Part 2: Setting Goals
In part 1 we discussed gathering data about how your website is currently being used by site visitors. By now you should have a fairly good idea of where the “trouble spots” are on your current website and better understand the information that visitors are finding attractive.
Goal setting means that we can now align what you want the website visitors to do with what the website visitors think they want. Let’s use John S. as an example. John is working on creating a new kind of mouse trap for his company. He needs a specific type of latch that will lock when the mouse enters but won’t accidentally lock when there’s no mouse around. He has a drawing of his invention and is looking for a metal working company who can make a prototype for him so that he can confirm it works.
You own a metal working shop and your website has a page that lists all the machines you have in your shop and another page that lists all the materials you work with. You also have a contact form page and, of course, a home page.
The goal now is to align the content on your website with the information that John needs in order to make a buying decision so that he will contact you about his project.
Put yourself in John’s shoes. What is the most important thing that John needs to know right now? My guess is that you do prototypes – even better if you can take a project from prototype to production, don’t you think? Perhaps that’s something that should be mentioned on your home page and, even have a page of its own if its in line with what you want to do. (If prototyping is not something you want to do, then kiss John goodbye and set a goal for those looking for what you offer.)
Goal setting needs to be specific like this:
- More inquiries about prototyping
- More inquiries about working with aluminum, brass, copper, etc.
- More inquiries about production runs
Keeping your best customers in mind, set goals that would align with what they’re needs are. In part 3, we’ll discuss how to align your website with your goals