Setting clear goals is essential to measuring success in SEO. Goals become even more powerful when aligned with a well-defined strategy that informs the tactics used to achieve them.
This article explores setting goals for the people and teams driving your SEO efforts – whether in-house, at an agency or outsourced.
Regardless of the structure, these principles will help ensure your SEO team stays aligned with your broader business objectives and delivers the ROI you need.
Be open and collaborate
As a company leader and CEO, I often remind myself to provide context when making decisions. It’s important to clarify whether a decision is a firm directive, open to input or open to a more democratic process.
Be upfront about firm ROI numbers, requirements the SEO team must meet and other non-negotiables.
It’s great if you can be transparent about how and why certain goals were formulated. However, if they’re tied to sensitive information you can’t discuss, be sure to mention that as well.
Anything that can be collaborative in terms of the goal-setting process and that you open up to the team can be a culture builder and help you gain trust.
I’m not saying everything should be a democracy or that you don’t understand the broader business, marketing or other factors affecting the SEO team.
However, having been both an employee and now an owner/executive, I’ve seen both sides.
I know how frustrating it can be to have limited context, no chance for feedback, and be expected to do what feels like an impossible job.
Dig deeper: How to create SMART SEO goals (with examples)
Have a healthy understanding of SEO
Many who manage or oversee SEO don’t have direct experience with it – and that’s completely fine.
As someone who came up through the SEO and digital marketing ranks, I realize I’m in the minority.
There are pros and cons to having an SEO-first mindset versus approaching it from a broader business and marketing perspective, both offer valuable insights when managing SEO efforts.
No matter what your experience is, having a healthy understanding of SEO is important when setting goals for an SEO team.
Things go much more smoothly when there’s a shared level of understanding of what SEO is and isn’t for all. That includes knowing:
What resources go into it (more on that below).
What performance is reasonable.
How integrated it could/should be with other digital marketing channels.
What reporting and KPIs will be available.
How they integrate with broader marketing and business metrics.
In my experience, most challenges with SEO performance stem from misalignment, often caused by misunderstandings or a lack of clarity. This issue arises whether I’m dealing with clients, agency teams or even tight-knit in-house SEO teams.
I’ve seen situations where people use the same language and KPIs but have vastly different interpretations – sometimes even after working together for years.
If you or your team don’t have clear expectations, I recommend getting familiar with the basics before diving in.
This will help you avoid confusion with KPIs and acronyms and manage expectations later.
Dig deeper: SEO meta-skills: How research on goal setting can make you a better SEO
Leverage data
When setting goals, you may sometimes need to create numbers and targets from scratch, or you might receive performance goals dictated by various factors.
Regardless of these constraints, I’ve found that the most effective and meaningful goals for SEO teams come from thoroughly understanding and utilizing data.
Yes, SEO includes a lot of channel-specific research and data.
At a basic level, if you have siloed teams and are doing PPC, if that data isn’t being shared – that’s priority number one. Data from other digital channels, including UX and CRO, are also critical.
Getting a further level out, though, sales data is important if you have (want to have) any goals for your SEO team related to sales beyond just driving conversion goals/events.
I encourage you to share as much business data as possible with your SEO team. Involve them in the details to help them see how SEO connects to the overall business.
This will help them better understand their impact and show what data they can use to work more efficiently. By doing this, they can avoid redundant research and rely on existing sources of information.
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Ensure all necessary resources are available
The days when SEOs could handle 95% of the work that drives SEO performance are long gone.
When I started in the industry, I managed many tasks on my own, including updating page copy. In hindsight, I may not have needed that much control.