SEO Goals - Part Two

In the prior post, I discussed some of the reasons that you might be interested in search engine optimization, and SEO goals that you might have such as increasing the number of visitors to your site, increasing the number of page views, decreasing the bounce rate, increasing sales, or any other goals that you or your organization might have.

In part 2, I want to discuss the second part of goal setting, which is having Intelligent Search Engine Optimization Goals ('ISEOG').  Understanding what you want to do is only the first step, but if you are truly going to travel down the success path of SEO then you have to make sure that you have obtainable targets to reach.  For example, you can be the best rifle marksman in the world, but you will never hit anything if you cannot choose a target.  Search engines are the same way, and ISEOG (I say ice-og) is important.

The first thing about your goals is that they have to be specific.  It does you no good to say that you want to "increase visitors" without defining what you mean by that.  If you want to get one hundred visitors a day, then that has to be your target.  Otherwise, you increase by one (from zero even), and you have "success."  Set specific goals that you want to achieve.

Next, you have to make certain that your goals are measurable, and then you have to actually measure them.  For example, using the previous mentioned goal of hitting 100 visitors a day, you have to make sure that you are counting each day and tracking your progress.  If you say you want more visitors without defining it, it is hard to know if your efforts are paying off.  Also, once you see success, you will  be more motivated, so tracking is very important for this reason as well.

In line with both of the previous two recommendations, you have to make sure that your goals are obtainable.  It is great to want to achieve high traffic volumes, but if you make your goal one million visitors a day, and you are currently at ten, you will likely get frustrated at your failure to hit such an unobtainable goal.  Be smart in your goal setting, and make certain that they will push you, but are also possible.

The most important component of all three of this goal-setting is that you have to make it time relevant.  You want to make certain that not only do you create goals that are specific, measurable, and obtainable, but you also want to make certain that you put a time deadline on getting to where you want to be.  If you do not limit the amount of time that you have, or put some kind of pressure on yourself to achieve, then you will find it easy to not take care of business or to constantly re-evaluate where you stand.

Follow the tips outline in Part One and Part Two of this article on SEO Goals and you will be well on your way to success.