As we head into the tail end of the year, it’s a good time to take stock, review and reset your SEO goals for the year ahead, or if you’re embarking on search engine optimisation for the first time, setting some realistic SEO goals to target in 2022.
If you want to succeed online, SEO is a no brainer. It ensures your website is seen by those who are actively searching for what you’re offering. What many Perth businesses struggle with, is investing in the time required to make it happen.
Nailing a set of specific and actionable SEO goals is essential to executing a strong SEO strategy. It’ll help guide your intent with every piece of content you create and give you something to measure against to evaluate your performance.
SEO is a marathon,
not a sprint
Whilst it would be nice, SEO doesn’t lend itself to instant gratification. A smart SEO strategy takes time to implement, and real progress (measured by improved rankings and organic traffic) happens over time. Everyone wants to rank number one on Google, but you need to be realistic in your goals and not shoot for the stars right away. Depending on your industry, some keywords are more competitive than others, making it hard to rank well on SERPs (search engine results pages).
What are SEO goals?
SEO goals are specific and measurable objectives that you aim to achieve over a period of time. Each goal should directly relate to the reason why you do SEO i.e. reach more web users through organic search and thus, convert them into customers.
Why are SEO goals important?
SEO goals bring focus and clarity to your strategy with clear targets to aim for. SEO helps businesses be more visible to a proactive audience. As we all know, the higher your rank in Google, the more eyeballs you’re likely to attract, which can then lead to more click throughs, high quality traffic, enhanced brand presence and conversions.
Let’s put that into perspective. It’s estimated that 30% of clicks go to the website in position one on the SERPs. A website holding position 3 only receives 12%, and the dramatic drop continues by the time you hit the bottom of page 1 where you’re likely to only attract around 2% of traffic. Having a strong SEO strategy is key to ranking first on SERPs.
SEO goals to target
Choose goals that are specific, realistic and quantifiable. “Get more traffic” is too vague. What are you going to do to make that happen? How are you going to get there. Each SEO goal you set should be specific and measurable with actionable steps to help you get there. Being too vague isn’t going to help you in the long run. You should also consider whether your goals are realistic and achievable.
Take a look at your historical data
If you have access to past data, don’t just sit on it – use it to help guide your goal setting. If you have no data to look back on that’s okay too, as you start to collect data you’ll be able to use this to help set and refine your future goals.
The following 5 categories are a good base to start your SEO goals off on:
1. Site traffic
For example, you may want to increase your total unique visits to your website by 40% year on year.
2. Brand awareness
A goal here could be to achieve a first-page ranking for a specific keyword within the next financial year.
3. User or customer engagement
Look at how you can keep users engaged with your site. Your goal may be to reduce your bounce rate or increase the average session duration on a particular page you’re targeting.
4. Lead generation
How many leads do you want to generate from organic traffic in the next 6-12 months? Aiming for an increase of approx. 5% each quarter is a realistic and measurable place to start.
5. Revenue
What is your organic traffic sales target for the year?
What type of metrics should I consider?
We’ve already mentioned a few, but here are some of the common metrics you can use to measure your success
SEO Perth: Visibility metrics
Visibility is about getting your website in front of as many screens as possible. Metrics you could consider are the number of impressions or, the big one – organic ranking positions.
SEO Perth: Traffic metrics
Traffic in its simplest form relates to how many users visit your site. Metrics to think about including are:
- Traffic sources
- Organic traffic
- Referral traffic
- Direct traffic
- Click-through rate (CTR)
SEO Perth: Engagement metrics
After users have clicked through to your site, how do they interact with you? Engagement metrics may include things such as:
- Page views
- Time spent on page
- Session duration
- Bounce rate
- Pages per session
You can measure these through the backend of your website (most websites provide these statistics).
SEO Perth: conversion and revenue metrics
How will you measure your conversions – or in other words the actions a visitor takes to convert them into a customer. The most common conversions are:
- Sales
- Leads
- Email signups or subscription
- Competition entries
- Registration
- Phone call
SEO Perth: Technical metrics
These are the things that happen behind the scene like:
- Page load speed
- Pages indexed
- Crawl errors
Be realistic but also don’t be afraid to aim high
While it’s smart to go for more conservative and attainable results, it doesn’t hurt to take a swing too. There’s nothing wrong with trying to target a couple of highly competitive keywords. You won’t rank straight away but you’ll definitely be in a better position in a year or so, and your site will be more authoritative.
Always review your SEO goals
Search algorithms are always changing and so should your goals. Quarterly is a good idea and if you have an SEO team in Perth behind you, they can help keep an eye on your targets each month to see if you’re on track to hitting your goals.
Search engine optimisation Perth
If you want your business to be more visible, drive traffic to your site and convert, then you need a solid SEO plan. If this sounds like you, get in touch with our specialist SEO Perth team today. We’re just a tap, click or call away.
