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.
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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