SEO is one of our specialties at DVC, and for good reason: most clicks on Search Engine Results Pages go to organic search, not paid results. So why is it that Pay Per Click gets all the respect (and more of the marketing budget) compared to SEO? The primary reason is the difficulty of determining the ROI of SEO.
It’s always been easier for PPC campaigns to demonstrate their ROI, even for specific search queries. With SEO, the situation is much more complicated and existing solutions involve a lot of guesswork. As a result, it has not been easy for SEO marketers to convince company executives that SEO is valuable. Digital marketing companies like DVC understand the ROI of SEO, but C-suite executives sometimes don’t.
There are two basic approaches to calculating return on investment for SEO. One is the traditional approach, which involves comparing the data from different years to demonstrate improved results. To give one example, you can compare your organic search traffic to last year’s organic search traffic on Google Analytics. If an increase in your search traffic corresponds to an increase in revenue, you may be able to demonstrate the ROI of SEO.
Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether this search traffic was branded or generic, so it’s hard to say whether it’s really due to SEO or not. If customers are simply searching for the name of your company, you can’t really claim that as the result of SEO.
The most reliable way to demonstrate return on investment for SEO is to create new landing pages designed to capture traffic from specific non-branded search queries. That’s one of our SEO strategies here at DVC. Google Ad Search lists hundreds of thousands of organic keywords and keyword phrases. When a customer is looking for a product you sell – but is not searching for your company by name – you can capture that customer’s business with a landing page for their specific search query.
Not only can you capture their business, you can demonstrate that the sale was the result of a non-branded search that led them directly to that specific landing page. That will allow you to demonstrate return on investment for SEO. Contact DVC to learn more about how we can help you demonstrate the ROI of SEO!
