So happy new year! It’s that time again when people start setting goals that they’ll eventually break.
But not you. You’re destined to set goals you for your business and your website that you’re going to keep through the next 365 days.
But there’s just one problem here: how do you set goals for your website? And more specifically, how are you going to set goals that will make your website, and more importantly, your business successful?
Well today, let’s talk through how you can set those types of goals so that this time next year, you’re a lot more successful with your website and your business.
Get baseline stats
So the first thing you’ll want to do is set some baseline stats. In order to figure out where you need to go, you first need to figure out where you are. So, you’ll need to look at some stats to figure out how many page views you’re getting, where are people coming from and what are they doing on your website once they get there.
The best way to do this is with Google Analytics. If you’ve already have that set up on your website, great! Now it’s all about looking at the stats and figuring out where you stand.
If you don’t have it set up yet, I’ve got some links in the description below on how you can do that quickly and easily. And even better, if you have a WordPress website, I highly recommend the new Google Site Kit plugin that makes all of this as simple as a couple of clicks.
Either way, just make sure you’re able to get those baseline stats and figure out where you currently are so that you can figure out what you need to improve on over the next year.
What do you want to improve?
Next, once you have your baseline stats, it’s time to figure out what you want to improve on with your website.
If you’re not getting many visitors from search engines, maybe you want to improve your search engine optimization. Or if your page views to visitors ratio is almost one to one, then you’ll probably want to figure out how to keep people on your website longer. And finally, maybe you’re just looking to grow online sales.
Either way, figure out one or two things that you want to improve on so that we can move on to setting goals for those improvements.
Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Once you know what you want to improve on, it’s time to set goals for those improvements.
The best way to set goals is through the S.M.A.R.T. goals method. That is, you goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
For the most part, all of your website goals are going to be relevant, so long as you know what the baseline stats are. So let’s create a goal for our website this year.
So let’s say we want to improve our search engine optimization. How would we set a goal for that?
Well, for it to be specific, we’ll say that we want to increase the number of visitors from search engines by a specific amount. That’s pretty specific enough.
And it can be measurable, since we’re able to figure out who came to our website directly, from referrals or from search engines.
Next, we’ll want to set an achievable mark for this goal. In this case, let’s say we want to increase our traffic from search engines by 30 percent. That’s a fairly ambitious but still achievable mark.
Finally, we need to set a due date for this goal. For website related goals, you probably should aim for no shorter than three months. For this one, let’s go with six months.
So there we have it, our goal now is to increase traffic from search engines by 30 percent in the next six months. Now let’s go out and do it.
Develop strategies to reach those goals
Once you have specific goals in place, it’s time to develop strategies and tactics to reach those goals. These need to be steps that you’ll take in order to achieve success.
So our example from the previous section is kind of a big thing, and sometimes it’s a case-by-case thing. But let’s take a little bit of a bigger overview of the steps we would take to achieve that goal.
First, we want to look at our code on our website to make sure it’s semantically correct and that it uses the correct schema so that Google can index it correctly. This might be a step where you might have to bring in a developer to help you out.
Next, we might want to set up an account with Google Search Console so we can see more advanced search stats. We can also check our web pages to make sure there’s no real issues that might hurt our SEO.
Finally, we probably want to do some keyword research so we can figure out what we people are looking for so we can write about it so that people can find us.
There are likely more steps that you’ll want to take to achieve this goal. If you use WordPress, you’ll probably want to add an SEO plugin. But you get the idea. Make sure you roadmap your course to success so you’re not wandering around aimlessly.
Check in an re-evaluate
Finally, make sure you check in on that goal every now and then during the duration you’ve set. Check in on those key numbers to see if you’re on target to hit that goal or not.
If everything looks like it’s on target, then great! If not, maybe it’s time to sort of re-evaluate a little bit and figure out different steps that might help you get to that goal.
But check in often and change if need be. You’ll be a lot more successful if you do.
Up next
So that’s really all there is to setting goals for your website, and really your life too. Get those baselines, figure out what you want to improve, set specific goals, a roadmap for success and then check in on them often. More often than not, you’ll see an improvement.
If you have any questions about setting goals for your website, be sure to leave them down in comments below or you can reach out on social media. I’ll do my best to answer all of the questions.
But until next time, I wish you and your business the best of luck and a happy new year!
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