If your search engine optimization (SEO) program drives traffic to your ecommerce store without increased conversions, you’re not alone. It’s easy to mistake more backlinks or keyword rankings as signs of making progress, only to later realize your SEO efforts aren’t actually contributing to business growth.
What’s the disconnect?
Many businesses invest in SEO expecting more visitors will equal more customers, but an effective SEO strategy requires specific goals for specific results.
It’s time you set SEO goals that actually drive growth, with concrete examples of common ecommerce objectives and practical steps to achieve them. Here’s how to do that.
How to set SEO goals
- Define your business objectives
- Validate the SEO opportunity
- Choose supporting metrics
- Set realistic time frames
- Check progress and refine
Setting SEO goals helps you create a road map that connects your SEO efforts to a measurable, positive impact on the bottom line. Here’s a five-step guide to structuring your SEO goals:
1. Define your business objectives
Before you dive into keyword research or rankings, step back and ask yourself what business outcomes you’re looking for SEO to drive. For ecommerce brands, the goal of SEO is usually to sell more products.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) that ladder up to this include:
-
Revenue growth.Increase total sales driven by organic traffic.
-
Improving keyword ranking and overall organic traffic growth. Bring in new potential customers from search results.
-
Increasing conversion rate. Improve the ratio of purchasers to website traffic.
-
Brand discovery/unbranded keyword growth. Expose potential customers who weren’t necessarily searching for you to your brand.
“You must watch organic revenue,” says Kyle Risley, senior SEO lead at Shopify. “That’s where everything leads. Then organic traffic, conversion rates from that traffic, and keyword rankings for your key product queries.”
Once you know your high-level goal, the next step is to set SMART goals. This is a framework for setting objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (i.e., “Grow online revenue attributed to organic traffic by 10% in the next 12 months”).
2. Validate the SEO opportunity
SEO will move the needle for your business only if there’s enough search volume in your category. As Kyle advises, “It ultimately comes down to the opportunity size of your niche. First, you need to determine if people are actually searching for what you sell and how realistically you can rank for those terms.”
To assess traffic—and revenue—potential, you’ll need to create an SEO forecast that estimates the sum of organic traffic you could conceivably get from ranking #1 for all of your target keywords. Use a keyword research tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to conduct keyword research and compile estimated monthly search volume for all of your targets.
For example, if you’re a headphones brand, you might include “wireless headphones,” which has a 53,000 traffic potential, and “earbuds for sleep,” which has a 5,400 traffic potential, in your forecast.
Finally, run a quick revenue calculation. Kyle suggests a simple revenue formula to estimate potential earnings:
Search Volume × Click-Through Rate × Conversion Rate × Average Order Value = Potential Revenue
Say your average order value (AOV) is $80. If “sleep earbuds” has search volume of 4,300, earns a 12% click-through rate (CTR), and has a 2.5% conversion rate (CVR), then:
4,300 × 0.12 × 0.025 × 80 = $1,032/month, or $12,384/year
If you also create product pages or develop a content strategy around related keywords like “earbuds for side sleepers” or “wireless sleep headphones,” the combined traffic and revenue potential grows even higher, turning a low-volume niche target keyword into a meaningful revenue stream.
But before you add a bunch of high-volume keywords to your forecast, be aware of the competitive landscape for them—as they could be too hard to realistically frank for. That headphones brand might be excited about the keyword “wireless headphones,” which has 71,000 monthly searches.
But the top 10 results for this keyword are dominated by big brands like Apple, Sony, and Best Buy. A new brand might not be able to outrank these more authoritative domains.
3. Choose supporting SEO metrics
Once you’ve confirmed there’s a viable opportunity, identify relevant SEO metrics to track progress toward your business objectives.
As Kyle explains, keyword rankings and website traffic are only stepping stones to your ultimate goal: “Rankings lead to traffic, traffic leads to micro-conversions, and micro-conversions lead to revenue. When measuring importance, you should follow that chain in reverse.”
Write down one measurable business goal, then pick two or three supporting SEO metrics that tie directly to it, such as:
1. Goal. Revenue growth.
2. Metrics. Sales from organic traffic, revenue per visitor, average order value.
Tools like Google Analytics and Shopify’s built-in reports can help with tracking progress.
4. Set realistic time frames
SEO efforts can take time to yield a return. Kyle says most businesses see a progression like this:
-
Early signals (3 months). Search rankings improve, even if not yet on page one.
-
Meaningful traffic (3–6 months). Long-tail pages start appearing in results.
-
Significant revenue (6–12 months). Authority builds and sales follow.
