SEO goals differ, but most focus primarily on rankings in SERPs or only on increases in conversions and profit or revenue.
If you are only looking at one of these two groups you can be missing the real impact of SEO!
SEO activities focus on improving search engine rankings by optimizing content and building links, but most miss the mark by only focusing on the first step to business impact, rankings. Some goals go a little farther by actually looking at the number of visitors the ranking improvements generate. This is one of the greatest reasons that many don’t consider SEO a marketing channel.
I am not saying rankings are not important, rather they are just the first step in the process and measuring the traffic only gets you half way there. True, a website will have to rank for important keywords that drive traffic, but this measuring the conversions of that traffic and the subsequent revenue and profits are the reason for being in business in the first place.
A few months ago, I presented my approach to addressing SEO concerns called FIRM, this is a method to approach different tactics that you are using to improve or correct SEO impact on a website. Measurement was the final step in the method and one of the most critical, because if you don’t measure the impact, how do you know if it was worth the effort? Now, you know what you should be measuring and the appropriate order.
You can get the cart before the horse and just measure increases in conversions and revenue or profit, but this too is missing the important leading indicators that will get you what you came for. These are not the only indications of success, but all of the other tactics should feed into these as this is what you can use to find out if the work you are doing is paying off. One additional thing, if you aren’t measuring the rankings and traffic as closely as you are conversions and profit, you may not realize that your work is beginning to pay off.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
What a beautifully simple and powerful point.To fully take advantage of SEO as a marketing channel, you have to look at it holistically and not let the “cart” of one element get ahead of the “horse.” The little infographic illustrates it well. Thanks for this post!
@emory
Thanks, I am trying to keep it simple!
Well said Pittfall. I agree with you. SEO goals differ. But only rankings and traffic is not all about SEO success. I liked the F-I-R-M concept. Nice sharing and keep posting.
I think you’ve got it spot on. It’s all about the profits. I’ve had sites where they are ranking high, but not getting the traffic but the conversion rate is ok. One thing along the chain affects it all in my case. If businesses don’t see a ROI then they simply won’t continue. It’s all about the profits.
You hit on the toughest aspect of SEO – balance. When a site is close to breaking into the top 10 for its major keywords, it is tempting to keep pushing for links and content to get the rankings. Thanks for your input.
It’s real most webmasters focus there effort on building links and they forget that good keywords can drive crazy Traffic
Great post. Very simple concept that many people overlook.
For your next post I’d like to request your thoughts on the new Google instant update and how that will affect SEO.
Thanks!
Usually the simpliest solutions are the best, and I found yours to fit that mold. Thanks for sharing this with us, and hopefully I’ll be able to apply it to my site ot realize my goals of paying the hosting bill.
I think backlinks is 90% of SEO and you either do it yourself as the owner of the site or because your site has value to people users will link and go to your site naturally
I think all of us (including myself too) at one time or another focus too much on rankings and forget about the financial or revenue aspect of it. What really is the benefit for a business website to have traffic and rank well for certain terms and do not convert well and therefore minimize profitability. What you mentioned above is a good reminder of business 101… measure your success by profitability, that’s how you stay in business.
Thank you
By the way it’s good to say you posting again, I would often pass by and read your column and I noticed a slight hiatus, it’s good to see you posting again.
Great info. I still have a lot to learn about SEO. Thank you for sharing. I will take note your points.
I agree with you, Fantastic post.
You need to be able define the “End To End Sales Funnel”. That’s the only way to truly understand how a website is driving the business forward. Rankings, Traffic, Revenue and Profit are all part of that sales funnel, but miss any one of those and the picture is incomplete.
I have tried to work on my UX experience to measure my seo. Also setting goals in analytics has helped me to track the key word success per page
For me the real Internet Marketing Success is measured by conversions and by the profits I make. For example I have a website which has Site No 1 Rankings on Google. But I see there is only small traffic for the keywords I am targeting. So it is of utmost importance to target the keywords which will bring you more traffic and with the proper content more conversions !
For me it’s both conversions and bounce rate, which sadly is too little of one and too much of the other.
Search engine rankings are the only thing that matter. Until you get traffic. Then the only thing that matters is conversion, and that only happens if you have compelling content and a product or service that people think they need (i.e., “want”).
Building a list of prospects matters, too. I suppose that is part of “conversion.”
Bottom line: It all matters!
We measure success by conversion, not by ranking. Yes, it’s important to create visibility in the search engines, and once you achieve it, how you get your visitors to convert in the buying cycle is what matters, because it will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Success of any SEO campaign can be seen gradually. Ranking of our website increases for our keyword. Number of back links increases.
Completely agree – traffic, conversations and balance. And finally measurement. It all seems massively logical – I struggle sometimes (perhaps egotistically) to understand quite why people fail to do so accurately.
Links that grow naturally are still the best, this could be achieved by putting on a great content where people may noticed. If people thinks your content brings something useful then they keep coming to you and that s traffic comes naturally.
Absolutely love the concept of this article…why didn’t I discover this a few years ago.
really Well said Pittfall. I agree with you. SEO goals differ. But only rankings and traffic is not all about SEO success. I liked the F-I-R-M concept. Nice sharing and keep posting.