If you know your business website needs SEO, but aren’t sure exactly how it can work for you, you’re not alone. Many people think of SEO as simply “trying to be #1 on Google” but there’s more to it. Good SEO can provide many other benefits and possibilities for your brand—if you know what you’re aiming for.
How you approach SEO will depend on what you intend to get out of it. In other words, defining your goals for SEO is a critical first step in your digital marketing campaign. Some of the most common business objectives for SEO are:
- Increasing organic traffic to your website
- Boosting eCommerce sales
- Building brand authority and raising awareness
- Generating leads directly from your website (such as when someone fills out a contact form or books a call with you)
- Scoring more backlinks to increase domain authority
When Setting Actionable Goals for SEO, Be Specific
The above list is a great starting place, but you can go further. To make your objectives actionable (and measurable), we encourage you to go think about your SEO goals in more specific terms:
- Instead of “increase organic traffic” – use “increase organic traffic X%”
- Boosting eCommerce sales – by how much?
- When it comes to increasing brand authority, which industry terms (ie keywords) are most important to your audience?
- If you want more leads or conversions – how many do you want per month?
- Who do you want backlinks from, and why? What’s your target score for domain authority?
If you read the above and your eyes started to glaze over, don’t worry. An SEO consultant can help you refine your goals by looking at your competitive landscape, your customer needs, and your website performance.
The deeper you can drill down your goals, the more intentional you can be with achieving them – not to mention the amount of time, money, and effort you’ll end up saving.
Specific goals mean each tactic you use can be measured against the target. Every piece of content can be created with a specific intention in mind. And every dollar you spend goes towards achieving exactly the results you’re after.
At Carolina SEO, we help clients develop a targeted SEO plan by looking at where you are now versus where you want to be.
Still have questions about planning an effective SEO strategy? Check out this post or reach out to us!
