Can you set objectives for an SEO campaign?
-
We have been working with a client for 3 months and they've been happy with the progress we've made on their SEO and the resulting increase in rankings, traffic etc.
They are renewing their contract for another 6 months but this time want to set some objectives and want us to suggest what those objectives are. Is it possible to set objectives when a great deal of the results can be out of our hands, eg, how Google works, level of interest in the client's products in the target market, whether they take on board our recommendations for changing their website content to get better seo results etc? What would other people be happy being set as their objectives for a campaign?
-
Hi Maureen,
I always get this upon setup of a new client. I think the main thing is to manage their expectations because many people outside of the digital industry are either unaware of the potential of SEO or think it can do more than it can! Find out what marketing objectives they have and then see where SEO can help.
For example, if they are aiming to increase brand awareness (which most companies want) then look at increasing the number of keywords they rank for. You can set traffic targets if they have a history you can compare with, look at their rankings they had when they reached those targets, see where you think you will be able to get them and base your objectives on that.
Totally agree with Jeremy on the "under sell, over achieve" thought though.
-
Hi Maureen.
I struggle with this all the time. Goals and objectives are a must and I'm always too eager and put things a bit out of reach. Being first in serp is always the goal but so long as you're making progress I feel that's what's important, and ultimately what feels most fulfilling.
From my experience developing a baseline is the first step. Every term has it's own challenges and difficulty. Knowing how difficult and how valuable the increases will be to your business is really a cornerstone of making that a quality objective.
I know this is just blather without action points of how to do it but I hope it helps none the less.
-
Hi Maureen,
I think you definitely should under promise and over deliver.
What do you feel confident creating an objective around?
What are the keyword difficulties? Can you target some easier high volume long tails keywords?
Are you making use of the long tail key words?
You know the client, you know the market they are operating in, and you have the tools.
I would only make objectives you are comfortable with achieving, smart goals are always good goals
Specific
Measurable
Acheivable
Realistic
Time based
-
Hi Jeremy, that's a good point - I guess what I mean is how specific should seo objectives be? We could set an objective of ranking number 1 for a particular search term, or ranking higher than the main competitor etc, but is it sensible to be that specific when such a lot is out of our hands and rankings change daily? I don't want to set up objectives that are unrealistic to achieve and set ourselves up for failure. Is it reasonable to set increased traffic as an objective when so much depends on the client's other marketing activities which may or may not be successful at driving visitors to their website?
-
Hi Maureen,
I think every good campaign must have goals, objectives etc.
What those goals are should be worked out with the client, because they have to be able to commit as much as anyone here.
Content is king and with SEOMOZ you have all the tools and reporting to show exactly what must be done. I recommend looking at their competitors and reverse engineering some goals from their.
hope that helps
Jeremy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can a page rank for keywords that it does not have on it?
I have a client that is ranking in the top 10 for several keywords on their homepage. Their site has no purposeful SEO in it, there is barely any text on the homepage at all and none of the text are the keywords it is ranking for.
On-Page Optimization | | woodchuckarts2 -
Can I use nofollow to limit the number of links on a page?
My website is an ecommerce and we have on homepage about 470 links ! 1. We have a top bar with my account, login, faq, home, contact us and link to a content page. 2 . Then we have multistore selection 3. Then we have the departament menu, with several parants + child category links 4. Then we have a banner 5. Then we have a list of the recently sold and new products. 6. then we have an image grid with the most important cms/content pages (like faq, about us, etc) 7. then we have footer, with all info pages, contact us, about us, my account etc. There are some links that are repeted 2, 3 times. For a user it is easier to find the informations but I'm not sure how search bots (google) deal with that. So I was thinking on how can I have around 150 links to be followed. To remove the links from the page is not possible. What about to add nofollow to repeted links and some child category, as the spider will crawl the father and will access child on the next page? Is this a good strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | qgairsoft0 -
Cross-linking for mobile SEO
Hi everyone! I am having a hard time finding information about weather to/how to apply internal seo linking to mobile versions of sites. We decided to go with dynamic serving with user agent detection. Our desktop site has a quite heavy seo-internal-cross-linking. As I understand, for mobile we should simplify and focus on usability, so get rid of unnecessary links. But I have a doubt about weather removing this part of the web structure can hurt our SEO. Do Google mobile bots look at and rank mobile versions of pages from scratch or do they use what they know about the site and the site's structure from its desktop version?
On-Page Optimization | | ofertia0 -
Is it possible that not having cookie warning message penalizes our SEO?
Hi! I'm wondering if not having a cookie warning message in a web may be a reason for google algorithm to penalize SEO. (we're talking about a european website) Does anybody know it it is so? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Canexel0 -
HTML Site SEO (NO CMS)
I have got a client site, which is dated (2007) and has not been shifted to any recognised CMS yet. It is HTML based. Is it possible to SEO on such a site? Is it even worth it? If it is possible to do SEO on this, any suggestions will be highly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | ArthurRadtke3 -
Re-naming pages without affecting SEO
Due to the management software used for a lot of our websites, the URLs for specific pages appears as: brand.com/page/pagename/number I want to add slug URLs so that they appear as: brand.com/pagename First of all, do you think this is an effective use of my time and will it significantly benefit SEO in the long run. Secondly, these pages have developed a decent PA over time and I don't want to lose that. Will adding 301s for all the renamed pages be enough to not have a negative effect?
On-Page Optimization | | maxweb1 -
What are the best eCommerce sites from an SEO perspective?
We're working hard on improving our website right now, and would love to get the community's examples of the best eCommerce sites out there, from an SEO and a general customer-centric design perspective...
On-Page Optimization | | reddogmusic0 -
SEO Change/Version Control
Hi. Can anyone suggest apps that might be applied for SEO change/version control? I've tried using Excel and Word in the past but both fall short when dealing with multiple client sites. Nothing suitable pops up so far. Specifically I want to be able to log any on-page changes that might impact SEO for historical analysis and possible roll-back (manual) eg change date, page title, headings, url, anchor text, alt image txt, body copy etc. The ability to have one view that can be filtered in various ways including by client and by url would be ideal. Maybe this is something SEOmoz is considering for Pro campaign management? Surely there's demand... Thanks Andy
On-Page Optimization | | Bluesnapper0