Vague SEO goals don’t get results.
I know this firsthand. I used to make hollow promises about “improving visibility” and “boosting rankings.”
That all changed when I discovered the power of specific goals. By setting clear targets with firm deadlines, my agency transformed our clients’ campaigns.
Why did it work so well?
Because everyone—from our team to the client—knew exactly what success looked like and how to achieve it.
In this guide, I’ll teach you how to set SMART SEO goals using a real case study. Plus, you’ll learn six common SEO goals and how to achieve them.
Let’s start with why goals matter in SEO.
Why SEO Goals Are Important
Yes, you can run an SEO campaign without setting goals, but it likely won’t be as effective. Setting goals gives you and your team direction and ensures accountability.
Here’s why goals are important:
- Align efforts: Goals keep teams working toward the same outcomes, from content creation to technical SEO
- Measure success: Shows tangible progress to clients, stakeholders, or your own team
- Prioritize resources: Lets you focus limited resources on tasks with the highest ROI
- Adapt to change: Quickly pivot when algorithms or market conditions shift
How to Set SEO Goals and Objectives
Every solid SEO goal starts with knowing your benchmarks—aka your current performance numbers.
For example, if you currently get 10,000 organic visitors per month, that’s your starting point.
Benchmarks are crucial because they tell you where you’re at and help you set realistic targets for growth. So, your goal might be to hit 20,000 organic visitors.
Next, set your objectives, which are the actions or steps you’ll take to achieve your goal. Like creating more blog posts and improving existing content to get more organic visitors.
From there, choose which key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll track to measure success.
Focus on those that directly impact your business, like organic traffic quality, conversion rates, qualified leads, and revenue growth.
But setting basic goals is just the start. To make them truly effective, you need a framework that ensures they’re achievable and aligned with your business objectives.
That’s where SMART goals come in.
Applying the SMART Framework to Your SEO Goals
SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals provide a clear direction for your SEO strategy and help you achieve measurable wins.
Let’s break down each element using a real SEO smart goal example we’ll refine along the way.
Specific
The ‘S’ in SMART stands for specific. This means you need to get clear on what you truly want to achieve.
For example, instead of broad targets like “increase traffic,” you’d define:
- The type of traffic you want (organic, referral, direct)
- The pages you’re targeting (blog, product pages, entire site)
- How you’ll achieve it (content optimization, link building, technical fixes)
Here’s a real SMART goal we set for our client, SoulSalt, during a marketing campaign. We took their base goal of “increasing organic traffic” and explained where and how we’ll achieve it.
Here’s what it looked like:
This preciseness ensured our efforts were directed towards specific traffic growth, not just general visibility.
Further reading: 7 Best Website Traffic Analysis Tools
Measurable
The ‘M’ in SMART means your goal should be measurable. So, you’ll want to add specific measurements or metrics to your initial goal.
Why?
Because without clear metrics, you can’t track progress or prove success.
In many cases, you’ll want to answer “how much” or “how many” when making your goal measurable.
So, we decided to set a goal of increasing blog traffic by 60%.
Achievable
The ‘A’ in SMART means setting achievable targets based on your resources and past performance to set attainable benchmarks.
Ask yourself:
- What growth rate have you achieved before?
- What resources and time do you have?
- Are your tactics proven to work?
For example, we initially planned to grow SoulSalt’s traffic by 60% but realized our goal was a little lofty. We reduced it to 50%, which was still ambitious but more realistic.
So, our goal looked like this:
To achieve this goal for our client, we broke it down into clear objectives:
- Conduct a comprehensive content audit
- Optimize existing pages for high-impact keywords
- Implement an internal linking strategy
- Create and execute a content calendar focused on high-value topics
By breaking our ambitious goal into these manageable steps, we made the 50% growth target achievable. Each milestone built on the previous one, making our dramatic growth possible, measurable, and sustainable.
Relevant
The ‘R’ in SMART means ensuring your SEO goals are relevant and align with broader business objectives.
Ask yourself:
- Does this goal support your overall business strategy?
- Why does this matter right now?
- Will this drive meaningful business results?
For example, if your company is launching a new product, your goal might be to drive traffic to related landing pages or increase awareness in key markets. This ensures your SEO efforts contribute to high-priority outcomes and are aligned with the business’s other priorities.
