No, this isn’t suddenly turning into a self-help blog, but while this post does apply fairly well to life in general, setting goals also applies very well to marketing and optimizing your website. See, when you have a set goal, accomplishing that goal makes you stream towards your next, bigger, better goal. I’ll give you a personal example. If you’ve noticed, I’ve slowly been making changes throughout the site to optimize it for some better SERP rankings and help make navigating throughout the site easier. I keep track of everything using the very same SEO Panel I make public in the Online Tools & Resources section, combined with Google Analytics which has some great tools for settings and reporting on goals.
As I watched my rankings increase – for example for nyc webmaster resources, or free webmaster resources – it motivated me to set bigger goals for my SEO work. By the way, Rapid Purple is currently ranked on the first page for both nyc webmaster resources, and free webmaster resources. Moving on as I watched more and more people convert from the homepage to other sections of the site – I set higher conversion goals to see what else I could do to help control the flow of traffic. See I’m big on the saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” – but that should never stand in the way of progress. I guess what I mean to say is that you shouldn’t just make changes without a goal. Don’t change your websites layout or design because you’re bored with it and want something to do – do it with a goal in mind. Do it because you think a different layout will help your rankings, or help organize the website and make it easier to navigate.
Set a goal, aim to achieve it. When you do, re-evaluate. Be patient. You want to focus on long term rankings, not quick bursts in SERP rankings that diminish within a month. Furthermore be realistic with your goals. You don’t want to set goals that you know aren’t possible to reach without some sheer luck. You’re not going to suddenly rank #1 in 1 week’s time. However – you can increase your SERP ranking several positions within several weeks. This growth will motivate you to do more, to continue knocking out those goals. You’d be surprised just how much of your marketing and SEO campaign you can do on your own with the right motivation and dedication.