This post was sponsored by Semify. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the sponsor.
Have you ever wondered how beneficial SEO would be for your business or how much of your budget you should invest in it?
Do you sometimes worry that your SEO efforts aren’t getting enough profit to justify the cost?
56% of small businesses still don’t use SEO or aren’t sure if it’s part of their marketing strategy.
This means that 56% of small businesses are closing their doors to a free and perennial source of traffic.
Chances are your competition isn’t boosting your online presence with SEOmaking investment in search engine optimization a good way forward.
But how can you demonstrate the true value of SEO?
How do you convince your potential clients or your boss that SEO is worth the effort?
We have created one powerful tool to take the guesswork out of the equation.
Today you will learn how to do it calculate the return on investment (ROI) of SEO.
Why is SEO ROI Important for Businesses?
It’s hard to spend money if you’re not sure how it will benefit you in the future.
You may already know what SEO offers lower cost per cable of any marketing channel.
SEO also helps crack the organic search code.
The number one site on Google’s search results pages (SERPs) receives at least a quarter of organic traffic share, so investing in SEO can even play against your competitors.
But even though SEO is one of the most affordable marketing tools available, you may need to know if those costs will pay off.
We can conclude that a better ranking equals more traffic and conversions, but how does that translate into a dollar amount?
As you can imagine, there is no substitute for hard (or even dear) data.
When you can prove with numbers, rather than theoretical concepts, that SEO is worthwhile, you’ll get the “Powers That Be” on board.
What’s so hard about SEO return on investment (ROI)?
That said, it’s not always easy to get this kind of granular data for SEO ROI.
For one thing, no one knows when or how Google will rank a given website. Even if you have all your ducks in a row, anything from algorithm updates to technical website issues can slow your progress.
While we think we know what Google wants, we can’t control how quickly the results happen, or whether a campaign will perform the way we think it should. We can make predictions based on our experiences, but there are no SEO guarantees.
And unlike display or PPC ads, which provide answers at your fingertips, SEO requires more data gathering and general knowledge to determine if you’re moving in the right direction.
Isolating data can also be a challenge when you’re pursuing a multi-level digital marketing strategy.
Since most marketing techniques tend to work best together, figuring out the source of your success won’t always be straightforward.
Finally, because SEO is a long-term solution, it can seem like progress is at a standstill. For people who are used to seeing immediate results, SEO can seem like a big leap of faith.
So, you need to convince your leadership to stick with it by showing SEO ROI.
What’s the best way to measure SEO ROI?
At semiifywe’ve created a reliable tool that can show potential SEO impact over time: a SEO ROI Calculator.
When combined with up-to-date keyword research, you can instantly see how profitable your search optimization efforts can be!
Next, we’ll explain how to calculate SEO ROI.
Step 1: Download a free SEO ROI calculator
The first step is to get a customizable one SEO ROI Calculator which allows you to plug your information and instantly learn how profitable your SEO strategy can be.
To make this easier, we’ve created an ROI calculator that includes 1-month projections and 18-month projections for a more realistic ranking timeline.
With these numbers in hand, you can set better expectations and show the value of SEO.
Step 2: Do your keyword selection and ranking
To calculate the ROI of your SEO strategy, your SEO ROI calculator will need to know:
What keywords are you planning to target? What is the monthly search volume for each target keyword?
Once you have these two pieces of information, probably already in your SEO strategy, just add them to the SEO ROI Calculator.
How to find out the monthly search volume of a keyword
Today, we’re going to pretend we’re demonstrating SEO ROI for a hypothetical local dentist.
For the most accurate ROI, you’ll want to make sure you’re selecting long-tail keywords that specifically match your prospect’s search intent and relevance.
So instead of just targeting [dentist]we recommend orientation [dentist rochester ny] However.
Then put [dentist rochester ny] to your favorite SEO keyword research tool to discover its keyword volume or monthly searches.
The key word [dentist rochester ny] has about 1,600 monthly searches.
Screenshot from Semrush, February 2022
Step 3: Find out your click-through rate (CTR)
Your SEO click-through rate is the percentage of users who perform a relevant search and then click through to your site.
Organic search click-through rates are largely determined by where the site appears in the SERPs – the closer the position, the more likely your site will be clicked.
More than 25% of users will click on the first organic search result. CTR drops exponentially after the top spot.
Screenshot from SearchEngineJournal, February 2022
If you download our SEO ROI Calculator and navigate to your rank position dropdown, you’ll see your clickthrough rate automatically adjust to reflect these numbers.
Step 4: Add your average conversion rate
In this context, conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors who access a website and take a desired action.
If you know your own conversion ratebased on your business goals, purposes and desired visitor actions, place it in the CTR row of your calculator.
If you don’t know your average conversion rate:
Locate your industry in this conversion rate analysis graphic Copy the percentage under the column, in the “SEO (Organic Search)” row. This number is your average conversion rate for your specific industry. Paste this number into the CTR row of the calculator.
In our dentistry example, we focused on the average conversion rate for B2C SEO and compared it to data from DentistryIQ, which suggests that the typical dentist conversion rate is somewhere in between. between 1% and 2%.
In our example, we gave our dentist the benefit of the doubt with a slightly inflated conversion rate.
When entering your own conversion rate data, we recommend that you do some industry research to get a more accurate figure for your company or client.
Step 5: Add your Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) Close Rate.
If it has already been added to the calculator by default, you can skip to the next step.
But to get the most accurate SEO ROI, it’s important to determine your actual close rate.
For our hypothetical client, we used study data to set an appropriate SQL close rate. A Frontspin article cites average closing rates for qualified sales leads as 25% to 35%. Based on these numbers, our dental client has a higher than usual SQL close rate.
While you can use our default, ideally you’ll want to get more accurate information from your company or a customer to get the most accurate calculations.
Step 6: Set up lifetime customer value (LCV) and new sales
Customer lifetime value is a measure of how profitable a customer is over the course of your relationship.
While many companies use a standard LVC figure of $10,000, we learned that dental industry experts estimate their industry average LCV anywhere. two to four times higher than that A higher LCV usually leads to a higher ROI, but we went with the $10,000 number in our example to keep things conservative.
You’ll notice that changing your website’s conversion rate (as well as your keyword ranking and CTR) will also affect your new sales pitch. This is an estimate, so you do not need to provide this information.
You can click on these fields to see our exact calculations.
Step 7: Add SEO spend and get your monthly SEO ROI
With SEO, you usually get what you put in. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend millions of dollars to make a profit.
In our example, we assumed that our dental client could spend $2,000 per month on SEO. Feel free to play around with this number to see how it affects ROI over time in the 18-month view.
Screenshot of Semify’s SEO ROI Calculator, September 2022
While the first few months may seem a little hairy even with a healthy SEO budget, the tide turns around six months. As the client progresses with their keyword rankings, these negative monthly ROI numbers turn into positive.
After almost a year, these numbers really shine, illustrating that good things do come to SEO professionals who wait.
Screenshot of Semify’s SEO ROI Calculator, September 2022
Here’s your chance to prove the value of SEO
As marketers, we know that SEO is worth the investment. But you’ll need a more compelling argument if you want others to agree.
Personalizing the potential benefit can make marketing feel much more tangible. And when the potential benefit is clear, it becomes much harder to deny the power of SEO.
Featured image: Net Vector/Shutterstock
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