Scoring SEO Efforts Realistically - Define Search, And Search Objectives
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The very first thing that you need to do is set up scoring objectives. That starts with being sure about what kind of search marketing you are doing. Is it paid search or organic search? Paid search allows you to base your campaign on your advertising income. You get instant results based on your bidding for keywords.
With paid search, conversion of hits can be counted and traffic can be enumerated, since it is a pay-per-click version. Lead conversion in relation to traffic is easily viewed and really, this is the easiest form of search marketing to score. You bid on keywords and see if the traffic comes in. If it doesn't, you change your keywords. This is a simplistic view of it, but it's basically what happens.
This write up is going to concentrate on natural search methods. But as a quick suggestion: if you want your scoring easy, stick with paid search. It's easy to know exactly in what direction your SEO campaign is going and there are visual aids and graphs that make it easy to communicate with your team.
But when it comes to natural search marketing, targets have to be strictly defined and (hopefully) adhered to. The first thing to be defined are the keywords for which you will optimize, since only a few keywords can be optimized in an organic SEO campaign. After deciding what keywords will compete for you, set time and traffic targets.
According to a white paper by Apogee here on SEO Chat, "SEO efforts must be tied to the specific goals of the website. If a web site's purpose is to generate leads, those leads must be able to be tied back to the specific key phrase and search engine. Similarly, if a web site's purpose is to generate sales directly, the sales (and their value) must be able to be tied back to the organic listing from which they came." Apogee is simply saying that SEO targets must be directly related to the website's marketing targets.
Defining Targets
A definite time, a definite traffic density, and a specific action taken by a specific number should all be part of the defined target. For example, an e-commerce site will not just need traffic; the conversion rates determine the success of such sites. No matter how much traffic an e-commerce site gets, if there are no sales, the site will fail. The targets (predefined) will have to tie in with the specifics of the website's marketing plan.
Next: Getting Hits >>
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