Measuring SEO with ROI
Studies have shown that only 1 out 7 search engine marketers actually measured the ROI for their customer’s campaigns. These results are not surprising. I believe that this is evidence that many SEO’s are computer people and not business people, and to be truly effective, you must be a little bit of both.
Every legitimate SEO has at one time or another encountered clients who have had bad experiences with SEO firms and one of their primary concerns was their ROI. In a recent meeting I encountered a prospective client who was very leery about SEO in general. Apparently, his last SEO firm never delivered results, and their reporting was nonexistent.
Getting that top rankings is great, but what does it mean to a client in terms of ROI? Are they making a profit from their new rankings after the SEO campaign costs are considered?
There are several ways to determine ROI, but I will just mention a few that we use frequently at Comit Technologies.
The first statistic that I usually give a client (besides current SE rankings) is their general traffic information such as their number of unique visitors (not hits), their favorite keywords, inbound links, etc. This is all very important info that is easy to illustrate with graphs and such. Line graphs that show your unique visitor trends work well.
Conversion rates are next and they are probably one of the most important. They are easy to determine and they really help with fine tuning your online campaign. Often times traffic can increase while conversion rates suffer. When this happens, it is time to consider altering the focus of your SEO campaign or making changes to the website design or products and services. Maybe your visitors are misled by your keywords and your product isn’t what they are looking for. Or, your webpage may not be user friendly or aesthetically pleasing (they look distrustful). Even your advertised prices could be a deterrent.
Leads are another way to measure and determine SEO campaign success, but this is a statistic that clients are likely to notice on their own. Even so it is good to bring it to their attention to remind them of yet another SEO benefit.
I also recommend setting up a system that allows your clients to login and monitor their site. Some like to check their stats frequently and others just like to see for themselves if what you’re telling them is true.
Measures like the ones I’ve mentioned will give your services a monetary value and they can help your clients with their overall marketing campaigns. Providing regular/accurate ROI reports should be a no-brainer for every SEO firm. After all, it is easier to manage what you measure.