Today, with the increasing focus on technical factors, content and trust-building signals, it’s much more challenging for SEOs to work independently.
Now, they often need to collaborate with various specialists or rely on teams to achieve optimal results.
If you have an in-house or outsourced team, you probably already have plenty of checks and balances for approvals and defined roles.
When you’re setting goals for your team, factor in resources that don’t have “SEO” in their title but are important for SEO success. That includes SEO budgets for software, research tools, AI subscriptions and other hard costs.
We wouldn’t expect a carpenter to arrive at a job site without basic tools like a hammer and tape measure. Similarly, we need to avoid unrealistic expectations when providing the right tools for SEOs.
SEO also requires collaboration with experts from other roles. While your team may have the skills to make technical changes, create content or handle approvals, it’s unrealistic to expect them to do everything on their own.
To ensure alignment with brand standards, compliance and company goals, they’ll need support from other resources.
Be sure to factor these resources into your budget and goals, including flexibility for unexpected needs as SEO evolves quickly.
Be clear about the objective
When setting goals and thinking about digital marketing channels – sometimes especially SEO – it can easily get lost in the details.
There are so many KPIs and things that we can influence and track. When overlaying them on the overall customer journey or any funnels, it can get detailed in a hurry.
There’s nothing wrong with having a dozen or more KPIs that matter. However, KPIs themselves don’t tell the story and don’t constitute a goal.
Know what your overall objective is.
The one that matters for you as a business owner, executive, manager or team lead. Work backward from your ultimate goals to get down into what SEO can influence.
Dig deeper: Does generative AI save time, money and resources in SEO?
You might end up with many KPIs, but clearly understanding how each one supports the objective – and ranking them by importance and connection to the ultimate goal – will keep you on the right track.
Include AI
We’re deep enough into the AI era. Hopefully, AI is a given in SEO work. Regardless of where your team is, set secondary goals around AI use.
There’s tension between the trade-offs of spending time testing and exploring new ways to incorporate AI versus doing things the predictable way that we always have.
By setting clear secondary goals focused on testing, gaining efficiencies and innovation, you can ensure your team is thinking about the future without losing focus on what’s currently working.
This helps you avoid chasing “shiny objects” while also staying open to new opportunities, striking a balance between progress and stability.
Bonus: Align with career growth goals
If you manage an in-house SEO team or agency staff, your focus goes beyond performance goals. Think about their growth and retention.
Aligning team goals with individual career growth is a big win.
Setting performance goals that also support professional development, valuable experience, mentorship or other growth opportunities can create a stronger, more motivated team.
The more your team members’ career goals align with your overall SEO objectives, the better the outcomes for both.
Dig deeper: The SEO career path: What it may look like and how to level up
Maximizing your SEO team’s performance through strategic goal-setting
SEO team goal setting could be as simple as telling the team what specific outcome they need to achieve in a given period. In a literal sense, you could communicate that and stop there.
As someone who has worked within, managed and been involved in many fashions with SEO teams, I can tell you that you can get more performance, develop a positive culture and accelerate growth by going deeper in your goal-setting approach and process.
I’m not asking you to make everything a democracy or make it group-think. If you’re in a position as a manager, executive or client, you have expectations and standards that need to be reached.
How deep you go in working with the team will remove friction, reduce misunderstandings and help everyone pull in the same direction toward your ultimate goals.
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