SEO's are beginning to set goals for their 2018
campaigns. SMART goals stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic
and timelined. These goals are both aggressive and realistic.
Specific are the objectives critical to the
marketing campaign. These are the website or conversion goals necessary to
achieve more visits, exposure, sales and leads. The goals must be clear, and
applicable to the objectives of the business.
Measurable are the SEO goals that can be measured
to show improvement. This will lead to an upswing in the business results.
There are numerous examples of what can be measured including organic traffic,
conversions, SEO metrics and citation flow.
Achievable is incredibly important regarding
planning. The goals should be high, but not unattainable. The keywords must be
able to be targeted, and the resources necessary to reach the goals must be
available. SMART goals is the process used to achieve goals with the resources
available.
Realistic is to ensure the goals set are completely
understood. The goals must be achievable, and the resources available to help
ensure success. The difference between realistic and achievable is the length
of time required for the marketing tactic. Relevance is important as well
because increased traffic and rankings are fairly irrelevant if the traffic is
still low.
Timelined is important for SEO goals because this
usually takes longer than most types of marketing online. Traffic and
visibility can be delivered instantly by PPC. If there is no timeline for a
goal, it is impossible for the goal to fail. Realism must be a factor in what
is possible in a specific period of time.
It can be difficult to figure out how much time
and money SEO will cost. This must be done or timelines cannot be estimated,
and the goal will be unable to be tracked with KPI's.
Most of the inquiries into SEO simply want to be
ranked in the number one position for specific keywords. This does not qualify
as a SMART goal because it does not explain what it will take to help the
business reach their objectives in marketing.
There is no reason SMART goals have to be
complicated. The goal can be increasing organic search leads by fifty percent
within twelve months, or taking the target keywords from one place and moving
them to another. The specific would be increasing the number of organic search
leads by fifty percent. The measurable is measuring these leads by using
rankings, results and organic traffic. Achievable is a factor because this goal
can be completed. Realistic comes into play with the improvement to the current
lead source. The timeline is a deadline of twelve months.
This is the approach that enables a business to
use a simple analysis to figure out if the digital marketing is doing the job
it is supposed to. Sometime SEO campaigns do not have the content assets
necessary, or the website has not been properly dialed in. Setting SMART goals
can fix issues by clarifying the digital marketing, SEO, and identifying any
problems. This can enable improvements in 2018 and farther into the future.
So many business are caught in the digital rush,
and have forgotten the importance of the foundation. SMART goals, tools, and
SEO strategies are necessary for good results. The idea is not to work even
harder, but to work smarter.
