Goal Setting for Online Business

Goal setting is important when starting an online business. Short-term and long-term goals will guide an online business person through the many changes and surprises every online business creates. Reviewing goals frequently will keep an online business person progressing with forward momentum.

Goal setting requires setting realistic goals. Conduct online research specific to your business to succor with goal setting.

Short-Term Goals
Establish short-term goals for all online business efforts. If not reaching the goals set, evaluate the goals to see if there is something wrong with the strategy or if goal setting was unrealistic.

Goal setting should involve realistic website traffic goals. Goals must differentiate between the traffic sources (e.g. direct traffic; search traffic; PPC traffic; social media traffic). Have a definitive goal for each initiative and monitor the progress.

Goal setting for an online business is incomplete without evaluating email marketing campaigns. For example, look at parameters like XX number of sign-ups within 90 days. The number of sign-ups should be directly proportional to website traffic. Another goal setting example is setting a goal up of five percent of people visiting the site sign-up for a newsletter.

Sales Conversions should be included in goal setting. Have a realistic goal in mind for the percentage of traffic that buys from the website. An average conversion rate is around two percent; though it is somewhat industry specific (do homework for your industry). The short term goal may be one percent, and then move it up to 1.5 percent, two percent, etc.

Long-Term Goals
Goal setting for an online business should have long-term goals. Three examples of long-term goals include:

Website traffic should grow exponentially is at the top of online business goal setting. Have a goal of at least 20 percent traffic growth each month. This can only be based on your specific industry. Some industries may be able to get a much higher percentage increase while other industries may only interrogate a five to 10 percent growth month-to-month.

Conversion rates should be in the goal setting for an online business. The long-term conversion rate should be equal to or above the average of your industry after a nine to 12 month period. This will give you sufficient time to tweak your marketing near and sales efforts.

Long term goal setting for an online business email marketing program should include conversion rates (what percentage turn into sales) as well as sign-up rate. E-mail marketing conversion rate should be 10 to 15 percent to be considered a success.

Goal setting is very industry-specific for an online business. Set goals and measure your site’s progress against those goals. Many business owners find it difficult to set realistic goals and even more difficult to give an honest evaluation of their business’ performance against those goals.