Are You Setting Yourself SEO Goals?
SEO Tutorials | December 3rd, 2007 | 5 CommentsThis seo article has been written by Paul Barlow previously a software developer and now running Make Money Online blog where he shares tips on how to make a living online and some really great SEO tutorials. Paul is also individual seo consultant with many years of experience.
When I first started building websites all those years ago I had no interest in SEO, attracting visitors or anything other than the pure coding of web pages. Like everything in life though the internet changes and evolves and it has grown significantly since then. I’m fairly sure that if I were to start again from nothing today with the same approach I would disappear without trace. Creating search friendly websites (via SEO) is a must for everybody dabbling on the World Wide Web these days. The difference between a dabbler and a pro though is goals, if you want to take your website to the next level start thinking about setting yourself defined goals.
But What Goals Should I Set?
At the most abstract level this depends on what your website is intending to do, if it’s an e-commerce based website then the obvious goal is profit. If your website is only intended to be informational then unique visitors is a great goal to set. When I start a new website my first goal is always 10 unique visitors a day, then 50, then 100. I prefer small steps to keep that sense of achievement going, there is nothing like that feeling of wasting your time to kill a project. On the other hand meeting one target is a great incentive to drive onto the next, for your own sake it’s very important you keep goals realistic. A great example of this happened to me recently, I’d been managing an SEO campaign for a company, in the first year they’d spent about $5000 on their campaign (a very modest budget) for a $1.8 million dollar return. I was very happy with that, as I’m sure most companies would be. When it came to negotiating the second year they decided that they wanted to generate over $25 million from a similar budget. Talk about soul destroying and more than enough motivation for me to withdraw my services. The web is marketers dream, be ambitious with your goals but for your own mental well being keep it realistic!
Key notes for setting yourself SEO goals
- Decide on what you want to improve before you start your SEO work
- Remember to record the status quo
- Make any goals realistic, remember a sense of achievement brings motivation
- Although the internet may appear instant changes can take weeks to show. Only try to check your stats once a week.
Setting myself goals has allowed me to not only keep motivated during the days when I’d rather be doing something else but also to improve the profitability of my websites. Your goal this week is to set yourself some goals!
If you like to follow up with new seo articles and learn seo subscribe to my RSS feed to read this blog daily.
I agree you need to have a solid plan in order to bring your site ( whatever kind of site that may be) to the next level. But I think besides making your goal, you need to write down wich steps you will take to achieve that goal.
You can say your next goal is to earn $1000 within 3 months but if you don’t know which steps you need to take it will be a hard job.
Dave
Right now I have a blog that I’m building some good organic traffic for, Everytime I break 10, 20, 30 visitors per day, I increase my next goal.
Today I broke 50 organic visits for the first time… hopefully it keeps going.
It will keep growing, as long as you set your goals and you are working hard to achieve the goals (even tho the numbers are small) it will keep growing. The traffic will keep growing as the site gets aged and becomes more trusted among the search engines, but it does need your help for that it won’t just happen.
The SEO goals will also help you figure out which methods worked for your site, how you can repeat those same techniques and gain better search engine rankings and increase your organic traffic.
Good article, and a timely reminder for me.
[…] Planing everything in advance it sure does give you time to organize things, same rule applies in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paul Barlow guest blogged here on SEO Optimization are you setting yourself seo goals?. […]