For SoulSalt, increasing traffic wasn’t just about numbers—it supported their core business goals of building authority and generating revenue.
By adding clear business outcomes (brand authority and sales) to the goal, we tied SEO directly to company growth.
Now, our goal looked like this:
Time-Bound
The ‘T’ in SMART means setting time-bound deadlines to create urgency and accountability.
Ask yourself:
- When will you achieve this goal?
- What’s your timeline for each milestone?
- How often will you measure progress?
Deadlines keep your team focused. Set a clear timeline for when you want to meet the goal, such as “increase email subscribers by 25% by the end of Q2.”
A time-bound goal provides a sense of accountability and prevents tasks from dragging on.
When we started working with the SoulSalt team, we set out to achieve their goal over 18 months, with key milestones for improvements like backlink growth and content development. This time frame allowed us to manage their strategy effectively.
So, our final goal looked like this:
By adding a specific timeframe, we created a clear finish line that helped us plan our tactics accordingly.
The result?
A 22K+% increase in organic traffic.
And a 10x increase in backlinks, helping SoulSalt meet its business goals of more authority and revenue.
Now, let’s look at a few more examples of high-impact SEO goals.
6 Examples of SEO Goals and How to Achieve Them
Whether you’re trying to increase leads, sales, or brand authority, these six goals will help you create a measurable path to success.
1. Improve Bounce and Engagement Rates
Why it matters: A high bounce rate and low engagement rate often signal irrelevant content, poor user experience, or slow load times, which can harm rankings and conversions.
Google Analytics (GA) measures engagement in two ways:
- “Engaged sessions,” which is when visitors stay longer than 10 seconds, view at least two pages or screens, or complete an action (like clicking a button or filling out a form)
- “Bounce rate,” which is when visitors leave quickly without doing any of these things
A high bounce and low engagement rate tell you that visitors aren’t finding value in your content.
So, if your goal is to improve these metrics, start by setting your SEO benchmarks.
First, check your current bounce rate in GA by going to “Acquisitions” > “User Acquisitions.”
Next, view your engagement rate in the same report.
Pro tip: Don’t see these metrics in your GA report? Navigate to the report and follow these steps: “Customize report” (the pencil icon) > “Metrics” > “Add metrics” > “Bounce rate” > “Engagement rate” > “Apply” > “Save.”
Say your SEO goal is to reduce bounce rate and increase engagement rate by 15% in six months.
You’d focus on assessing user interactions on your site and creating high-quality content.
You could do this by:
- Using heatmaps to identify where users drop off and adjust page designs
- Improving your mobile site experience
- Ensuring your content matches the search intent behind your target keywords
2. Boost Organic Click-Through Rates (CTR)
Why it matters: Higher CTRs drive more traffic without needing additional rankings.
Every search engine results page (SERP) impression is an opportunity to attract qualified visitors to your site. By focusing on CTR optimization as your goal, you can see impressive jumps in organic traffic quickly.
First, you’ll need to set your benchmark.
To view your average click-through rate for organic search traffic, go to “Performance” > “Search Results” in Google Search Console.
Your average CTR is helpful to know, but if you want to make your goal SMART, you should identify pages with the lowest CTR, so you know which ones to improve first.
Here’s how:
Check that “Clicks,” “Impressions,” and “Average CTR” are selected at the top of the report.
Then, scroll down to the report and select “Pages.”
Next, click the filter icon and select “CTR.”
Now, change the dropdown on the left to “Smaller than,” and enter a percentage under where it says “Filter by CTR,” such as “5%.”
This will filter the report so you only see pages with a CTR of 5% or less, so you know what to focus on to achieve your goal.
You’ll want to use a mix of the following tactics and set milestones for each one:
- Optimize meta titles and descriptions to stand out in the SERPs
- Compare your headlines to your competitors. If their posts use listicles (e.g., “5 Ways to Improve SEO”), update yours to follow a similar structure while adding a unique spin.
- Add schema markup to enhance visibility in the SERPs—this includes FAQ, article, review, local business, and more
After making improvements, check back in two to four weeks to see if your CTR has improved.
