SMART Goals

SMART Goals are a tool we use to organize our objectives when it comes to an SEO strategy, specifically we lay out the guidelines for exactly what we are going to be doing when we start this project. SMART is an acronym made up of: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. If each of these points can be filled, then a digital marketing team will have a much greater understanding of what is expected of them.

Specific

Specificity is the plan for what you want to accomplish in your SEO endeavor. Of course everyone wants to be the top result that you search on Google, but the question is, for what searched terms? Setting a goal to be the top result is only achievable when you state what these keywords would be. For example, if you’re working for a luxury car rental business in Tampa, you would want to be one of the first results when someone searches “luxury cars Tampa” or “car rental Tampa”.

Measurable

“Measurable” refers to whether or not the goal set is measurable. This means that the goal must have some sort of way to tell how well you are doing in your task, specifically how high up you are on the search results and whether or not people are clicking on your website. Luckily, Google Analytics provides us with their services in accomplishing just that.

Attainable

As touched on in Specific, Attainable means that the goal can feasibly be accomplished, as you can’t be the top search result for everything. Choosing very specific keywords to attract someone who would definitely be interested in your business can help with this. Also, looking at your competition, will you be able to get your search result higher than theirs, and if so, how?

Relevant

The keywords we choose to focus on have to be as relevant as possible to our business, or our company will lose assets in the form of money they may be spending on their SEO program, and the time taken up by these SEO employees who could be working on more effective projects. The luxury car rental place we spoke on earlier should probably avoid focusing on keywords like less luxurious cars (i.e. “altima”) (there’s nothing wrong with Altimas).

Timely

The last portion of the SMART acronym is relevant when looking at the SEO project as a whole, as it is the timetable given to either your, or outsourced, digital marketing employees. Without a timetable, work might not progress as quickly as one would like, or it might progress too quickly and a shoddy job could be done in the process. Therefore, it is prudent for a manager to provide a timetable that is fair to the employees and the company alike- one that will make sure that the project is finished in a timely manner while also preventing the employees from rushing the project along.