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Peeling Back the Onion:
Metrics that Matter to a Good
Search Engine Optimization Company
By Scott Buresh (c) 2009
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"I want to be number one on Google for (insert
hyper-competitive keyphrase here)."
It's usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine
optimization - a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on
Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or
specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals
for an SEO campaign, it's usually all about improving their
rankings and positions...and often nothing else. Yes, achieving
first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an
incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want
immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable
investment in an SEO campaign, you'd think companies in need of
search engine optimization services would also be concerned with
their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy.
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Vastly improved (or even #1) rankings are rather easy to achieve
in an SEO campaign, even by a novice search engine optimization
company. I once wrote an article demonstrating that top rankings
were simple - and proved it by optimizing the article for the
phrase
"Leprechaun Repellent ."
To this day, that article, on various sites, takes up nine of the top ten spots on
Google for the ridiculous phrase. The obvious question, then, is
what those rankings ultimately accomplish. And so we peel back
the layers of the onion until we get there.
The First Layer - Rankings
Rankings, rankings, rankings. This is by far the most popular
metric for any SEO campaign. Occasionally, a search engine
optimization company may not be concerned with your bottom line
because it can offer guarantees and focus exclusively on
achieving this goal (even though, as in the 'Leprechaun'
example above, it's really not getting you anywhere significant
in the long run).
Rankings by themselves mean little, and the problem with
companies obsessed over rankings is that it doesn't demonstrate
the usefulness of search engine optimization. For a company
website, high rankings are great (and impressive for an SEO
campaign), but they are just the first layer of the onion. As
any good search engine optimization company will demonstrate,
our goal is (and yours should be) to bring and/or improve the
levels of high quality traffic to your website, meaning visitors
who come to your website via a search are already reasonably
interested in your products or services.
The Second Layer - Search-Engine Referred Traffic
Increasing search-referred traffic is not a perfect metric
because, if visitors are not converting on your website,
there's not a big value proposition to be had. Alone, the
metric relies heavily on the right keyphrase selection by your
search engine optimization company during the beginning phases
of your SEO campaign.
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Say that a farming supply company who wanted to be number one on
Google for "affordable farming equipment" decided to try a
different tactic while attempting to improve its search-engine
referred traffic. If the website had been optimized for
'Britney Spears,' for example, traffic levels would
undoubtedly be high (if the site ranked well for the term -
admittedly a huge challenge), but few visitors would be
converting, and business, in turn, would be far from booming.
Visitors will jump ship immediately and serve as an immediate
reminder of the negative impact that poor phrase selection by
your search engine optimization company can have on your
long-term ROI.
The Third Layer - Take Rate
Essentially, the take rate refers to the number or percentage of
search-referred visitors showing interest in your products or
demos (your POA or Point-of-Action). The take rate merely
signifies a visitor who demonstrates an interest in your POA,
for example, by clicking on a "Contact Us" link. The data
you're gauging here is simply overall interest, since not all
of the visitors will follow through and actually convert.
Fortunately, there are ways to improve your take rate during the
SEO campaign - making the point-of-action blatant and clear on
every page is usually the most effective (but overlooked)
method. Collaborating with your search engine optimization
company to make certain that the primary POA on your website is
indeed the most desirable action that a visitor can take is of
paramount importance.
The Fourth Layer - Conversion
Strictly speaking, "Conversion" is the percentage of visitors
to your website that actually follow through with your POA. Once
your search engine optimization company has helped you improve
your take rate, you should work on getting more of those people
to actually convert. Is your form too long? Do you show a
prominent privacy policy promising not to use or sell personal
data? Is it a quick, easy process or do people have to jump
through hoops? A good search engine optimization company will be
able to help you to identify the elements that are serving as
barriers to conversion.
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The Fifth Layer - Offsite Metrics
If a client allows it, we like to get involved in the
nitty-gritty of offsite metrics as part of the SEO campaign.
Though the usual search engine optimization company doesn't go
this far into the process, this area alone proves invaluable to
demonstrating your ROI.
By analyzing offline metrics on a granular level, your search
engine optimization company can examine and report on your
average dollar sale for search-referred traffic, the average
dollar value of each search-referred lead, the average lifetime
value of each search-referred lead, and much, much more.
A software system is usually required to report the data
acquired during your SEO campaign; we use Salesforce, a leading
CRM (customer relationship management) solution that can be
implemented to track these statistics for you. Though it
requires diligence to analyze (as well as follow leads from
cradle to grave), your company can analyze which engines
attracted the most visitors, which keyphrases were the most
profitable, the value of customers, and retention levels.
More than Rankings
All layers of the onion, so to speak, are important to an SEO
campaign, but the closer you get to the actual dollar return,
the more accurate your assessment of success or failure will be.
Rankings alone are no indication of success. For that matter,
neither is search-referred traffic if the visitors don't take
an action on the site that can lead to a sale. And when the lead
finally comes in, there is no way to track the value unless you
follow up with offline metrics to determine exactly how much
leads from your website are worth.
These are all base metrics - many campaigns are much more
involved and use thousands of different data points. But if you
are new to the conversion/ROI game and are thinking about hiring
a search engine optimization company, make sure that its goal is
to be attuned to your bottom line.
(C) 2009 Medium Blue
About The Author
Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was named the number one organic
search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007
by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including The Complete Guide to Google
Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs,
ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and
national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee
based on your goals and your data.
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