Getting SEO Results: How to Establish Digital Marketing Goals
Results. This is the most important word in any marketing strategy. With digital marketing, we can track and analyze data from website traffic to conversions to sales, truly measuring the results of each campaign. The results one business might see over another, however, can vary greatly depending on where they currently are, and where they want to be. A critical first step for any digital marketing strategy is to establish the goals of the campaign. Using the data you already have from Google Analytics, we can get an understanding of how many leads we need to acquire a client, and how much traffic we need to reach that number of leads. 
To keep things simple, let’s assume you currently have 500 visitors on your site each month. If you have a 1% conversion rate, you would be generating 5 new leads each month. With a 20% close rate, that would lead to 1 new client every month. If your business goal is to double your revenue, we need to double your traffic, double your conversion rate, or increase both. These are numbers we can measure every month, but identifying if the goals set are realistic is critical at the start of a new campaign.
Traffic
Can you double your organic traffic? The short answer is maybe. Using tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner, we can identify what search volume exists for your keywords and phrases. We need to make sure that there are enough people searching for these terms in the first place before we can know if we can acquire that traffic. If there is, we need to measure where your site currently appears in Google search results for these terms. If you are on Page 2 for the bulk of your terms, the chances of doubling your traffic are high – strengthening your site and increasing your visibility in Page 1 results will increase traffic dramatically. If your site is currently ranking highly for all key terms, however, there will not be as much room to grow. Expanding your keyword universe may be an option; otherwise, we will need to look at increasing your conversion rate.
Conversions
Like traffic, the short answer to if you can double your conversion rate is maybe. Most websites average a conversion rate of 1-2%. If your conversion rate is below this threshold, there is likely opportunity to improve it. Do you have Calls to Action on all your main pages? Are your phone numbers and contact forms easy to find? For e-commerce, is your ordering process clean and simple? Does a website visitor quickly understand what they would need to do to take the next step with you? These are all quick fixes that could dramatically improve conversion rates. Beyond these, developing content for your audience at all stages in the buying process is a great way to improve your conversion rate. Perhaps a website visitor is simply doing research, and not ready to talk – providing them with a resource or guide (such as this one on How Long Does SEO take?) can provide them the information they need while placing you as a credible expert in the field. Continuing to engage your audience with useful resources will increase their chances of contacting you when they are ready to talk.
Both
Most often, our clients need help increasing both website traffic and conversion rates. Maximizing these two areas improves our chance of success with your campaign. We don’t necessarily need to double both in order to double your revenue. With the example above, if we increased traffic by 25% to 750, we could generate the leads we need by improving the conversion rate from 1% to 1.6%. This is most likely the best option over trying to double either of these numbers individually. Each business and industry is unique. Understanding your current traffic, conversions, and close rates is the first step in setting goals for your campaign and getting a better understanding of what results you can expect. Feel free to contact us for help establishing these goals.