Think SEO doesn’t work? These Metrics will Change Your Mind.
If you have ever wondered what I am actually getting for my SEO spend?
You are not alone. Many business owners ask themselves the same question, and many get frustrated when SEO doesn’t deliver instant sales like Google Ads or social media can, but here is the truth.
Search engine optimisation absolutely works – if you measure it properly.
The key here is not just ranking higher, it’s understanding which channel truly shows a return on your investment (often abbreviated to ROI).
This brief blog will reveal the exact ROI metrics that you should be tracking to prove that your SEO strategy is generating real and measurable returns and profit for your business.
To start with, let’s review the basics.
Search engine optimisation ROI measures how much revenue you are generating from organic search traffic compared to how much you spend on SEO.
The simple formula is the revenue that has been generated from organic traffic, less the cost of your search engine optimisation fees.
So, for example, if you are spending £1,500 per month on search engine optimisation, and many businesses are, and you generate £6,000 in organic leads or Sales. Your return on investment is calculated as follows.
£6000 less £1500 (the amount you have spent on search engine optimisation) Divided by £1500×100 = 300% return on investment.
Quite simply, this means that for £1 you invest in search engine optimisation, you are generating £3 back in sales, and this would be for many businesses a decent level of return, but obviously the metrics vary based on your business sector, industry, and individual margins.
There is no one-size-fits-all metric, as the numbers have to stack for each business. And every business has its own margins to work with.
Measuring search engine optimisation return on investment can be tricky, because unlike Google Ads or Meta Ads, SEO does not give you instant gratification.
Search engine optimisation is a medium to long-term strategy, meaning that the returns build gradually as your rankings and visibility in the organic search results continue to improve; however, this delay often makes business owners feel the SEO isn’t working.
It’s important to help manage your expectations.
However, it’s important to understand that when your content starts to rank and the traffic starts to compound, SEO is likely to become one of the highest ROI marketing channels available to your business.
The key here is tracking the right metrics to enable you to connect the traffic with the revenue.
Calculating your SEO revenue is an important part of ensuring that you are generating the best return for your investment.
Search engine optimisation can be like planting seeds; you can plant seeds today, but it might take 6 to 9 months until the seeds have grown into something tangible.
Once your website is ranking well, the traffic and leads are likely to keep flowing in for many years, and that’s why SEO is often seen as a compounding investment in terms of digital marketing.
In terms of results, every business in every business sector is different, primarily because the competition for some keywords is higher than others. For example, if you are a plumber in Bolton, it can be easier to rank than if you are an e-commerce website trying to sell white T-shirts.
As a plumber in Bolton, you may have 20 competitors, the majority of which are locally based businesses, or as if you are an e-commerce site selling white T-shirts, you could be up against Amazon, eBay, Next, ASOS, and many other national brands which are likely to have invested Significant sums in such engine optimisation over the years.
The true measure as to whether or not search engine optimisation is working is ultimately the ROI being generated, but as a general rule of thumb, if you are ranking for good quality high intent keywords and your organic traffic is growing, the chances are SEO is working for you already.
Search engine optimisation isn’t about guesswork; it is measurable, predictable, and likely highly profitable if you track it properly and attribute your organic sales back to your search engine optimisation investment.
The businesses that think SEO isn’t working and scale back their investment in this channel are likely to be losing out on the opportunity.
If you’re ready to discover what your SEO is really earning for your business, the team here at Altitude Internet can help you better understand the metrics and how to maximise your ROI.
As a client of Altitude Internet, we will connect your analytics to our dashboard, which helps you track every conversion and shows exactly how your investment turns into measurable business growth.
The dashboard gives complete visibility of many key metrics, which help you to better understand the impact, results, and the ROI.
If you would like to find out more about search engine optimisation, please click here to schedule a call with a member of our team.
You can also click here to read some recent case studies.
These case studies help to show the positive impact that SEO can have on your business and aim to cover and showcase our broad industry experiences.
We have been working with clients across the UK and Ireland for over a decade And have experience of many different industries, from local service based businesses, like builders, plumbers, electricians etc through to e-commerce sites, selling clothing, home essentials, Vape products, in fact you name it the chances are we probably have experience of helping those businesses generate more traffic, leads and enquiries.
As we mentioned earlier in this blog, search engine optimisation is a medium to long-term investment, and the results are not instant.
If you are looking to generate more instant levels of traffic, Google Ads, Meta Ads, or LinkedIn ads could be suitable for you
You can click here to find out more about paid advertising.
We have a team of paid marketing experts here at Altitude Internet who help businesses to maximise the results from their paid ads with Google, Meta, or LinkedIn.
You can click here to schedule a call with a member of the team.
You can also click here to read other recent blog articles about how paid advertising can help your business generate a high level of returns in a quicker time frame.
We have recently been working with a client who sells toner refills for printer cartridges to both commercial and domestic customers.
When we started working with them in November 2020, they only had two keywords on page one of Google, and their website was only ranking for six keywords. This led them to seek the services of Altitude Internet.
We put together a detailed roadmap to address their current issues, including looking at what their leading competitors were doing so well.
In that time, we have continued to work hard at improving their metrics, and they now rank for over 100 keywords with 15 dominating page one of the search engine results pages. Some of these are highly competitive keywords up against the actual toner cartridge manufacturers, for example, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, and Brother.
Their organic traffic and sales attributed to search engine optimisation have continued to build over time, as a result of these rankings and increased traffic.
Their organic traffic is now delivering a consistent monthly performance. They have also invested in social media and paid ads with Google and LinkedIn to help drive highly qualified traffic from potential customers.
This was a particularly interesting project as the level of competition for many of the keywords was intense. We addressed this by putting together a six-month content calendar, which we have since updated a number of times, and have helped to produce high-quality, driven content (both engaging and informational content) to help target the most critical keywords for their business.
Some of the informational search terms, for example, “how to refill an HP toner cartridge” is outranking many pages on the Hewlett-Packard website, and many of the other ink and toner refill providers, which is great to see.
As search engines continue to adapt their algorithms, we have continued to update the client roadmap and to modify our approach to ensure that we are in the best position for many of their keywords and continue to outrank their competitors.
Fancy a chat about how we could help your business grow with SEO?
Click here to arrange a call.
