Define Website Goals

The principal objective of a website is to provide relevant, useful, and engaging content to its audiences. To achieve this, the website branding, design-build, user experience, and content should reflect the organization’s mission, vision, and values, while highlighting its strengths, products or services, and achievements. Digital strategies across the organization—communications, admissions, marketing, recruiting—must be aligned and operating from the same playbook.

Why You Should Set Website Goals

The first step on the path to building your website and aligning it with your communications objectives is to write an editorial mission for your website. Setting an editorial mission makes site maintenance efficient by:

• Providing a measuring stick against which content can be judged to be appropriate and on mission
   
• Guiding content managers in choosing, editing, and repurposing content to meet users' needs
   
• Structuring content so that it holds together as a product
   
• Contributing to your unit and larger organizational goals
   
• Defining your brand

Once you've settled on an editorial mission, move on to setting more granular, tactical goals.

How to Set Web Goals

All of your goals should be SMART goals.

S = Specific: To be effective, your goal must be specific.

M = Measurable: You won't know whether you've met your goal unless you can track progress toward success and have set a metric that equals success.

A = Achievable: Match resources to desired outcomes to determine if your goal can be reached with available resources.

R = Relevant: Why are these goals important? Do they dovetail with broader institutional goals?

T = Time-bound: Do you need to achieve your goals by within a certain timeframe? When will you know that you've reached your goals? Deadlines keep each member of your team on track to meet milestones along the path to success. 

Tactical Goals

Consider setting goals for users, stakeholders, content managers, and developers/IT. Each goal should be attached to at least one metric so that there is a clear definition of what success looks like and it’s measurable. Here are some examples:

Goals for Users

• Eliminate need for training
• Make a particular set of tasks easier to complete
• Increase frequency of new content
• Site is mobile-optimized

Goals for Stakeholders

• Increase in donations
• Clearer narrative about organizational history or purpose
• Increased traffic, perhaps from a specific country or demographic

Goals for Audiences

• Communicate specific types of information
• Relay information more frequently
• Facilitate two-way communication
• Increase engagement
• Attract a new audience

Goals for Content Managers

• Easier maintenance
• Automation of certain tasks
• Make editing more user-friendly

Goals for Developers and IT

• Automation of routine tasks
• Consolidation of platforms or infrastructure
• Streamlining maintenance, documentation, and security protocols

Next Step?

Once you're satisfied with your web goals, the next step in building out your website is to create a content strategy.