Website goals are paramount to creating an efficient and sustainable digital marketing strategy. It sounds easy enough, but when it comes down to it many small businesses have not identified why they have a website. They may know in the back of their head why they have one, but have not clearly defined it as it relates to their business goals.
Why is this important? Well, if you can’t articulate the purpose of your website (i.e. sell something, inform, generate leads, etc) you can’t evaluate the quality of the traffic coming to it. Not all traffic is created equal and some traffic is more valuable than others. That is the whole point of digital marketing. It’s not just about bringing traffic to your website, it’s about bringing quality traffic to it.
There are 2 questions you need to answer before you start any digital marketing conversation:
1. What is is the purpose of my website?
2. What action do you wish would take place when each visitor hits your site?
These questions help you identify the purpose of your website. If you have a website because people told you to need to have web presence, dig down and figure how what goal of that site is? Are you using it to inform about a product or service? Are you using it to generate leads?
Website Goals
Once you have identified why you have a site, your next step is to create quantitative goals for the site. These are trackable behaviors you hope a visitor completes during the time they spend on yoru site. These do not need to be intricate goals but should help you understand the actions taken on your website. If goals are not being met, it’s time to think about evaluating your website for changes.
Goals may include selling X dollar amount of products in a given time period, generating a certain number of leads through filling out a quote request form, or simply viewing X number of pages per visit.
Website Conversions
When a visitor completes a requested action, it is called a conversion. Conversions could, and should, be tracked down to a very granular level letting you know how much a conversion cost your company (if it came from paid sources or via a 3rd party marketing effort) or what types of traffic (organic, referral, social media) produce the most conversations.
Need help evaluating the traffic coming to your site or figuring out a strategy for how your website can help you reach your business goals? Contact Final Piece.
