Part of SEO analytics is setting the right goals. “More traffic” or “higher rankings” aren’t goals – they’re wishes.
What defines a valid SEO goal
An SEO goal will:
- If reached, help the organization;
- Be trackable;
- Be something that the SEO person/team can control.
Help the organization usually means improve profits, reduce costs or otherwise affect the bottom line. But not always. If you’re running for Congress, maybe getting 10 more signups to your newsletter is more than enough. That won’t earn you any more money, but it could get you some votes.
Be trackable means that somewhere, somehow, I need to be able to get numbers that will show progress or lack thereof. There’s a lot more to SEO and internet marketing than the stuff you can measure, but when it comes to goal-setting, you have to have something measurable.
Be something the SEO person/team can control is usually the sticking point. As an SEO, I cannot be held responsible for sales. I can be held responsible for the number of visitors from search, and the relevance of the terms that brought them to your site. But I don’t control your web site; your dev team probably won’t let me change the shopping cart to improve conversion rates; and server outages or even just a crappy product are factors beyond my control. I do control traffic from search, and what the concepts/phrases for which I optimize.
Examples of good and bad goals
10% increase in sales is a goal, but it’s not an SEO goal. Why? Because the SEO doesn’t control it. You might get your company a top ranking for the best phrase in your industry, but if your site has problems, sales won’t improve.
10% increase in relevant, non-branded search traffic, on the other hand, is a great goal. If you achieve it, it will help the business; you can track it using the referring keyword report; and it’s within the SEO’s control.
Obtain 50 more links from sites with a PageRank of 5 or more isn’t a valid goal. First, ‘obtaining’ a link and having that link actually affect your rankings are two different things. Second, PageRank is a godawful metric for any form of analytics. And third, does that mean I’ve failed if I get 10 links from sites with twice the authority? You get the picture.
Set goals cautiously
Always carefully set goals. If you over-promise, you’ll have a huge problem on your hands. If you set the wrong goals, you may end up succeeding but being branded a failure. On the other hand, if you set the right goals, you’ll be a hero, every time.