New Website – What’s in it for you?

Ok, you have looked around at the competition, you have talked to some professionals, in short you have decided it is time for a new website. Revamping your website can give you new lease of life online but the key to a successful website is a clearly defined goal. This post gives you a few pointers on how to set a measurable goal.

What does it do for you?

What is the point of your website? does it sell products online? does it provide information? or is it a bit of both? Regardless of the websites function, its purpose is to communicate with customers or potential customers. To define your goal you must be able to identify a successful event on your website:

• An enquiry through the contact form?
• A transaction on the site?
• A new member sign up?

Once you have decided on what a successful event is, it is a very easy thing to begin mapping your goal.

I Want, I Want, I Want

A common goal many people will spend a lot of time & money on is:

I want to be number one on Google for “this search term”

This is a noble pursuit but it is not a goal, it is a means to an end. Why do you care about Google Rankings? In and of themselves they are pointless and nobody will pay you because of your ranking.

What a good ranking will help with is bringing more traffic to your website which in turn should create more successful outcomes. By focusing on the ranking you can miss the reason you decided to revamp the website in the first place.

A good goal must have an impact on you or your business in the real world

Choosing a real world or practical goal for your website is much more concrete and measurable. For example lets say you run an online shop that sells blue hats, a real world goal for you would be:

My new website will increase my orders per month by 25% in the next 12 months

This is a well defined goal with easily measurable results it also puts a time limit on achieving it.

Now that you have your real world goals you can set about seeking advice on how to achieve these goals. This is where tasks like improving your Google rankings come in to play they are tasks that will contribute to your goals. They are not goals in and of themselves.

Set your goals, be realistic and good luck 🙂