Your website needs goals

September 30, 2017 By T-J

I get RFPs on my table where there are a lot of technical details to go though, how are you going to handle this requirement, what CMS are going to use, Open source or lisence base CMS, onpremise servers of Cloud bases "oh and we want that personalization, That is supposed to be the new black thing" etc. So basically all technical aspects are there and it is quite easy to compare between different solutions. But wahat about those goals? What is really needed? What is just a hype that someone read on LinkedIn and is really not needed? What really benefits those business goals set for the project?

New websites are pretty much always made to make marketing and sales easier and more profitable. So why are there no goals set for the project? Instead there is a budget but no goals set up, what should be achieved with the budget. Most common error is set up a project manager, with no knowledge what needs to be done to make a succesfull web project, to run the project with narrow mindset for technology only. Selection only technology without any goals will limit possibilities right from the start. And no that notorious "We shall build the greatest website ever" is not a good enough goal. Greatest website with what comparison?

Here's a few ideas for goals:

25 % visitor increase
10 % decrease on bounce rate
25 % increase on lead generation
25 % more orders from the web
Transferring product catalogs from paper to web --> savings from distributing on digitals channels and more lead generation
etc.

You can have as many goals as you want but everything has to be measurable. Gut feeling might work on detective series, but having all the information available from the analytics makes it easier to understand what works best for customers and what not. If there is not enough knowledge and knowhow to make clear goals, hire pro's to help you instead of spending money on learning the hard way.

This article was updated on November 9, 2017