10 Website Goals to Focus On in 2024

New year, new website goals. The most effective way to boost your site going into 2024 is to create actionable goals and take the necessary steps to make them happen. Still trying to figure out where to begin? Luckily, you don't have to tackle this project alone.

This post will walk you through the 10 best website goals to focus on in 2024. To begin, we'll give you the scoop on SMART goals so you can set your site up for success. Then, we'll share some website goals examples and dive into the 10 you should hone in on for the most substantial results.

• What are SMART website goals?

• 10 Website Goals to Focus On in 2024

• Website Goals Examples

What are SMART website goals?

Whether you're familiar with SMART goals or need a refresher, we're here to help. To recap, 'SMART' stands for:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable

• Relevant

• Time-bound

If you'd like to learn more about SMART goals, you can check out our handy guide on SMART goals and how to write one. Setting SMART website goals will set you up for success in 2023 because you'll have straightforward, digestible objectives you can measure and reflect on. There's nothing vague about a SMART goal — which means measuring success is simple.

Ready to learn more about some of the best goals to set in the new year? Let's dive right in.

10

1. Get serious about your bounce rate.
2. Increase your site traffic.
3. Invest in search engine optimization (SEO).
4. Focus on conversion rate optimization.
5. Update your website for accessibility.
6. Decrease your cart abandonment rate.
7. Grow your email subscribers.
8. Start a blog.
9. Increase the number of pages a user visits.
10. Increase the number of leads your website generates.

Get serious about your bounce rate.

As a refresher, your site's bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page on your website and leave without clicking anything or visiting another page. (It differs from an exit rate because that metric measures how many people leave your site on a specific page, but it doesn't always mean it was the only page they visited.)

On average, a website's bounce rate is between 26 and 70%. If your bounce rate is between 26 and 40%, congratulations! Your site has an "optimal" bounce rate.

If your bounce rate is 56% or more, you're officially in the 'high bounce rate' zone. Before you panic, remember that there are steps you can take to reduce your bounce rate. One of your 2023 website goals may be to identify what's to blame for your high bounce rate and take steps to rectify it. (And don't worry if your bounce rate isn't 0%. It's quite unlikely your bounce rate will be under 20%, so if it is, you should make sure your data is accurate.)

What to do:

Consider the amount of time people spend once they land on your website, where the traffic originates from, and even what devices they're using. In some cases, mobile sites are to blame for a high bounce rate if they're not user-friendly or responsive enough. Page layout also may be the culprit.

In addition to user experience, consider the copy on the page itself. Your copy may be confusing or irrelevant when visitors land on your site. Consider all possibilities — and tune it up accordingly.

Increase your site traffic.

Your website could be the most engaging digital space for your organization, but it doesn't matter if no one sees it. That's why one of our favorite website goals of 2023 is to work on increasing your site traffic to ensure the right eyes are on your site's content. Your team works diligently to create this content — it's important people see it.

To get started, look at where your website traffic currently stands. Once you've gathered your insights, it's time to take action to increase your site traffic. As a reminder, your website traffic numbers inform you of your site's unique visitors. That's why it's one excellent way to gauge how likely your website will attract new customers and clients.

What to do:

There's a bucket list of ways to increase your site's traffic. We suggest something realistic, attainable, and on-brand for your organization. Some tried-and-true ways to improve your site traffic include content creation (Think: Starting a blog), investing in organic social media growth, building your email list, and bolstering your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. We've outlined 30 ways to boost your website traffic if you need more suggestions.

Invest in search engine optimization (SEO).

Speaking of SEO, we can't emphasize enough the significance of ensuring your website is optimized for search engines. The reality is that nowadays, when you post content online, you're writing for your audience and search engines.

There are three main types of SEO: on-page, off-page, and technical. It's essential your website masters all three to bolster the likelihood your content will be picked up by SERPs and shown to users searching the keyword you're trying to rank for.

