Setting objectives for your web channel strategy

Your website objectives should be based on your business or organizational needs because identifying these needs will help determine content priorities, user tasks, even your information architecture/navigation.

Review the following list of objectives and check off those that apply or that will help your business or organization:

• provide general information?
• educate your clients?
• provide reference information and documents?
• support decision makers?
• handle transactions?
• interact with the broader community?
• have information that only specific audiences should be able to access?
• comply with disclosure and legal requirements?
• gain a competitive advantage?
• develop or improve consultation?
• provide a private work area or space for groups of employees?
• provide a private work space for internal project teams?
• provide a secure work space for external client or partner teams?
• manage information?
• provide institutional information?
• publish institutional information?
• promote the institution's image?
• integrate the wide range of information available across the institution?

Establishing website goals

There are usually three over-arching goals for organizations that either want to refresh/redevelop their current site or plan a new website: 

• Goal No. 1: A website should have a detailed roadmap that sets out what new content should be added, the new fields required for its database and a set of detailed requirements that will guide the enhancement of the site’s user experience, web interface, its functionality and plot out the information architecture.

• Goal No. 2: Existing stakeholders and users should have access to the most current and robust information and research available that is easily accessible, easily found and available to them in a variety of formats that serve their needs and purposes.
  

• Goal No. 3: New customers, new users and new stakeholders should be able to easily find and access your website's information because the site and its content are optimized to return first page results from the leading search engines and because compelling marketing strategies are in place to promote the website and direct new users to the site.

By satisfying these three goals, your website becomes a leading source of information populated with relevant, timely, comprehensive, and current information that is available and published to the web in a variety of formats so that your users access your content in the way they want, in the format they want, when they want it.