How is your current website doing? It is remarkable how many organizations haven’t set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their current website. You can see some of the departmental goal examples in my article, 15 SMART Website Goals Examples. In fact, interviewing department heads early in the process will allow you to get the most out of your website by ensuring that it is in line with the plan for the entire company. Note that interviewing website stakeholders, whose performance may be improved with a better website, could result in multiple goals. Executives – grow the bottom line, increase profitability of the business.HR – attract and recruit new employees, support current employees.Production / Operations – optimize and streamline workflows, automate tasks and reduce costs.IT – integrate with the current technical network meet security, performance and scalability requirements.Webmasters / Content Contributors – optimize website management and content updates.Customer Support – improve customer satisfaction, help service and support new and current customers.Sales – validate and support communications of the sales team, help close sales.Marketing – attract and engage prospects, generate leads and re-engage existing customers.Common examples of stakeholder interests include: Before setting website goals, it is important to interview stakeholders in your company (usually department heads) to learn more about their needs and how the website can aid them. It can boost sales, build awareness, enhance customer experience, reduce costs, improve workflow and help grow your company. Solicit Website Stakeholders’ InputĪ successful website can turn your company around. For those of you who already know the importance of having business objectives for your website, let’s look at the best practices for setting them. This article might just save you from making this critical mistake. As Winston Churchill once said: “He who fails to plan is planning to fail". If you don’t have a clearly defined goal for your website and you are not convinced that you should set one, I encourage you to reconsider. Research by HubSpot shows that 72% of business websites receive a failing grade of 59/100 or lower and according to my research for Forbes, the number one reason for website failures is not having a clear business objective. How to Set SMART Website Goals to Reach Business ObjectivesĪre you planning a redesign for your company website? Setting the right goals could be the difference between website success and failure. ![]()
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