The Online Business Goals Worksheet focuses your website on business results.
It defines your business goals in specific, measurable terms, for a period of 3-5 years from the past and into the future. It calculates the goals, leads, and sales required to meet these goals.

Use this online business optimization worksheet to optimize your business for the web.  More than Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Online Business Optimization (OBO) brings more than just traffic. It also brings leads and sales.

This business goals worksheet is your starting point, because it helps you:

• Think through where you are going.
• Work toward significant Return on Investment (ROI)
• Measure every step of the way.
• Evaluate your efforts
• See progress in specific terms

In order to achieve your ultimate goal, you will need to define a number of sub-goals. These sub-goals represent the steps your prospect will follow to move from being just a website visitor to a client. Each step will require a certain number of visitors who have completed the previous step.  We’ll look at each of these steps starting at the bottom of the funnel illustrated at the right.

1. Business Revenue

What is your expected business revenue? Use your past annual revenue to set a realistic annual goal, and divide by twelve. Say your monthly revenue for your business, including on and off the web is $10,000.

2. Online Rate

How much business do you expect from your online activities? Estimate the percentage—say 10%

3. Monthly Online  Revenue

How much online revenue do you expect? The bottom of your funnel is your ultimate online goal– your monthly business revenue of $10,000 times your online rate of 10%, or $1,000.

4. $Client:

How much revenue can you expect from each client or sale? Estimate your average sale value, for example $100.

5. Sales Goal

What is your monthly sales goal? Your sales goal is the number of monthly sales you need  to generate your monthly online revenue.  To get this number divide your monthly online revenue goal ($1,000) by your average sale value ($100). Your monthly sales goal is 10.

6. Close rate

How many sales do you expect to close per qualified lead? Estimate the rate at with you close a sale, for example 1 sale for every 2 qualified leads, or 50%

7. Lead Goal

How many sales leads will you need? A lead is a visitor who has taken some action on your website to indicate that they have converted from just a visitor, to someone who is genuinely interested in what you offer. Let’s say you define a lead as someone who has filled out and submitted an online Contact form.  Your lead goal is the number of leads you will need to meet your sales goals.  To get this number, divide your sales goal (10) by your close rate (50%). Your lead goal is 20.

8. Conversion Rate

What is the percentage of visitors to your website that become leads? Estimate the rate at which you convert your website visitors into leads, say ten out of every one hundred, or 10%.

9. Traffic Goal

How many website visitors will you need to support your sub-goals, and meet your ultimate goal? Your website traffic goal is the number of visitors you will need in order to generate your required leads, in this case 100.

The example above would look like this in a simple spreadsheet starting from the top and going down. The green areas indicate the numbers you will need to estimate. The blue areas are calculated for you These are your internet marketing goals suggested by your estimates in the green areas.  The gold area is the amount of traffic that we will need to bring to our website to meet the other goals we have set.