People always ask me, “why is your mission statement important on a website?” Well the answer is very straight forward. It is all about the actual website visitors and what they are asking.
“Why should I stay on your website?” It’s the question silently on the mind of every person who visits your website. When they get an answer which resonates with them, they’ll stay on your website not for seconds or minutes, but for hours.
I once visited a website with a stated goal that resonated with me so much that I copied every single blog post into a file and then turned that file into an ebook so I could keep it with me everywhere I went. With that level of dedication to the website, I also unhesitatingly bought products produced by the website author.
On the other hand, when I visit a website which lacks a good reason to stay or which has a reason that repulses me, I often leave without even finishing the article which first attracted me. As far as I can recall, I’ve never bought a single product from a website without a clear mission.
Website Mission Statement Basics
Corporate mission statements tend to be quite boring. There are exceptions, but most of them are drab. Worse, many of them are obviously untrue. I’ve seen many companies whose mission statements talked about excellence and dedication, but where most people in the company took shortcuts and would leave early any chance they got. I notice that kind of stuff because I am self employed.
Website mission statements can be much more interesting—that’s because a good website is usually a niche website, so it can have a laser-focused mission statement. Take this website—its basic mission statement is in its domain name: Let’s Build Websites. Add a few more words to explain why we build websites and you get a more complete mission statement:
Let’s Build Websites To Create Wealth And Achieve Financial Freedom
Each article on this website contains a very small amount of the necessary information to build websites that create wealth. For example, the article about robots.txt won’t create wealth by itself. But if you read that article and realize that building websites to create wealth is the goal of this website, you’re much more likely to stick around and read other articles.
How To Craft Your Website Mission Statement
The best time to create a mission statement is before you choose your niche and domain name—but creating your mission statement afterwords is better than not having a mission statement at all.
Don’t fall in to the trap of thinking that your mission statement should resonate with as many people as possible. Some people who visit your website aren’t going to be interested in what you have to offer and the sooner they figure that out, the sooner they’ll stop being a drain on your server resources.
For example, many people who visit the robots.txt article may be running a hobby or non-profit website. They have no desire to build websites that create wealth, so they’re just going to read that one article and leave. That’s ok.
By telling them that this website in focused on building websites to create wealth, we’ve reduced the chance that they’ll post a comment requiring a response or buy a product which they’ll later want to return. That saves us time and money in the long run even though it may decrease our unique visitors and apparent income in the short term.
Make your mission statement speak to the people who really need your information or your products. But make sure it also speaks to you and what you want to do with your website.
The shorter your mission statement, the better. This is an advantage of being laser-focused. You shouldn’t need many words to express your mission, and you can put a short mission statement in visible parts of your website to help readers discover it.
How To Use Your Mission Statement
There are a few common places where you’ll find mission statements on websites:
• In the website header, usually near the main logo or website name. This puts the mission statement on every regular page of the website which gets the point across effectively—although it also takes that valuable screen space away from other possible uses.
• On the main page of the website above the first (most recent) blog post. This is usually my favorite place to put the mission statement. I will usually put it in italics, center it, and give a good bit of whitespace above and below so it really stands out. This won’t help people who go directly to an article, but anyone who comes back to the main page will see it.
• At the bottom of each article or product listing. This is a good place to put it because anyone who reads an entire article is likely to be interested in what else you have to say or sell. Showing them your mission statement will help hook them into reading more articles, or into commenting, or—best of all—into subscribing to your site.
Why is Your Website Mission Statement Important?
- It states clearly what your website specialises in.
- It means your content will be following that topic guideline.
- It helps attract the right visitors when the website is clear and focused, sticking to the mission statement.
Another Important Use Of Your Mission Statement
Another very important use of your mission statement is for you, your guest posters, and any writers you hire. I make it habit to re-read mission statements before each article is published to ensure it is written with the right audience in mind.
For example, if I wrote a generic robots.txt article, I would probably have spent less time talking about the search engine optimization features—but because I knew the article would be read by people trying to generate wealth, I knew what to focus on.
Reminding yourself of your mission can also prevent you from going off topic accidentally. Sometimes I get really excited about something and want to share it, but it isn’t until I contemplate my mission statement that I realize it isn’t appropriate for my audience. If I distract my audience with the things that are distracting me, I do them a disservice.
Craft Your Mission Statement Today
This isn’t one of those blog posts you can read, bookmark, and then promise yourself that you’ll do something about it someday. Craft your mission statement today—it should only take a few minutes, it won’t cost you anything, and it can significantly improve the effectiveness of your blog from this day forward. Do. It. Now.