For example, a new ecommerce category page may climb to position 15 in three months. That’s progress, even if it isn’t yet driving sales. By month six, you may start to see a trickle of purchases with a more significant impact after a year.
5. Check progress and refine
Check if you’re on the right track by comparing your progress to the SMART goal’s timeline you set back in step one. If you’re moving slower than expected, adjust expectations or double down on what’s working. For example, you might continue targeting specific keywords with higher search intent if they lead to more revenue.
Kyle warns against giving up too soon: “Many businesses improve from position 90 to 25 and think SEO isn’t working, when in reality they’re on the way. Continued effort could push them into the top 10.”
If some pages win featured snippets while others stall, double down where you’re gaining traction. One way to do this is by creating content that answers related questions. For example, if your store sells home office products, you might write a blog post or guide on how to set up an ergonomic workstation that links back to your main product page.
Another way is to earn high-quality backlinks by reaching out to publishers, niche blogs, or industry directories that can feature your product or link to your category pages. You can also refine the content itself by re-optimizing it for your main keywords, adding comparison charts, or SEO-optimized FAQs, which helps turn your page into the most complete resource available.
Every quarter, audit your keyword rankings and conversions to direct further efforts. Identify which pages are steadily moving closer to page one and invest more resources into them, while scaling back or reworking pages that aren’t driving traffic.
3 common SEO goals and how to achieve them
Every business approaches SEO differently, but most SEO objectives fall into a few common categories.
1. Boost brand awareness
When potential customers see your store name repeatedly in search results, trust starts to build even before they buy. Kyle says building brand awareness is a prerequisite to your SEO goals, as SEO becomes easier once you have brand visibility: “In a competitive industry, it’s very difficult to succeed in SEO without first establishing that brand awareness.”
Common strategies to boost awareness include:
-
SEO content marketing. Create high-quality content targeting topics your potential customers are interested in learning more about. For example, a sustainable clothing brand might write a step-by-step guide on how to build a capsule wardrobe. This type of content not only helps readers, but also increases your chances of appearing in featured snippets or AI Overviews (AIO).
-
Branded search. You can prioritize target keywords that include your brand name or products. Optimize your homepage, About pages, and product pages with your brand’s name or any trademarks, and create subpages for common searches like “[your brand] reviews.” Make sure your social channels use consistent branding, and add organization schema to your website’s back end to help search engines parse your website content.
2. Improve organic engagement rate
Some businesses set SEO goals around building a community of potential clients who spend time on their site, read content, or sign up for newsletters. These micro-conversions often lead to long-term sales. Here are some easy strategies to increase organic engagement rate:
-
Leverage content marketing. Post in-depth guides, buying tips, and comparison pages.
-
Encourage interaction. Allow users to post customer photos, reviews, and questions. Products with as few as five reviews are 270% more likely to be purchased.
-
Capture leads. Pair high-traffic pages with simple sign-up forms or incentives (like 10% off for joining your email list).
-
Add internal links. Guide readers from blog posts to related products, encouraging them to explore deeper into your site.
3. Increase revenue
For most ecommerce merchants, the ultimate indicator of SEO success is increased sales. Conductor’s 2024 benchmarks show that organic search accounts for about one-third of all website sessions across key industries, including retail and ecommerce. Here are some strategies to achieve it:
-
Target high-intent keywords. Focus on product and collection pages that match the buying intent of potential customers (e.g., “ergonomic vertical mouse” versus “history of the computer mouse”).
-
Optimize product pages. Include detailed descriptions, customer reviews, and FAQs so your page is the go-to resource.
-
Build topical authority. Search engines like Google favor sites that cover topics in depth. Support your product or collection pages with related blog posts. For example, an ergonomic mouse store might publish “how vertical mice reduce wrist strain.”
-
Track return-on-investment (ROI). Use Kyle’s revenue formula (Search Volume × CTR × CVR × AOV) to prioritize target keywords that drive sales.
Once your store starts ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs), you’ll see more traffic, more leads, and more money—provided your pages are built to capture demand and convert visitors into customers.
SEO goals FAQ
What is a smart objective for SEO?
SMART objectives (or SMART goals) are tied to business outcomes and include specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound details. For example: “Increase revenue from organic traffic by 10% in the next 12 months.”
What are KPIs for SEO?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for SEO measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. The most common KPIs fall into one of three buckets: visibility, engagement, and conversions.
How do you measure SEO effectiveness?
You can measure your SEO performance using tools like Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and Shopify reports. Use Ahrefs to monitor rankings, use Google Analytics to track desired actions, and use Shopify reports to tie all of this to revenue.
