When we are developing a new website for you, one of the first things we do is work with you to identify what goals you have for your website.
It’s important the goals we set for your website are very specific and not just something like, “I want to generate more sales.” We work with you to develop your own set of S.M.A.R.T. goals.
What are S.M.A.R.T. goals?
S – Specific | Have a defined endpoint or target of the website interaction.
M – Measurable | Attach numbers and timelines to the goal.
A – Achievable | Based on existing figures and research, is it achievable?
R – Relevant | Is this website goal in line with the business’ broader goals?
T – Time-bound | The goal must be measurable over a period of time.
Why do you need S.M.A.R.T. goals?
If you don’t know what you want your website to achieve for your business, how will you know if it’s doing its job? How will you know if you are getting a good return on your investment?
S.M.A.R.T. goals – Going Deeper
Well-crafted S.M.A.R.T. goals are designed to help you identify if what you want to achieve is realistic and determine a deadline. When writing S.M.A.R.T. goals use concise language, but include relevant information. These are designed to help you succeed, so be positive when answering the questions.
Here’s an example of the process:
Initial Goal:
I want more 5-Star Google Reviews
1. Specific (What do you want to accomplish? Who needs to be included? When do you want to do this? Why is this a goal?):
In today’s marketplace, when customers are looking for a product or service, they search online and pay close attention to reviews. And, a high number of good reviews increases your ranking in Google (the most popular search engine by far.) I want to start a program to increase our 5-Star reviews on Google within the next month which will require involvement from me and my marketing department.
2. Measurable (How can you measure progress and know if you’ve successfully met your goal?):
I would like to see an increase in our 5-Star Google reviews from the current 3 to 25 by the end of next quarter.
3. Achievable (Do you have the skills required to achieve the goal? If not, can you obtain them?):
We have researched available tools and identified a service that makes it easy for customers to provide high-rating Google reviews and in cases where they rate us low, will provide us with an opportunity to address their concerns before they submit a poor review. We will need to send email requests for reviews to lists of our current and former customers in batches of 100 per week. Additionally, at the end of each new project, we will invite the customer to submit a Google review of their customer experience using the service we have identified.
4. Relevant (Why am I setting this goal now? Is it aligned with overall objectives?):
Increasing traffic to our website and improving the customer experience are seen as pivotal to our need to increase our customer base and customer retention, both core initiatives for this year.
5. Time-bound (What’s the deadline and is it realistic?):
In order to increase our 5-Star Google reviews to 25 by the end of next quarter, we will need to start our weekly customer outreach for reviews by the end of this month.
Once you go through and write your goals according to each S.M.A.R.T. characteristic, you can then combine and consolidate all the work you’ve done into one S.M.A.R.T. goal.
S.M.A.R.T. Goal: I want more 5-Star Google Reviews
Description: Increasing our customer base and customer retention are both core initiatives for our company this year, so we are going to create a campaign to increase our 5-Star Google Reviews. By the end of the next quarter, we expect to see an increase in our 5-Star Google reviews from the current 3 to 25.
Milestone: Begin our weekly customer outreach for reviews by the end of this month.
Deadline: End of next quarter.
If you need any help developing your S.M.A.R.T. goals, we are happy to help. In fact, it is part of our regular website development practice.
