Task 2: Set goals for your site

Your work product for this task will be to write three sentences describing the goals you have for the site. They will be your “pitch” or “elevator speech” for the site.

To complete this task…

Work on your own to think through what you are trying to accomplish and summarize your goals by writing them down for your own use.

  1. In one sentence, describe the results that you hope to get out of your site.
  2. In one sentence, describe your audience. Who are you trying to reach?
  3. In one sentence, what is the most important benefit that your visitors get from your site?

When you have finished these sentences, move on and present your “pitch” to other members of your learning cohort in Task 3.

Why planning is important

Site designs are stongly affected by site goals. If there is a mismatch between your site structure and your site goals, usability goes down.

Goals often fall into one of these three categories:

  1. Content: Project content to readers and search engines. The focus is on making it easy for people to obtain content that they can read. For content sites, optimizing search engine results is critical.
  2. Conversion: Get people to take some specific action. What action do you want them to take? For commerce sites this action is usually to buy a product or service. For non-profit sites this action is often to get involved with a social or political action. For conversion sites, having a clear path to the desired action is critical.
  3. Community: Form a community around a topic or brand, product, or service. In sites of this type, interaction between your users may be more important than your direct interaction with them. For community sites, ease of registration and peer interaction is critical.

Note that “Making money” is not a direct goal. Making money (generating revenue) is a byproduct of meeting your other goals.

Be sure you also finished Task 1. Get set up to use collaborative learning technology before moving on.

When you think you have finished Task 2, move on to Task 3: Make your pitch.

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