Every company is unique, so naturally their challenges are unique.

Every company is unique, so naturally their challenges are unique. Even a second SEO initiative within the same company will not be the same as the first initiative. Your initial SEO efforts will have changed things, creating new benchmarks, new expectations, and different objectives. Thus, each SEO project is a new endeavor.

One way to start a new project is to set SMART objectives. let's look at how to go about doing that in the world of SEO.

Specific objectives are important. It is easy to get caught up in the details of the plan and lose sight of the broader site objectives. You may think you want to rank # 1 for this phrase or that, but in reality what you want is more customers. Perhaps you don't even need more customers from organic search, but you want higher sales volume, so in fact having the same number of orders but with a higher average order value would meet your objectives better.

Measureable objectives are essential if one is to manage the performance in meeting them - you can't manage what you can't measure. SEO practitioners have to help their clients or organizations come to grips with analytics, and not just the analytic software, but the actual process of how to gather the data, how to sort it, and, most importantly, how to use it to make informed decisions.

Achievable objectives are ones that can be accomplished with the available resources. You could decide to put a man on Mars in coming years, for example, but it is just too big an undertaking to be feasible. You can be ambitious, but it is important to pick goals that can be met. You cannot possibly sell to more people than exist in your market. There are limits to markets, or developing new products for the existing market.

Aside from basic business achievability, there are also limits to what can rank at # 1 for a given search query. The search engine want the # 1 result to be the one that offers the most value for users, and unless you are close to having the website that offers the most value to users, it may be unreasonable to expect to get to that position, or to maintain it if you succeed in getting there.

Realistic objectives are about context and resources. It may be perfectly achievable to meet certain objective, but only with greater resources than may be presently available. Even a top ranking on the most competitive terms around is achievable for a relevant product, but it is a realistic goal only if the resources required for such an effort are available.

Time-Bound is the final part of a SMART objective. If there is no timeline, no project can ever fail, since it can't run out of time. SEO generally tends to take longer to implement and gather momentum than a paid advertising campaign. It is important that milestones and deadlines be set so that expectations can be managed and course correction made.

"We want to rank at # 1 for loans" is not a SMART objective. It does not identify the specific reason why the company thinks a # 1 ranking will help it. It does not have a timeline, so there is no way to fail. It doesn't state an engine on which to be # 1, so there's guaranteed argument if the intention is to rank well on both Google and Bing, but the result is only high rankings on Bing.

"We want to increase approved loan applications generated by natural search by 30% over six months" is a far better objective. There is a deadline, and the company can certainly gauge progress towards the specific objective. The company can look at its current market share and resources committed to see weather this is an achievable and realistic goal.

To bring this all together, your objectives, tactics, and strategies need to be aligned. They need to take into account your market, your business, and the competition. The best strategy is the one that gets you to your goals the fastest. Don't spread yourself too thin, Remember to ask toughest questions, such as:

Does your company need direct sales, traffic, branding, or some combination of these?

Are there specific influencers you are trying to reach with a message?

Is the organization/brand subject to potentially negative material that needs to be controlled/migrated?

Do you have products/services you sell, either directly over the web or through leads established online?

Getting the answers won't be easy, but it will be worth effort !