Does SEO really give me a return on investment?

This is a question we are sometimes asked by businesses who are considering outsourcing their SEO activity. Here are some of the ways SEO will give you are return on investment (ROI).

Return on investment is something that needs to be accurately measured from the moment the SEO plan is implemented. And of course in order to do this properly, base line figures are required.

Here is what you need to measure in order to effectively calculate ROI for SEO activity. It’s all about looking at what you are spending on SEO and what you are gaining in return.

Website visits per month, and per week. This should be the average figure taken over the course of at least three months. For brand new websites, the baseline figures would be zero.

The number of new sales leads per month and per week. Again, this should be the average figure taken over the course of at least three months, and for new website you use the baseline figure of zero too.

Other baseline figures you can use depending upon the nature of your business are – number of enquiries, number of social media likes, number of social media followers, bounce rate on website, ranking on search engines etc. What you are looking for is a clear, quantitative overview of where your company is before the SEO starts.

With your baseline figures, you then have something to measure against. So after each month of SEO activity you can measure and see the results.

Now to calculate the return, what you are doing is assigning a value to each of these things. Don’t forget, SEO is not just about sales. Selling is about sales. SEO is about marketing which is the art of promoting a business to raise awareness.

Your return in investment is indicated by –

• Your rankings
• The number of back-links generated
• The level of activity on your website
• The improvement of your bounce rate
• The number of qualified sales leads you connect with

By measuring the activity before and after SEO, you will quickly see the difference and also you will be able to adjust your activity to further improve results. If you do not measure the activity on your website and the traffic an SEO plan generates, how can you ever know the return on your investment?

For more information on bespoke SEO plans and PPC campaigns, please get in touch, we will be happy to help.