To recap:

• On-page SEO refers to optimizing your site's front and backend components, such as content, site architecture, and HTML.

• Off-page SEO refers to facets of your optimization strategy that aren't directly on your site, such as backlinks, guest blogging, and even social media activity.

• Technical SEO refers to the steps you can take to ensure your website is crawlable and indexable for search engines.

(Psst: If you're reworking your website this year and want to make sure it doesn't negatively impact your SEO efforts, we've created a handy checklist to help you relaunch your site without losing rankings.)

What to do:

Just focusing on one of these facets of SEO isn't enough. In such a competitive landscape, making your site rank for competitive keywords will take commitment to all aspects of search engine optimization. In 2023, set tangible goals around all three facets of search engine optimization to see results.

Focus on conversion rate optimization.

Your site's conversion rate provides insight into how actionable your content is and how effectively it leads visitors to take action. To get your site's conversion rate, you divide the number of conversions by the number of site visitors. Then, multiply by 100. The percentage that results is the number of visitors who took a desired action on your website. Actions can vary — from signing up for email marketing correspondence to submitting contact information.

With the help of conversion rate optimization (CRO), your website will generate more qualified customers and leads. By completing CRO, you will enrich your site to increase the number of leads generated.

What to do:

Decide which pages' conversion rate you want to hone in on. An excellent place to start is with your homepage, as that's the area visitors land when they arrive on your website. You could add a clear call to action in a central location or even add a chatbot so visitors can get their questions answered expediently and won't get frustrated and leave but instead stay and take action.

You could add a call to action to your written content if you have a blog. But remember: The action you're asking visitors to take should apply to what they're reading — if it isn't, you risk frustrating visitors.

Update your website for accessibility.

In 2023, there's an even stronger emphasis on building accessible websites. Why? Well, for starters, it's the right thing to do. Inclusive websites are vital to ensure all your visitors find your content accessible. Making sure your website is accessible can build brand loyalty, not to mention there could be legal implications for not having your site up to snuff with specific guidelines.

If accessibility isn't already built into your website's fabric, it's time to give it a much-needed accessibility makeover in 2023. If unsure where to begin, you can check out our ultimate guide to creating an accessible website. We've also compiled a checklist to guide your journey to making a site inclusive to everyone.

What to do:

First thing first, read up on website accessibility guidelines as set by the World Wide Web Consortium. Then, use our guide and checklist to begin taking steps to ensure your website meets standards for folks with deafness and blindness.

Remember: When creating SMART website goals, keep them actionable. Because making your website more accessible isn't as easily measured with data, you'll have to get creative when setting your SMART goal. For instance, you could say something like, "Publish 10 blog posts per month with three images each with ALT text," or "Offer color contrast options on all four pages of the company website."

Decrease your cart abandonment rate.

Because of cart abandonment, e-commerce companies lose a whopping $18 billion per year. If you have an ecommerce business and notice many visitors are ditching your website before they buy the items in their carts, you're not alone.

One of our favorite SMART website goals of 2023 is to decrease your cart abandonment rate. We know: This sounds like a huge feat, and it is. But there are several steps you can take to make it possible.

What to do:

First, make sure everything runs smoothly in the checkout process for consumers. Alleviate any friction or trouble spots. For instance, if you only allow customers to check out if they make an account, you might offer guest purchasing. You could also show customers what step they're on in the checkout process so they can see their next step before they get there.

Another popular option is to send a shopping cart abandonment email that gently reminds visitors that they've left something behind. You could offer free shipping in this email or another incentive or use the email to nudge them to complete their purchase.

Grow your email subscribers.

If your company uses email communication, one of your website goals for 2023 can be to grow your email subscriber list. Your email subscribers could provide valuable information about how your communication is being received and what your audience responds to — and what they don't.

In addition, growing your email subscriber list is another valuable way to boost the traffic your site receives. See how a lot of the goals on this list are intertwined?

