Towards the end of every year billions of people are making their new years resolutions. Those are our personal goals for the next year but what about the goals for our business?
There’s the overall business goal and then each piece of building your business will also have a gaol, including your website goal.
A website goal helps make sure your website is successful in the long run. There is a reason that before you start any process with a web designer you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish.
Every page on a website should be created with purpose to help reach your overall website goal. Your website goal is no different. A website needs to be done with purpose to make your website accomplish something.
The goal is of course always to make your website a profit center as opposed to a cost center. I covered briefly why a website goal is important, but there’s more!
Importance Of Goals
Without goals we wouldn’t have direction in life. We’d just be a meandering stream with no path. That doesn’t mean your goal has to be crazy ambitious, though.
Sometimes our goals can be more down to earth. Your career or business goal could be to do something you love that also supports the lifestyle you need.
That’s it. It’s important to set a goal for your career or small business but that goal needs to work for you, instead of you working for the goal.
Create goals that work for you not that you have to work for. Share on XOnce you have your goals in place then it’s easier to know what your path needs to be. Your website is one of many goals for your small business because it is a business tool. Without a website goal you risk creating a website then regretting it because you don’t see any return on the investment.
The same thing happens with social media, advertising, etc. Without a goal and clear path, your investment is wasted and your business will fail. That will occur again and again with everything you do to grow your business and eventually the business will fail.
There can’t be success without goals.
The importance of developing a website goal before beginning is vital to your small business success online.
Before Building
Before you start building anything on your website, you need to have your goal finalized. Every website has a different purpose and every business is unique.
That means your goals will be as unique as your business is. An online store selling jewelry will be different than even a store that sells jewelry online and offline. They both sell the same product but the goal may be entirely different.
Are you trying to educate people and capture their attention with your products to draw them into your store? Or, maybe with a low price ticket item you’re trying to make the sale right there.
If you offer a service your website goal will be very different from a small business that sells a product.
Before you start your website you need to decide your goal.
Common Goals
There are common goals among many websites but of course you have to tweak them to fit your specific need. Fine tuning your goal to meet your life and small business are essential to your success.
Here are some of the most common website goals:
- Capture leads
- Sell your product
- Show your expertise
- Make connections with others in your industry
- Get a job
There are infinite combinations to this list but these are among the most common that I see.
When you’re creating your website goal, things can get a bit complex. Determining your goals is important.
Determine Your Goals
Take a second and think about what you want someone visiting your website to do on your website. What do you envision their visit ending with? Determining the path you want them to take will be helpful in keeping focus.
Will they push the buy now button? Should they join your newsletter? Are they supposed to visit your LinkedIn profile to contact you?
Answering this question is the first step in figuring out what your goal will be.
When answering, always stay focused. You will undoubtedly want to do a lot with your website. It’s an easy place to start throwing stuff and adding on to the navigation.
Resist the urge!
While you want to do a lot with your website, you don’t want to overwhelm visitors. Your website should have one major goal focus, everything else should be secondary.
Resist the urge to do too much with your website. Keep it focused. Share on XToo many things will overwhelm visitors and then the action you want them to take is watered down. If you water down your goal with other stuff, you won’t have success and you won’t be happy with your website.
Answer these questions to help you decide your website goal:
- What do I want visitors to do on my website?
- How much is the average conversion worth on my website?
- Will this content I want on my website help build trust with customers?
- What does success mean to me?
- What am I trying to do for customers?
This list will help you understand why your website goal is so important. Now that you’ve answered some of these questions and hopefully have a website goal, it’s time to work towards achieving that goal.
Achieve Your Website Goal
Hopefully you’ve answered some of the questions I’ve proposed. I also hope it helps you set forth a website goal that will help your business grow online.
If you’ve laid out a goal that will help bring business to you then you’ll have a clear path to achieve it. You can achieve success with your website on your own but a lot of details may cause problems.
It will take time and roadblocks to take your goal and move it towards success. That’s where someone who dedicates their days to helping turn goals into success online comes in.
The goal of my website and small business is to help you achieve your goals and grow your business online. That’s why I write twice a week in this blog and offer helpful information for free.
No Website, Not Ready
If you’re not quite ready to begin the path towards building your business with a website, there are other options that don’t cost anything. An email list is one of those ways. I’ve created an eBook that will help you grow your email list and business online without having a website.
All the methods and even the email list provider suggested in the eBook are completely cost-free. It’s a great way to start building your brand online without making a huge first investment.
Don’t stop there, though. There’s always opportunity for more growth!
No Website, Ready To Grow
You may be ready to build your brand online with a more robust online brand including a website. That’s great because there are many opportunities available to grow online.
I recommend looking for a good web design company that will help your website succeed online. A great looking website without a business goal in mind to convert visitors will fail to offer any value.
Already Have A Website
Just because you already have a website it doesn’t mean you’re maximizing its potential. Many companies design websites that look beautiful and follow all design standards to a T. The bad part about that is design standards don’t always match business purpose.
My goal is to work with you every step of the way to build a great website with