Hello Milica ,
Great insight on “Website Mission Statement”. However, i would like to add that its practically impossible to satisfy every users, its also impossible to make a user stay longer all the time. Even if we define our mission, the success of a website will only depend on its repeated users.
Okto also made a very valid point “visitors rarely check on mission statement of the website unless they have particular interest to the website.”
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At this moment the mission statement plays an pivotal role.At this moment the mission statement plays an pivotal role. The call of action or any statement that diverts traffic to the website are very useful and a must for any website or blog. I like these comments please keep it up.
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Thanks for sharing this great article. This is the most effective way to know and learn about The Most Important Part of Your Website. This Mission Statement will be very helpful and useful for those who make bank online. I had fun reading this and many great insights here. I will share this information with my friends and they will certainly love to read this. Very informative, I’ll definitely give these 5 stars.
Hello
Through study and lecturing I have come across the idea of a clear, clarified mission statement that is to the point of what your website looks to achieve. Presented and clearly defined for readers, advertisers and potential partners to see. My mission statement is on my about page at present as I deleted my old website 2 weeks ago and moved to WordPress. Possible, I may add the mission statement in the footer or sidebar shortly. Thanks for the good information.
Hello Mitz, So I read a couple of your posts and found both interesting. While I have been working with WordPress since way too many years as a developer, I have had several false starts trying to write my own blog, but then I see blogs like yours and well… why would I write stuff when there’s people like you who’s able to do it 100 times better! Anyway… I can see you’ve paid attention to the quality of your website and speed (those are the things I can tell from my standpoint) so I created Aptugo, which is able to produce 100ms websites with a 85+ grade from google site speed (among many other things, i’m trying to keep the point here! ~and failing miserably~) Basically, and if you don’t mind me asking: I’m curious on what makes you choose WordPress over other alternatives, and if you could have a tailor made software, what would be first and most important features it should have?
Have a great day!
It does make sense, though many websites are completely missing this point. Well, some giant niche websites rarely can merge a mission statement in single page, but the idea is the same. A description close to header that is relevant to the page is necessary.
Kaloyan Banev recently posted..Google I(nventions)/O(ffers) Annual Showcase: The Review
Hello Mitz, Mr. Shailesh has just copied my words of comment as it is. you should take a strong action for it. the guy is just trying to put a hyperlink of his website with no effort. I request you to remove his comment as early as possible
Riyaz recently posted..B Tech Industrial Training in Telecom and Networking in Delhi
Hey Victoria,
Thanks for sharing this great post with us. You had described well about mission of website or blog. You are right, if visitors get what he/she was searching for then he/she will sure get interest on our website or blog. They will stay on our site longer and we will get unique visitors.
Thanks again, Keep sharing articles like this.
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Thanks for this post…History has proven time and again that statement of purpose for any site is exceptionally paramount. For a guest to stay on your site there ought to be a robust reason. At this minute the statement of purpose assumes a critical part. The call of activity or any announcement that redirects movement to the site are exceptionally helpful and an unquestionable requirement for any site or online journal.
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I think visitors rarely check on mission statement of the website unless they have particular interest to the website. Agree with Victoria above, sometimes people stay for long in a website just because it provide valuable post that attract or answer visitors problem.
Great post, thanks for it. Wish you have a great weekend
Okto recently posted..8 Practical Ways to Make Successful Blog
Nice and very important post
It is very true that mission statement for any website is very important. For a visitor to stay on your website there should be a solid reason. At this moment the mission statement plays an pivotal role. The call of action or any statement that diverts traffic to the website are very useful and a must for any website or blog.
Thank you for sharing.
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A website is just like any other business, if not your true business already. You need to know what the purpose of it is, who to target, what you can do for that target and go after it. Simplifying an “elevator pitch” into a Mission statement should be a must for everyone. Good article!
Honestly, I had never even thought of including a mission statement but after reading this post, it makes perfect sense. I would imagine a vision statement would also work. What I like about this approach is that it communicates to readers the purpose of the website/blog. Very informative – thank you for sharing these tips!
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Thank you for the intersting idea – thre are so many not bad websites- but you really don’t know why stay at them – especially when talking about websites with no definite topic. And even a small website which answers exatly users needs – will become popular eventually
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Very interesting. Thought it was enough to define my site in the About page. I really dislike putting anything near the title. I feel it’s distracting, and at the bottom of the article I have thumbnails of related posts for readers to click if they choose. Something I have to think about. Thanks for the suggestion
Again a nice piece of work by you. Thanks for the information and to reveal the importance of the Mission of any website because ultimately we want out website visitors to stay long on our site and these thing will obviously increase the time onsite of visitors. Thank you very much for this great article
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