SEO goals and performance evaluation
Continuing my research on SEO and trying to optimize my own site I have some more questions and thoughts.
Goals:
- Is setting goals for SEO realistic? (Meaning is it realistic to set a goal of being at the top of search results when there are so many independent variables and so little control on those variables.)
- What time frame should be used for achieving visible results?
- How does one determine if they’ve achieved these goals for their site?
Performance evaluation of SEO service providers:
- What metrics should be used for evaluating the SEO service provided?
- How does one determine what value was added by the service provider?
- What are you paying for and how much?
These are mostly open ended questions for discussion. Any thoughts are welcome and helpful. Also, if anyone has some good recommendations for more SEO research, book or podcasts, those would be appreciated.
Reid
www.weddingprosource.com
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Answers
If you want to have goals, I prefer to have goals around the actual leads that come from a particular keyword. They should rise with more traffic and higher SERP position, but are more closely aligned with real success. Of course this takes into account SEO and LPO.
Using the actual position is not a good metric for several reasons.
- Position is geographically dependent
- Position varies as google evaluates your site.
If you really want to use position, it's better to view this data in google webmaster tools where you get an average position and the click through rate for each keyword/position.
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