How to Create Strategic Website Goals

Creating strategic website goals is the only way to help you stay on track in your business. Although it enables you to grow, there’s no quick strategy to achieve success overnight.

Establishing the right set of website goals can help ensure you achieve the next level of success. Yet, before you embark on your journey, here are a few suggestions to help you get started.

Creating S.M.A.R.T Website Goals

S.M.A.R.T. is a framework that lets you create measurable goals and a well-thought-out plan. Set your website objectives by following the acronym below:

• Specific: What do you want to achieve? Set a quantifiable objective for your website and ensure the number is concrete. “I want to increase my number of leads by 20%.”
• Measurable: How will you achieve your goal? Establish a method for tracking each objective, such as website visitors.
• Attainable: Is the objective realistic? Goals are unattainable if the bar is set too high or low. 
• Relevant: Does it align with your business needs? Ask yourself why the goal is important.
• Timely: When do you need to accomplish this objective? Be sure to set a timeframe that is also realistic and attainable.

After you set your SMART goals, break them down into smaller goals. For instance, you would start with an objective you’d like to achieve within the next year. After that, break it down into quarterly goals, then monthly etc., until you reach daily goals.

3 Types of Website Goals

Which objectives are you going to define for your business’s website? The most effective way to determine your website goals is by understanding how it supports your business. Then, you’ll need to know how you’ll measure success.

The best method for setting goals is by organizing them under three categories:

1. Business goals

2. Marketing goals

3. Website goals

Essentially, this framework shows you how your website contributes to your marketing efforts and the profitability of your business. 

Here are three types of website goals you should consider:

1. Conversion

2. Content

3. Performance

1. Conversion Goals

Assuming you have an e-commerce or SaaS website, you’ll typically focus on maximizing direct sales. However, if your sales department doesn’t directly sell online, you’d want your website to support the team throughout the sales process. Here are some of the main website sales objectives.

Close More Sales

This goal is the most popular among e-commerce websites that sell products or services. It’s also the best for maximizing sales online. Consider setting a percentage rate increase rather than an absolute amount. 

You’ll have times when your business fluctuates during specific seasons. Additionally, it’s more flexible when comparing previous sales. For example, “I want to increase monthly sales by 10%.”

Increase Sales Conversion Rate

This website goal measures the website’s ability to sell. Typically, you would calculate the percentage of website visitors who purchase your products or services. This goal can also help you estimate the changes in your quality of traffic. 

To set this goal, make sure you know your current conversion rates for your website. For example, “I’d like to increase my website’s conversion rate by 8% with the traffic amount I currently have.”

Decrease Sales Cycle

Sales cycles are a timeframe for customers that initiate contact with your business through your website. Then, the sales cycle ends with the time it takes a potential buyer to decide between opting in and becoming a customer.

For many businesses, the timeframe consists of six months to a year. Others make it a monthly cycle. Regardless, a well-developed website can shorten the sales cycle for you.

2. Content Goals

Content goals are another type of website goal, determining what you have on your website. This goal will always be a work in progress. So, remember that your website might not be perfect. However, it should constantly be serving your business needs. 

Attract Visitors

One content goal you should have in mind is attracting readers. Writing articles solidifies your industry knowledge and establishes trust. You don’t always have to write new articles each day. You can consider writing two to three posts each month if you wish.

Create goals to attract visitors by determining which topics you’d like to write about on your website. Then, you’ll want to know when you’ll create them and how often to publish them.

Another way of attracting visitors is improving the quality of content by providing value to the readers. The content itself can generate new leads and traffic conversions. Consider what will help create quality and unique content to make it better.

Build SEO 

SEO (search engine optimization) is critical for driving traffic. You can center your content goal around the search engine results you receive. 

Your business website ends up on the first page of the search results when people use a keyword phrase in a search engine. So, your ultimate goal would be to appear on page one with three primary keywords. 

Consider researching what types of keywords users type in to find your brand. Then, use Google search to see where your business appears.

If you’re not on the first page quite yet, create a content plan and a timeline to help you achieve that. For instance, guest posting, backlinks strategy and other content methods can optimize your site for SEO.

Generate Email Subscribers With Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is an offer you put on your website in exchange for new subscribers. Define your goal of what the lead magnet should produce for increasing email subscribers.

Subscribers are known as hot leads because they’ve shown an interest in your offers. They’re also more likely to convert because you can communicate directly with them.

You can increase the number of subscribers by creating more exclusive content offers. These offers would include incentives such as a free ebook, course or access to a library of freebie content.

3. Website Performance Goals

The website itself is where you’ll want to monitor a few primary goals to measure its overall performance. Here are the top objectives you can track for your business website.

Unique Website Visitors

This goal correlates to your website traffic. The more traffic you generate equals more sales, subscribers and business growth. For example, suppose you have 3,0000 unique visitors, generating $1000 revenue. If you want to increase that sales to $5,000, you’d need to increase traffic to 10,000 unique website visitors. 

You can generate more traffic by utilizing social media and content marketing. Setting up a Google Analytics account will also help you measure results more efficiently. 

Page Views

Many marketers will mention that page views aren’t as relevant as unique visitors. However, page views give you an indication of your site’s engagement. Low numbers indicate your visitors aren’t obtaining enough value from your website.

In contrast, high page views let you know the users are clicking around on more than one webpage. This factor means people enjoy your website, and your content is informative.

Reduce Bounce Rate

The bounce rate correlates to the percentage of users leaving your site before clicking on another link. The reason could be that users aren’t sure where to go next. Other reasons indicate the user experience is poor or the content isn’t what they need.

Remember, you want website visitors to stay on your site as long as possible to reduce the bounce rate. After all, you’re more likely to sell if the user engages with your website.

Consider checking your website’s speed. Most of the time, users will leave because the website doesn’t load quickly enough. Furthermore, valuable content helps with engagement. You can make sure visitors stay by creating a call-to-action in your articles, so they know where to go next. It also helps when you list relevant articles at the bottom of the webpage.

Setting Ambitious Goals

Creating strategic website goals are essential for bringing in traffic, increasing sales and growing your reach.

Remember, goals are meaningless unless they follow the SMART acronym. They must be realistic but challenging enough to drive real results. Once you set those yearly goals, ensure you break them down into smaller targets.

Then, you can track and measure them daily to further understand how far along you’ve come. Once you reach your target goal, celebrate those wins and keep that motivation going.