Is Your SEO Working?
If you’re like a lot of other site owners, you can put a lot of time and effort into your SEO. As a result, it’s important for you to know that your time is paying off. How can you effectively do this? Despite what many may say, tracking your SEO return on investment can—and should—be done. Here’s how:
Start with the Facts
There are three important sets of data that you should look to when quantifying the results of your SEO. These are your number of leads, your revenue and then your revenue per lead. As you may have guessed, you can calculate your revenue per lead by simply dividing your total revenue by your total leads.
The information you receive from these numbers can provide a good start to your overall ROI results. However, there is more to the story.
What Constitutes a Lead?
While many people may think that every visit to a page can be considered a lead that is not true. Google Analytics allows you to identify what it terms as events and goals. Events are specific actions taken by users on your site that can more accurately identify them as true leads. One example of an event is the click on a contact form. This level of engagement identifies this particular user as a more qualified lead than one who may not take this step.
A goal identifies something that you want to achieve. This could be a specific length of time spent on your site or a targeted number of pages visited. As with events, when your goals are realized, you can find your most qualified leads.
Track Your Conversions
How your analytics are set up can directly affect your ability to measure the success of your SEO efforts. Make sure that conversions are appropriately tagged and mapped so that you can track leads all the way through. It is important to remember that a conversion can come in multiple forms. For ecommerce sites, this means a purchase. For non-commerce sites, however, the request for more information can be considered an online conversion.
Be in It for the Long Haul
SEO does not “happen” overnight. This can be the hardest pill for people to swallow sometimes. You work and work only to be forced to wait. It is true, SEO takes times to deliver results. But, at the same time, you must embrace the fact that SEO is not really ever “done”.
Your efforts here should be ongoing and a key part of those efforts must include the measurement and review of your results. It is this step that too many businesses fail to perform properly but that offers you the best opportunity for your desired results. When you see your progress as it happens, you can make adjustments in real-time. This gives you the power to stay up with any algorithm update, industry change or other factor that may impact your plans.
Make the Commitment
When building your SEO plan, make sure to include results capture and review as an integral step. A plan without this built in is only half a plan—and may only deliver half results, at best.
