We’ve had the ideaology of business plans, marketing plans and other plans drummed into us by business success professionals for a long time now, but one plan we don’t here a lot about are website plans. So, where do you start? With the goals!

Like all things, a website will have one or two major goals, and a number of minor goals. Usually the minor goals support the major ones. Throughout most websites we build, the major goals don’t change.

Major Website Goals

• Making money
  The reason a business exists in the first place, and certainly the ultimate goal of any eCommerce endeavour. Making money is a broad goal and the method for achieving this goal will change depending on the website. Methods include generating bookings, making sales and attracting advertisers.
• Increasing credibility
  This goal is especially utilised by the professional services industries like accountants, lawyers and even web developers! This goal centres around informing your potential customers of your company’s spectacular history, and key staff’s qualifications. Artistic and creative industries will increase their credibility through visual portfolio pages.
• Saving time
  Often this goal exists in tandem with one of the other two above, but many businesses choose to save administration time by having a web application built for them that automates some of the mundane tasks they do often. It might be as simple as referring cold enquiries to a page on the website for frequently asked questions, or it might be more complex like a customer management system.

Photo by Paul Downey

Minor Website Goals

• Encourage leads and enquiries
• Conduct research on web user habits
• Provide an easy contact platform
• Allow quality media downloads
• Increase subscriptions to newsletter database
• Develop a community around your product or service
• Encourage customer loyalty

Does anyone have further suggestions on other goals websites might try to achieve?