Summary:
If you are looking for success in your website development or redesign project, setting the right goals is an inevitable exercise. The concept of SMART goals is feasible in the industry. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. You must have an expert hand to help you in setting SMART goals or business objectives and measure your success in a meaningful way. This post is about knowing what SMART goals are and why they are important for your website.
Body:
Elena and Jennifer are good friends but work in different professions. Elena is an entrepreneur and has started a startup company with a retail business. Jennifer is a software consultant working as a freelancer.
Today both met in a business seminar and had time to discuss personal and professional issues. Elena has decided to create a website for her business and is looking for good advice from Jennifer.
Business Objectives
“Do you have your business objectives defined?” Jennifer asked the first question with curiosity on her face. Elena had a hard time responding to the question.
“Almost 72% of websites are receiving a failing grade in a recent survey on the web.” Nevertheless, Jennifer has kept the thread of conversation continued.
“The main reason behind is lack of clearly defined business objectives before website development,” Jennifer added with a plain voice. Nevertheless, she was in the mood to tell Elena some useful things about website development.
“How will you define business objectives or goals for your websites?” Jennifer Elena. However, Elena seemed confused a bit about the question, which indicates she was not clear about her goals before developing a website.
Jennifer has decided to help her and described what should be her website goals. According to her, “Boosting sales, building awareness, improving customer experience, cutting the costs, enhancing workflow, and infusing growth are some standard goals for a business website.”
Involve Your Staff
“It’s true that every business is unique and has unique goals,” Jennifer added. Elena has asked her how to set up website business objectives or goals. She replied, “You must ask your staff. Involving staff in the strategy-making process can boost their morals and give you deep insights into your business and its processes.” said Jennifer.
Elena has decided to run some brainstorming sessions with her staff in due course. Accordingly, she summoned the heads of each department in the company one by one and discussed the website goals with them.
Marketing Department
The first was the marketing department. The head of the department has given the following goals.
- Attract the traffic.
- Engage users
- Generate leads
- Re-engage existing customers
Sales Department
The next was the sales department, which has given the following goals.
- Validate the sales communication
- Support communication of sales team
- Close the leads
Production/Operation Department
- Optimize workflow
- Streamline workflow
- Automate tasks
Warehouse & Shipping Department
- Take orders
- Track the orders
- Packaging
- Labeling
- Shipping
- Track the shipping
- Accomplish return and other formalities
Customer Support Department
- Facilitate customer support
- Help the support staff
- Generate and track tickets
Human Resources Department
- Support HR functions for current employees
- Attract new employees
- Support recruitment process
Managers
- Help in strategy development
- Help in management
- Improve bottom line
- Increase profitability
Website Admins
- Optimize website management
- Content creation and upload
- Bug and error fixing management
IT Department
- Accomplish various integration
- Improve hardware, software, and network
- Scale the website and services as per requirements
“Of course, this exercise of asking department-specific goals may result in multiple website goals. However, it is natural and expected for a business with multiple objectives,” said Jennifer. “It will remain in line with the plan of the entire company and for the long run,” she added.
In the case of Website Redesign
Jennifer extended her input by citing the case of the redesign. In her opinion, in the case of a redesign, you need some reference points to decide whether your website is progressing positively or negatively after accomplishing the redesign process. She was pointing to matric or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Measuring KPIs prior to a redesign allows you to clearly identify improvements post-redesign. Additionally, it’s important to distinguish between vanity goals and true success metrics. For instance, while high traffic is commendable, the real measure of a website’s success lies in the conversion rate at the end of the user journey.
The goals that seem good but don’t add value to your success are vanity goals, and you should avoid relying on them. Instead, the concept of SMART goals is something that can give you perfect guidance to set your goals and measure the success of your website development or redesign.
What Are SMART Goals?
At the tail part of the conversation, Jennifer described the SMART goals concept. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Let’s understand it.
After such a detailed explanation, Jennifer suggested Elena write down all goals in an organized way instead of keeping those in her memory. She also recommended she measure goals on time and keep records of all achievements.
Who Will Help You Setup SMART Goals for Your Website Development Project?
Do you have a web design or redesign project? If so, you must look for a helping hand with expertise to set up SMART goals on your behalf. If you are striving for such expert help, we would like to suggest to you a name of a leading web design agency in the USA.
It is called RP UXCollab. It has a team of seasoned web designers who can help you set up SMART goals and help you measure them time-to-time under the hood of their maintenance services. Would you like to arrange an online meeting with the team and get their valuable guidance?
