09.16.08
Looking past rankings
With so much attention always being paid to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tips and techniques, there is no shortage of “how to” posts out there. These are invaluable resources. Of course, there is also a lot of nonsensical and outdated information out there too. It’s sometimes hard to differentiate between the two – which is why the best way to learn is by trial and error.
Most SEOs today are self-taught and stay up-to-date by reading blogs and industry newsletters regularly.
The best way to learn is by doing. Of course, ideally, you don’t want to get too experimental with clients websites – and so it’s often best to use your own personal blog or website to test your postulates. But in the end what all this empiricism comes down to is benchmarking, measuring and reporting.
Today, I’d like to look at this side of SEO.
We all know that reporting is an important part of SEO. Indeed, it’s one way we can substantiate return on investment (ROI) for our clients. However, there must be more to this reporting than just looking at aspects such as visibility and ranking reports. I’m not implying that this data isn’t important – and a good indicator of the relative success of a campaign, but there is potential here for misinterpretation and lack of relevance from an ROI (i.e. actual conversions) point of view.
Best practise when it comes to reporting to clients is definitely transparency. There is no point in trying to mask poor performance with clouded stats. At the end of the day, things will not add up, and when it comes to the bottom-line, clients know when they are not receiving value for money.
What should you be looking at then? Clearly, ranking and saturation reporting can not be neglected. But, analytics reporting is certainly the cornerstone for finding actionable data.
In addition to the usual metrics such as referrers, top keywords and top content – KPIs that really matter to a client could include the average value per sale, the revenue per visit and perhaps the organic conversion percentage.
Improved rankings on the SERPs invariably equal more traffic, and more traffic can equal more conversions. It’s important though to make sure that you are getting the right kind of traffic and visibility in the right places.