The One Goal

Creating a website can be just as easy as putting some HTML and CSS together, writing some words and adding some images.

I have done this before. Started by coding with putting no thought into what I was doing.

This makes things both easy and hard.

It makes it easy as you have no restrictions and you can do whatever you like when you like.

It makes it hard because sometimes you get lost in what you are doing and can spend hours not knowing which direction you are going. You have pieces of the website that look totally different from each other because you were following your creative juices.

Making a website does not have to be hard.

All you need is a little direction.

Some steps to help you along your way so you can see if you are making the right choice and you can check in with progress that you are making.

It starts with just one thing.

Why?

What is the purpose of the website?

What is its main goal?

This is your lodestone.

When you are making a decision be it from choosing text or images you can check against the goal of the website and ask "Is this helping achieve the goal?"

If the answer is yes, go mad.

If the answer is no, then you need to review what it was you were about to do.

Looking for the goal can be as easy as asking the person you are making the site for.

If they don't have an answer then going for capturing emails is a sensible option.

Should I have more than one goal?

No. One goal only.

Don't start thinking you can plaster loads of call to actions on the home page.

Two problems for this is that the person visiting the website will get confused on what they are actually supposed to do and it will make it hard to measure on how well the website is doing for the result you are trying to achieve.

You could break it down to have a goal per page of the website. But be careful you aren't watering down your intent.

Start with one goal. Define it. Write it down. Keep it in mind when creating and keep it in mind when you are making decisions.