The Importance of Setting Short-term and Long-term Goals in your Online Marketing Strategy

It’s difficult to complete a race or identify a winner if there is no finish line. Goals help us to measure success and remedy failure. Like any aspect of your business, your online marketing deserves a set of short-term and long-term goals and objectives.

An experienced web marketing and SEO professional can help you establish Internet marketing goals for your website, blog, social media, and other online outreach. Understanding how and why these goals matter will help you to make the most of your time and resources.

Why You Need to Set Goals for Your Online Marketing Efforts

Setting online marketing goals and objectives establishes a purpose for everything you do. Goals also provide an avenue for change and adaptation because they provide a means of measurement. The most effective goals are those that are:

  • Realistic (i.e. increase web traffic and client conversion rates”)
  • Specific/Quantifiable (i.e. increase web traffic and client conversion rates by 20 percent)
  • Deadline Driven (i.e. increase web traffic and client conversion rates by 20 percent by the end of the fiscal year)
  • Relevant to your Overall Business Plan (i.e. increase web traffic and client conversion rates… in order to generate more revenue)

You can modify or eliminate tasks that do not support your goals. This frees up time and other resources to focus on activities that do support established goals. This is a cost-effective and efficient way to organize multi-faceted entities such as online marketing.