3. Earn Quality Backlinks
Why it matters: Backlinks signal trustworthiness and relevance to search engines, making them critical for improving your domain’s strength and rankings.
Setting concrete link-building goals helps you focus on acquiring the kind of links that drive real business value. Remember, quality beats quantity. One authoritative link is worth more than dozens of low-quality ones.
Set your backlink benchmark using a tool like Semrush’s Backlink Analytics.
Note: A free Semrush account gives you 10 searches in this tool per day. Or you can use this link to access a 14-day trial on a Semrush Pro subscription.
It’ll tell you how many backlinks and referring domains you currently have, along with your site’s Authority Score and overall Toxicity Score.
Then, break down how you’ll achieve your goal.
This will likely include a mix of the following:
- Creating link-worthy assets like infographics, interactive tools, and thought leadership content
- Becoming an expert resources for bloggers and journalists
- Pitching guest posts to high-authority websites in your niche
- Analyzing competitors’ backlink profiles using tools like Semrush to identify high-impact opportunities
Use Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool to track your progress, assess the quality of acquired links, and monitor any unusual spikes or drops in your backlink profile.
4. Increase Website Authority
Why it matters: Website authority measures how trustworthy and authoritative your site appears to search engines. A high rating can make ranking for competitive keywords significantly easier.
Setting authority goals helps you systematically build trust with both users and search engines. This goal goes hand in hand with the goal of getting more backlinks.
Remember that different SEO tools calculate website authority differently and may call it by different names, so your score may vary between platforms like Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush.
To accurately track progress, measure your site’s authority with the same tool to ensure consistency and avoid misinterpreting data.
For example, Backlink Analytics tool provides an Authority Score when you analyze your domain.
It’ll also tell you if your score has trended up or down in the last 12 months, helping you easily measure progress.
For example, if your site currently has 100 referring domains with an average Authority Score of 35, you might set a goal to “Acquire 25 new referring domains with Authority Scores above 40 in the next quarter.”
This specific target helps you focus on quality over quantity while maintaining a realistic timeline.
Here are proven tactics that can help you reach your link-building goals:
- Publish high-quality, research-backed content that attracts shares and links
- Engage in digital PR efforts, like pitching journalists and industry blogs
- Focus on audience engagement—social shares and comments can enhance perceived authority
5. Improve Website PageSpeed
Why it matters: Faster websites provide better user experiences and benefit your rankings. Even a one-second delay in page load time can result in fewer page views and a drop in traffic or conversions.
Technical performance forms the foundation of great user experience, so this SEO goal is crucial to your site’s success.
To set your benchmarks, use Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool provides detailed recommendations based on Core Web Vitals metrics.
Enter your website’s URL, click “Analyze,” and the tool will tell you how quickly your page loads, how fast it becomes interactive, and how stable elements remain while loading.
Then, focus on making technical SEO improvements to improve your site’s speed.
This includes:
- Compressing images using a tool like TinyPNG
- Leveraging browser caching and content delivery networks (CDNs)
- Minimizing unused JavaScript and CSS files
6. Boost Conversion Rates
Why it matters: Traffic without conversions is just vanity—real success is about turning visitors into customers.
Setting specific conversion goals helps you focus on turning increased visibility into tangible business results.
Start by establishing your current conversion benchmarks in GA4.
Navigate to “Reports” > “Engagement” > “Conversions” to view your site’s performance across different conversion types.
From there, set specific goals that align with your business objectives.
For instance: “Increase the organic search conversion rate for product demo requests from 1.2% to 2% within the next quarter through landing page optimization.”
This type of goal works well because it’s specific, measurable, and includes both a timeline and a method for achievement.
Key actions that can help you achieve conversion goals include:
- Adding compelling CTAs that encourage users to take action
- Simplifying forms to reduce friction and increase completion rates
- A/B testing landing pages to see what resonates with visitors
Ready to Master Your SEO Goals?
Don’t just hope for success.
Follow the SMART framework and focus on valuable KPIs like backlinks and conversion rates to deliver measurable results.
Want more guidance? Join Traffic Think Tank Academy, where industry experts share proven tactics for achieving SEO excellence. Stop wasting time and start hitting your goals today.