Do you know what you’re doing now? Do you have concrete goals over the next 6 to 12 months? Do you know what you want to do in 5 years? How about 10?
If you don’t know what your website is about, then how can you ever expect it to succeed? Perhaps it’s time to think about a mission statement for your website.
If you don’t know what your website is about, then how can you ever expect it to succeed? Perhaps it’s time to think about a mission statement for your website.
- By sitting down and coming up with a mission statement for your website you’ll have a clear plan of what you want to do.
- Next you can break that up into easily reachable goals, perhaps over the months or weeks when you first get your website started.
- Finally start tackling those goals one-by-one in a checklist type of way.
You Need a Plan and Define Goals
A Mission Statement is a plan of action stated or shouted out for everyone to see. When I first started this website I had a mission statement: it was the first blog post I did for each of my blogs. You can see both the Montana Articles and the Writing Articles mission statements here.
It’s obvious that there are clearly stated goals in those mission statements. When you do this with your site those goals will flow down into everything else you put on your website, what your e-commerce system is all about, or how you plan and execute your blog.
The Writing Articles mission statement that had several clear goals:
It’s obvious that there are clearly stated goals in those mission statements. When you do this with your site those goals will flow down into everything else you put on your website, what your e-commerce system is all about, or how you plan and execute your blog.
The Writing Articles mission statement that had several clear goals:
- Write original and unique content that people liked;
- Write about certain topics that were listed;
- Talk about and promote my own eBooks;
- Get onto the top page of Google’s search results;
You Need to Define Success
You know your goals, but how do you define their attainment? You need concrete numbers, sales, or visitors; anything that can be some type of metric that allows you to see measurable results. You can see exactly how things are and make concrete changes right away.
I listed several goals for my Writing Articles blog. I managed to complete all of them. I even got onto the top page of Google for many search terms, including:
Those were just for my Writing Articles page. My Montana Articles page did even better:
I got onto the top page of Google, at least for a lot of the keywords the people were typing into search. And do you know why so many of those keywords are getting me there? Because I made the decision very early on to write great content that provided value for my user. I didn't focus on keywords when I was writing; I was focused on creating great content. Google recognized that and put me on the top page.
I reached my smaller goals and I even reached the goal that was so far out of sight that it seemed nearly impossible to attain. But that’s the thing; nearly impossible isn’t out of reach.
I listed several goals for my Writing Articles blog. I managed to complete all of them. I even got onto the top page of Google for many search terms, including:
- writing a website;
- writing a website's blog;
- writing a website;
- how to write a fantasy novel.
Those were just for my Writing Articles page. My Montana Articles page did even better:
- Hugh Glass;
- George Drouillard;
- Jim Bridger;
- Montana Mountain Men;
- Father De Smet;
- William Henry Ashley;
- Montana Indians.
I got onto the top page of Google, at least for a lot of the keywords the people were typing into search. And do you know why so many of those keywords are getting me there? Because I made the decision very early on to write great content that provided value for my user. I didn't focus on keywords when I was writing; I was focused on creating great content. Google recognized that and put me on the top page.
I reached my smaller goals and I even reached the goal that was so far out of sight that it seemed nearly impossible to attain. But that’s the thing; nearly impossible isn’t out of reach.
You Need to Go Bigger
When you begin thinking like this it allows you to see the big picture. Your website’s mission statement will always have to be evolving and changing as you reach your goals.
Perhaps you define success as reaching 4 of 4 of your goals. Now you can create new goals for yourself and your website, which is great. But perhaps not reaching all of your goals, whether they’re website visitors or page rankings, is enough to equate failure in your book. And perhaps success is just the continual process of working on your website, keeping your content fresh and unique, and moving from one goal to the next.
Perhaps you define success as reaching 4 of 4 of your goals. Now you can create new goals for yourself and your website, which is great. But perhaps not reaching all of your goals, whether they’re website visitors or page rankings, is enough to equate failure in your book. And perhaps success is just the continual process of working on your website, keeping your content fresh and unique, and moving from one goal to the next.
For more great articles on writing mission statements for websites, check out these links:
This is a great White Board Friday about mission statements and marketing:
http://moz.com/blog/the-key-to-empowering-your-marketing-team-whiteboard-friday
This site is chock full of great templates for a lot of different industries:
http://www.missionstatements.com/company_mission_statements.html
A list of concise, one sentence mission statements from leading world organizations:
http://topnonprofits.com/examples/nonprofit-mission-statements/
An about.com article on writing a mission statement:
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/businessplanning/a/writemission.htm
Thissite gives you links to mission statements of major companies and organizations:
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples/examples-of-mission-statements.html
A helpful article on writing a mission statement on a website:
http://wiredimpact.com/blog/mission-statement-on-website/
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