What is your “magic number” of success? How many orders shipped, new clients signed or dollars earned would it take you make you jump for joy in your office? Success, even when applied to our businesses, is a very personal definition. For instance, having a sufficient (and steady) workload to justify hiring a new employee might be how you judge your success. Or maybe you are looking to cross the million dollars in revenue mark. Success might even come with a better work-life balance. Just like our definitions of business success vary, so do our definitions of SEO success. However you define SEO success, here are three things to keep in mind.
Don’t be so afraid of negative results.
A slight dip in visitors from day to day (or even month to month) isn’t the end of your website. As a site owner, I know how easy it is to get lost in the overwhelming pages of data available and see doom in every number. Relax. It’s more important to take a step back and look at the big picture. What overall trends are you seeing? These are a much better indication of your SEO success. Sure, there may be outliers that you can’t easily explain, but one blip shouldn’t derail your entire SEO campaign.
“It should be more.” – compared to what?
I’ve had several full service SEO or SEO consulting clients in the past look at the results of their SEO campaign and say “it should be more.” More what, exactly? More visitors? A better conversion rate? More qualified leads? A better rank in the search engines? Too often site owners don’t have a clear idea of the goals they are trying to accomplish, which means they can’t recognize a successful SEO campaign when it happens. They only see what isn’t happening, not all the great results that are. Don’t let yourself or your SEO get so focused on a missing element that you can’t see the positive growth. SEO success doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen all at once. Like a complicated puzzle, a strong SEO campaign will come together with time.
Be realistic with your definitions of success.
If you own an e-commerce site and only dream of being the next Amazon, you’re never going to be happy with the results of your SEO campaign. In my opinion, comparing yourself to megalith game changers like Amazon or eBay will only set your site up for failure. While it’s possible, the odds of your site getting millions upon millions of visitors each day is highly unlikely. Instead of stacking your success against the competition and seeing how you measure up, compare your own small successes over time. Take a look at the past year and see how your business has grown or evolved. That’s real success.
