The New SEO ROI Measurement Rulebook

If your business is harnessing the power of SEO, there is one basic fact that applies to you and everybody else pulling in that direction: the chief aim of SEO is to drive conversions above everything else. All the huffing and puffing about ranking favorably on search results and the hunger for more traffic is all inconsequential and a sheer wastage of time and resources, if not done to improve profits.

Golden Rule: Patience is the “Key”!

SEO is not an overnight exercise that delivers instant results; its progress escalates gradually and the determination of your ROI provides a clear picture of the progress that can be compared to the projected trend.

Calculating your SEO campaign’s ROI is more important than evaluating conversions alone, as it takes the cost of the investment into account, thereby providing a solid ground for data driven decision-making.

Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators are vital in SEO as they enable you to measure the performance of your initiatives against your set objectives. Consisting of number and ratio metrics, it is important to understand what these figures mean in terms of progress. Each of your goals can be tied to a unique performance indicator that enables a better progress analysis. Some of the metrics involved in measuring SEO performance include:

• Visits
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Average order
• Revenue
• Conversion rate

Conversion

The real meaning of ‘conversions’ differs from business to business. Therefore, you need to get intimate with the core objectives of your business and website. The task essentially requires the classification of conversion parameters into macro and micro categories. You must be able to determine what it is that falls into the two categories in relation to visitor activity on your website. Every website desires visitors to perform a specific action and those that do constitute conversions. Success of the efforts that go into your website can be measured in terms of the conversion rate.

Use of Google Analytics Event Tracking can give you data relating to these activities through site tracking. The tools that you gain access to can measure most of the pertinent aspects of your conversions. The ability to segment your traffic enables you to isolate the organic side and discover the most rewarding keywords. Revenue from e-commerce websites can also be tracked through the establishment of e-commerce tracking functionality.

Evaluation

Evaluating the core components of your SEO campaign is a necessity if you aim to determine the ROI of your efforts. Your efforts must be devoted and not restricted to:

1. Keywords Ranking evaluation
2. Traffic evaluation
3. Conversion evaluation

Keyword Phrases Ranking

Before embarking on keyword analytics, make sure not to cheat yourself by generating information that is divorced from the truth. When users search for your products or services most of the times they simply type in your brand. It then follows that the activity that is generated around these branded keywords has nothing to do with your SEO efforts. With the aid of an analytics tool you can separate branded and non-branded keywords.

By being able to track the rankings of your keywords and the traffic they draw to your website, you can approach the ones that deserve the most attention while weeding out the non-performers. Apart from non-performance, reasons for ditching keywords might be due to extreme competition on particular keywords. Devise a simple table or graph that you can utilize as a rank tracker to show you the progress on your keywords arsenal.

Traffic

The basic rule that applies to all traffic analyses is that it should move with the ranking. Higher ranking ought to deliver high traffic in situations where proper keyword targeting is being done. You can make use of the rank checker to ascertain the rankings of your primary keywords.

Conversion

The conversion rate of your SEO efforts is quite important. Keep track of what actions visitors to your site are taking from registration, form submission to sales.

Conclusion

Making all the analyses in the world will still count for naught if all what the information is good for is to be sat on. You must be in a position to get off your laurels and take action in the event of glaring inconsistences.

What to do if traffic is high and conversions low?

• Relook at the keyword phrases that you are targeting. Make sure they are appropriate for your core business and they are not the subject of extremely stiff competition.
• Make sure you have discounted traffic on branded keywords and that you appreciate the difference between unique visitors and page views.
• PPC can give you such a dilemma by attracting people who have no interest in your products and/or services whatsoever.
• Other factors also come into play such as site design and pricing of your products or services.
• By utilizing A/B testing platforms such as Optimizely and Unbounce, you can zero in on the real cause of the dilemma. Use of Cookies can also help you track return visitors.
• A common cause is the existence of landing pages that are not sufficiently optimized.
• Another issue might be to do with your branding not instilling enough confidence in the visitors for them to give you information such as their banking details.

What to do if ranking is high and traffic is low?

This scenario could be due to the following:

• The chosen keywords have low search volumes or a mismatch in intent
• Your ranking might be the result of misinformation by your personalized browser, being crowded out or localized rankings results.
• A simple explanation could be that surfers are not clicking on your results due to inaccurate content.

In whatever you do, accept the fact as a learning process and take steps to remedy the situation. In extreme cases, it might be necessary to scale down your SEO efforts or cease completely in order to focus on other marketing efforts. More analytics tools are available to enhance your determination of ROI.