to set SMART SEO Goals (with examples).

SEO is no different. It works best when you have clearly stated goals.

You will not be able to achieve your SEO goals if you set only vague SEO objectives like “get traffic or leads”.

Vague goals are not helpful and can lead to wasted time, general SEO work and a mission that is less successful.

This article will give you an overview on why it is important to set specific goals and how they can help you move forward and focus your SEO efforts.

Why Goals Matter

You can aim for a goal.

You can use a goal to check the sanity of your actions.

In SEO, goals are also important for measuring your progress. If you are not making any progress, then it is time to change your strategy or your goals.

As well, progressing towards a goal can give you a sense of accomplishment and motivation. This can encourage you to keep going when SEO feels overwhelming.

What are the SEO goals?

SEO goals are designed to help you achieve your business and marketing objectives. You will typically target search engine awareness and engagement of prospective customers.

You will consider rankings, impressions click-through rates and clicks as well as the engagement of this traffic. You might also take into account aspects like the size of the opportunity (keyword volume, impressions).

The first step to crafting an SEO strategy is to set realistic goals. You should also consider the five steps below:

This being marketing, we have a useful mnemonic that helps us remember the critical factors when setting practical SEO goals: SMART Goals.

SEO SMART Goals

The SMART goal framework is nothing new. The SMART goals framework is widely used for project management, psychology and personal development.

I strongly believe that we should use time-proven concepts in our SEO work. Intersecting your SEO skills with battle-tested marketing principles can often really drive performance.

Our agency has seen that setting SMART SEO goals is a smart decision.

Here are some examples of how to create your own SMART goals.

S: Specific

To create SEO goals that are actionable, you must first be specific.

For example, better rankings is not a goal. It is a goal to rank in the top three results of a keyword X on a national level.

You could set a goal to improve organic traffic by 25 percent. As you get less specific, it is important to think critically about the way you plan to achieve this.

You or your team can ask the following questions:

You can then make your goal more specific.

You should also ensure that your goal is built on top of business and marketing objectives. You can then ask yourself if this SEO goal will help you reach your marketing goals.

Your goals must be clear and linked to our business objectives, so that everyone in the company, from the CEO to the marketing team, understands the definition of success.

M: Measurable

We must make the goals measurable in order to understand whether you are progressing towards your goal, and if it is helping you reach the underlying goal.

We can track SEO success using a variety of touchpoints.

The following SEO metrics should get you started.


SEO metrics


Link Building Metrics


Real world metrics

Remember to use metrics that help you measure progress, not just your end goal. This will allow you to determine if you are achieving the desired results.

Achievable

In order to determine how realistic and achievable your SEO goal is, you need to do some soul searching and face the hard facts.

Goals should be aggressive. We must make sure that we are setting realistic goals within the limits of your resources (money and manpower) as well as the sometimes harsh reality of search.

Search for your keyword and pay attention to the results. What do you notice? What are the results? What are the results? What are the opportunities? What could you improve?

It isn’t always easy to decide what is possible. It is possible to use third-party SEO tools and look at the typical metrics. This has its place. However, I suggest taking a qualitative and nuanced approach. Focus on your own SEO metrics and not those of competitors.

Your SEO strategy will be quality-driven rather than metrics-driven if you look at what is possible through the lens “what could we do better”.

It allows you to create more interesting goals, and it works better with what Google wants (to provide the best results).

The following are the key areas to be considered:

You may not always make the progress you hoped for. It is inevitable. Understanding why you’re not progressing is important.

The best SEO goals never come fully formed. They grow and develop as you work to achieve them and refine your approach.

R: Relevant

It’s easy to chase the wrong goals.

Two ways exist to ensure that a SEO goal is relevant.

It is important to approach this issue from a perspective of common sense to explain the theory, and to then support that with data when possible.

You can ensure that this goal is relevant by proving it from both directions. This will drive your marketing forward.

You should end with something along the lines:

Relevance is the final step. You are checking to make sure that you have used your resources wisely and that it is in line with the mission.

T: Time-bound

All goals must have a deadline to be achieved. You won’t know what to do if you don’t have a deadline.

SEO can be more difficult to implement than other marketing techniques. We may not see hard results such as sales or leads.

It is important to set time-bound SEO goals and include milestones that show progress. This will ensure you’re not chasing rainbows, but are on the right track.

It is difficult to determine how long SEO will take, so instead of striving for perfection do your best, and then review your progress.

Smarter SEO goals

Reviewing your progress and modifying your goals based on it is a great way to make sure SMART Goals work for SEO.

If you’re far from the top and only moving a few places forward every month, this may be too slow for you and not in line with your need to see results within three months.

If you want to use SMART SEO goals, make sure that you review your progress weekly or monthly.

SEO goals that are SMART

Many inquiries to my SEO agency will state simply that the client wants to be ranked #1 for a keyword (or a set of keywords). This is not an SMART goal.

The goal should be SMART and explain how it will achieve business and marketing goals.

This conversation with your agency or within your company is extremely powerful. It helps you to really understand what your goals are.

By putting your SEO efforts into the right direction, you can maximize your results by applying critical thinking.

The statement should be a concise summary of your SMART goals approach. You will often have separate statements for each of the goals the meta goal represents.

What is like?

Here is a breakdown of the costs:

This method allows you to perform a simple analysis of the situation and determine if certain elements in your digital marketing toolbox do not meet your needs.

You may not have the assets you need to run your SEO campaign or your website’s SEO isn’t quite right.

Setting SMART goals can help you to identify issues and improve your digital marketing and SEO in 2023.

SEO smarter, not harder

It is easy to rush into digital marketing and forget the basics.

SWOT analysis , 4 Ps and SMART Goals can help you to ensure that your SEO strategy is optimized.

The first post Search Engine Land : How to set SMART SEO Goals (with Examples).

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