Website Goals | Measure, monitor, and adjust

In 1979 a study was conducted about graduates from Harvard’s MBA program. The graduates were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

Have you defined your website goals?  Take out a piece of paper (or open notepad) and just jot down some of your primary and secondary goals.  Is it to sell your product online, gather contact information, view corporate information, subscribe to newsletter, stop into your retail store, change their mind about something, comment on your blog, etc.

Now review your website and see if you’re hitting these goals.  Is there a clear path from when a customer “lands” on your website to the ultimate goal?  The web is very non-linear and you must make sure you make a clear path for what you want your visitors to do.  Make sure to always have calls to action for your desired goals on each of your web pages.  Believe it or not, most customers will not “land” on your homepage but one of your many other pages depending on the search phrase they used.  This is why you want to include calls to action on each of your web pages.

Please don’t tell me your goals for having a website are “So we have a website”.  Give this some honest thought and find out if you’re hitting the mark.  If not then make the necessary changes and you will greatly increase conversion of just visiting customers to actual customers.