What to do:

Some companies offer an incentive for customers to provide their contact information, such as a coupon. Or, maybe you'd rather offer a gated case study and only accessible when you input your email and agree to receive email communications. The incentive is up to your organization to decide, but it could help boost email sign-ups.

Additionally, add a call to action on your footer or centrally on your homepage, inviting visitors to sign up to stay in touch with your brand.

Start a blog.

If you don't have one already, 2023 is a great time to start blogging. There are plenty of reasons why blogging is an excellent addition to your company's content marketing strategy. Having a blog increases brand awareness, helps your company establish authority, creates a digital community, attracts visitors to your website, and can help your site rank on the SERPs — the list goes on and on.

The key to blogging, however, is to be consistent. Keep going even if your first blog post (or first 30) doesn't rank on the SERPs. Keep going, stay consistent, and implement on-page SEO best practices when writing your blog posts.

What to do:

The content management system (CMS) your company uses for your site already likely has the option to create a blog. Get started there, and create an editorial calendar to hold yourself accountable for posting a certain amount of content per week or month.

Increase the number of pages a user visits.

The more pages users visit on your site, the better. One goal you could set in 2023 is to increase the number of pages users visit when they're on your website. After all, the more your website visitors see, the more they will learn about your business. And that's good news for you.

What to do:

When visitors reach the end of the page, add a call to action that invites them to check out another website page. In addition, you can add internal links to your content so users can easily navigate your website and access related content.

Increase the number of leads your website generates.

Let's get back to the basics: The real purpose of many of these website goals is to increase the number of leads your website generates. The more (qualified) leads your website brings in, the better it is.

The lead generation process is designed to demonstrate your company's value and trustworthiness to potential customers or clients. Don't underestimate the role your website can play in this process.

What to do:

There are plenty of steps you can take to increase how many leads your site is bringing in. For one, you can add a form to a strong-performing page, so visitors provide contact information and the sales team can get in touch. You could also run A/B tests on landing pages or other high-traffic pages to see what copy appeals to leads. If you need more suggestions for optimizing your site for lead generation, we've got you covered.

Website Goals Examples

It can be tricky to get started if you don't have any website goals examples. Here are some website goals examples you might set in the new year based on our suggestions. However, remember that one of the main facets of SMART website goals is that they're attainable. Tailor these suggestions to feel realistic and achievable for where your organization is at right now.

Let's use our first goal for this example: Get serious about your bounce rate.

To write a SMART website goal, it needs to be specific. In this instance, you'd specify what exactly you want to do. For example, do you want to decrease a particular page's bounce rate? Or your overall site? It's time to specify now.

You might write something like: I want to decrease our homepage's bounce rate.

Now, let's make our goal measurable. To do that, let's identify where our bounce rate is now and where we want it to be. Our goal reads: I want to decrease our homepage's bounce rate from 50% to 45%.

Up next, let's make sure our goal is attainable. You can look at past evidence of how bounce rates have decreased to decide whether this is realistic. If you're comfortable with how it looks, you can move forward. If you feel it's unrealistic, you could recalibrate.

This goal is realistic, so we'll move forward.

Now, let's make sure our goal is relevant. What are we looking to achieve? Let's add some context.

I want to decrease our homepage's bounce rate from 50% to 45% to increase the number of pages visitors see on our website.

Now that we've made our goal relevant let's add a time constraint. Your goal might be:

I want to decrease our homepage's bounce rate from 50% to 45% to increase the number of pages visitors see on our website within the next six months.

There you have it: A SMART website goal! Here are a couple of other website goals examples:

• I want to increase our contact page's conversion rate by 5% to increase the number of visitors providing contact info within the next six months.

• I want to grow our email subscriber list from 1500 to 3000 to increase the number of users receiving email communications within the next 12 months.

Get your 2023 started right.

Now that you have some ideas for SMART website goals you can implement in 2023, it's time to start considering what would make the most significant impact on your business. Remember to keep your goals attainable, specific, and timely; you're off to a great start!