What is the goal of your website?

What is the goal of your website?

What is the goal of your website? What is your end game? What is “success” to you? Here are a few options:

• Ongoing passive income after you stopped creating content (from ads, affiliate)
• Ongoing active income making content perpetually (from ads, affiliate)
• Product income from something you sell (services, products, subscriptions)
• Non-monetary – portfolio, resume, personal blog, journal, networking

I’m sure there are many options not listed in this list, but these are the primary reasons why people begin websites. And perhaps, you are aiming for a combination of these goals. Regardless, to find your end goals, you need to outline your objectives.

Outline Your Objectives

Your objectives will help you decide what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, if you want to remain anoymous and not have a social presence, your best option would be to create ongoing passive income. If you love the daily interaction with a community, your end game might be ongoing active income, along with subscription from a paid-for community,

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do I want to do this forever, or just enough to set me up for immediate success?
• Do I want to share my life or remain anonymous?
• Do I want to also appear on social media?
• Do I want to create content for content’s sake, or just to draw awareness to my brand, product, or services?
• Do I want to focus on content that I love, or just on content that sells?
• Do I want a local or virtual presence?
• Do I want to create content that I have to maintain, or just create once and forget?
• Do I want to appeal to strangers, or just friends and family?

Put it all Together

Once you decide what your final objectives are, you can put them together to determine what your ultimate goals are. Here is a breakdown of some options.

To be clear, these are not the only options, and there is definitely not a better option! I have spent a lot of time pursuing the wrong types of businesses and websites for myself because “it was what everyone was doing”.

Don’t compare! Enjoy who you are and don’t forgo that for “what sells”. Know yourself (do you like to share yourself, or not?), and let that drive you!

1. Ongoing passive income

This is perfect for the person that wants to 1) create content for a limited time 2) remain anonymous 3) not appear on social media 4) create content that sells and to just 5) create content once and forget.

2. Ongoing Active Income

This is slightly different, and is perfect for the content creator that has a steady following that reads relevant daily content, that has yet to rank with search engines. This is perfect if you want to 1) create content perpetually 2) share your life 3) have a social presence 4) love your content (ie. a news site or recipe blog 5) and have an ongoing virtual presence.

3. Product Income

This is for the perpetual entrepreneur that wants to sell products, services, memberships, or subscriptions. This person wants to create content for the purpose of creating brand awareness. They want to share their life, create content they love, exist on social media, have a virtual AND local presence, and create content that they love and maintain.

4. Non-Monetary

The website owner that has a non-monetary presence is after connection and self-reflection. They love to write ideas, connect with people, share their life, and pursue their content, even if they don’t make money. This website owner might only connect with friends and family, and does not pursue business social media accounts or search engine traffic.

How to create measurable goals

What can be some measurable goals for you? What is something that you can really write down and pursue? Here are some options that I love:

• Write 100 articles/posts
• Show up on Google’s local listings
• Reach a certain number of social followers
• Reach a certain number of newsletter subscribers
• Be accepted by an ad network
• Get your first affiliate payment
• Create a certain number of connections
• Sell your first product/service
• Receive a certain number of membership subscribers

Whatever your goals are, write them down, and puruse those.

If your goal is to show up in search engine results, focus more on content then website design and social media ineteraction (I’ve made this mistake!). If your goal is to sell a local service, focus a lot on qualifying for Google local listings. If your goal is to write content, write a little every day, and don’t worry about getting it all perfect.

Write down your end-game, specific objectives, and measurable goals, and start working on them today!