Your web site is the key to your success on the Internet. You can use your web site to build your brand, increase sales, generate more leads, slash costs, and much more. In fact, you probably have very specific goals that your web site is helping you to achieve for your company.

If you do have goals, are you measuring them? We often ask people, "what are the objectives of your site?" Answers usually vary from "our site is supposed to provide information about our company's products", or "the site is supposed to effectively convey our brand to our audience."

In actuality, those are very rarely the TRUE objectives; but rather the MEANS to accomplish one's objectives. A web site's objectives will in most cases be to drive sales and revenues or generate qualified leads.

The first step to building a winning strategy on the Internet is to identify your exact goals and set your web site's objectives to achieve those goals. Here are two examples?

Web Site Goal: Lead Generation If the main goal of your web site to generate more leads for your company, your web site's objectives should be geared around two things?

1) increasing the quantity of your leads

2) increasing the quality of your leads

By focusing on these web site objectives you can identify what your web site needs to do to accomplish them. For example, if you want to increase the quantity and quality of your leads, you can identify that your web site should be re-designed to?

a) Attract more qualified visitors from the search engines

b) Display the benefits of your product or service

c) Educate your visitors and prospects on how to make a smart buying decision

d) Overcome the objections your visitors may have about your product

e) Persuade them to take action and become a lead for your sales team

Web Site Goal: Drive Sales & Revenues If the main goal of your e-commerce web site is designed to generate sales for your company, your web site's objectives should be geared around two things?

1. Get more visitors to shop for and buy your products

2. Get visitors to buy larger orders

3. Get visitors to return and buy more often

As you can see from these two examples, setting specific goals and objectives for your web site will allow you to set your plan for improving your results. Now that you have your goals and objectives, you're ready for the next step which is increasing your web site's conversion rate.

Matt Hockin is president of Interactive Marketing, Inc., a leading provider of web site optimization and search engine marketing services for increasing web site conversion rates, traffic, and profitability. Click here to download your free copy of the guide to web site optimization http://www.InteractiveMarketingInc.com