Setting Goals for Your Website

May 03, 2022

What is the overall purpose of your website? If you don’t know the answer, how will your visitors know what is expected of them? A website is more than just a static page advertising your business. It can also fulfill various functions, including educating your customers, generating leads, expanding your reach, or showcasing your products. It can help a great deal if you set some goals for your website, allowing you to better track how well it meets your needs. Working with an internet strategy consultant is an excellent way to pinpoint some achievable goals to work towards.

Let’s take a look at some of the different goals that you could consider setting for your website.

1 - Increasing Your Unique Website Visitors

One of the first things that any internet strategy consultant will tell you about building a website for your business is that the more traffic you get, the more opportunity you have to make sales. It is always great to see website visitors who stop by regularly to keep up to date on the latest developments in your business, but even better are the unique visitors visiting your website for the first time. An increase in unique visitors means you are reaching more people. Why not set yourself a goal of how many unique visitors you would like to see each month. Installing Google Analytics will help you track this and chart your progress towards the goal.

Pro Tip!Pro Tip! One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is with a strong content marketing strategy. Deliver content that people want to see and optimize it for search engines to reap maximum benefits.

2 - Decreasing You Bounce Rate

Another practical goal to work on is bringing down your bounce rate. This is something that you can also track via your Google Analytics account. But what is ‘Bounce Rate’? In simple terms, your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on your site and then bounce right back out of it before clicking on any other link. This is something you want to avoid. You want visitors who are engaged with your site as these are the ones who are more likely to buy from you. There are a few tips that you can work on to help lower your bounce rate.

  • Check your website load speed; many ‘bounces’ are visitors who gave up waiting for the page to load because it took too long!
  • Work on your content. The more engaging and entertaining your website is, the more time visitors will explore it.
  • Consider using the ‘related articles’ technique to link to similar content and encourage visitors to read more.
  • Make sure you have a clear call to action on each page. Ask them to click to submit a contact form, read more information, or download something depending on your overall goal with your website.

Pro Tip! Be realistic with your goals in regards to bounce rate. Nobody is going to get a perfect zero here! The industry average is between 41% and 55%, and a reasonably good rate is 26% to 40%. Aim for 50% as a starting point, and then see if you can revise your goal to make further improvements. Talk with your internet strategy consultant for advice.

3 - Increase Your Email Subscriptions

Do you maintain an email list for your business? If not, you should be! Those who request to be on your email mailing list should be considered your hottest leads! They are actively requesting that you send them information about your business. Set yourself a goal to increase your email subscribers by 10%, and work with an internet strategy consultant to make sure your website is optimized to trigger subscriptions.

  • Increase the number of email signup opportunities on your website
  • Add a ‘welcome’ pop upon landing with a CTA to subscribe for emails
  • Make use of your footer or sidebar for additional CTA buttons
  • Offer a signup incentive like a free ebook, exclusive content, or a discount code

4 - Search Rankings

We all know that Google pretty much rules the internet. Almost every website aims to appear high on page one of the Google search rankings for its target keywords. The higher up your website appears, the more traffic you have access to. However, getting there can be difficult. It starts with choosing the right keywords and then producing quality content that is optimized for them. However, you will also need to address your website’s structure since the Google algorithm uses many different factors when ranking websites. Some of the important ones include loading speed, mobile-friendly design, and relevancy. It is essential to work with an internet strategy consultant to develop a great SEO strategy for your business.

5 - Take Your Content to the Next Level

Content is one theme that you might have noticed cropping up in relation to these website goals! Content is and always has been king when it comes to the internet! If you can only work on one thing, make it elevating your content. When you have quality, relevant content, it will increase visitor engagement, reducing your bounce rate and boosting your search rankings. Work with an internet strategy consultant to develop a content calendar to deliver relevant content to your audience. It’s all about quality over quantity. Your audience demands a higher level of content that provides education and entertainment. The days of keyword stuffing fluff pieces just to put out content are long gone. Instead, you will want to focus on longer pieces of content that are well researched and insightful. You should also include accompanying multimedia content such as video, infographics, and animation to further increase engagement.

Fun Fact! Google prefers content-rich sites. Typically, the top 10 results on a Google search results page will have more than 1000 words!

These are just a few of the goals you can set to help improve the performance of your website. Work with an experienced internet strategy consultant to determine the most relevant goals that your business can aim for.

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To Your Best Online!

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Ingrid Maddox, Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant. bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented, and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn-Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online.

ingrid@bluedressinc.com

865-378-7712