How To Track Investment In SEO

How to track investment in SEO against returns
Neil Walker
CTO
Just Search Ltd

Who am I?
Who am I? Neil Walker
Position: Chief Technical Officer
Company: Just Search Ltd
Expertise:
Search Engine Optimisation
Pay Per Click
Analytics Qualified
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Experience
Worked or been involved with SEO for over 2500 clients in the UK and nearly 5000 clients for Pan Europe.
Twitter.com/TheUKSEO
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Disadvantages of SEO over PPC
You can’t work out traffic for SEO?
You can’t track conversions in SEO?
You can’t rank 1st page instantly in SEO?
You can’t work out organic CTR?
You can’t predict required budgets in SEO?
You can’t optimise 100’s of phrases in SEO?
More people click on sponsored adverts?
You can’t improve website conversion rate with SEO?
You can’t do SEO without PPC?
SEO costs less than PPC?
False
False
True
False
False
False
False
False
False
TRICK!
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Learning Objectives
The purpose of this seminar is to show you how to create a factual SEO Business Plan / Case by:
Predicting organic traffic to your website
Analysing the potential income
Studying the investment required
Working out profit & loss for your business plan.
Carrying out ongoing tracking of your predictions
Looking at long term goals by reviewing the potential from ranking between positions 10-5 against 3-1.
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Google’s Domination
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Click Through Rates

Organic vs.. PPC Click Through Rates Pt.1
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Organic vs.. PPC Click Through Rates Pt.2
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Organic Click Through Rates (Eye Tracking 2004)
People have been interested in CTR for many years.
This image was highlighted by SEO Researcher.com based on research from Cornell University from 2004
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Organic Click Through Rates (AOL 2006)
August of 2006 AOL leaked millions of search records
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Organic Click Through Rates (Google 2010) Pt.1
This month GWT enhanced their Top Search Query Function.
At Just Search we compiled sample data from 100 clients across 1500 key phrases.
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Organic Click Through Rates (Google 2010) Pt.2
We took the data and also segmented in by Key Phrase length, again this revealed some interesting information about ranking No.1
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Organic CTR
From the collated data we can now make an educated guess at the Click Through Rate if your website ranks on the first page for a given keyword
Position 2-10 = CTR 4.85%
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Conversion Rates

Website Conversion Rates
PPC is a good way to find out your website’s conversion rate, however if you do not have this luxury, there are a number of sources which can give you an idea of Average Conversion rates.
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Website Conversion Rates
From the collated data we can now make an educated guess at the conversion rate of your website
Average Conversion Rate = 2.9%
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Keyword Analysis

Keyword Analysis Pt.1
Use a tool to give you the predicted traffic i.e.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Microsoft-advertising-intelligence
https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer
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Keyword Analysis Pt.2
We now have the following data:
CTR on Ranking Organically between 2-10
Average Website Conversion Rate
Exact predicted Monthly Traffic per keyword
We now need:
Potential Timescale to gain results
Average Gross Profit per service / product.
Average Order Values
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Income, Investment & Timescales

Predicting Timescales
This requires expertise!!
If you’re client-side, then get estimated timescales from a potential SEO provider
If you’re agency-side, then look at all the factors required to gain a ranking and use your experience to predict a timeline.
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Investment Required
Again client-side – You will get potential cost from your SEO Provider.
Agency-side – You need to think about:
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Potential Income
Finally, to put your business plan together you need to know your potential Gross Profit %.
Either an average GP
Or even better a GP per product.
You will also need to look at your potential Average Order Values or Product / Service Prices
Carry out market research
E-commerce site / service site
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Quick Overview
You should now have the following data:
First Page CTR
Website Conversion Rate
Potential Keywords & Traffic
Predicted Timescales
Investment Required
Average Order Value
Average Gross Profit
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Financials

Putting it together
Use Excel to put all your information together
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Pivot Table
Create a Pivot Table
Analyse the potential income you will start receiving for each keyword for each month.
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Investment
Your SEO Company advises it will cost you £2500 pcm
Will you make a profit?
How long will it take you to break even?
How long will it take to pay back your investment?
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Profit & Loss Year 1
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Payback
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2 Year Profit Forecast
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Tracking

Ongoing Tracking
Use Google Analytics
Set up Conversion Goals
Set up Goal Funnels
Set up E-commerce tracking (if applicable)
Set up Webmaster tools and monitor CTR
Set up web ranking reports to monitor positions
This will allow you to track the Business Plan you are working towards
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Google Analytics – Custom Reporting Pt.1
You can drill down by Source, then display:
Visits
Transaction
Product Revenue
By Keyword.
This tells you which keywords are making money!
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Let’s look at Real Data!

Real Data – CTR & Conversion(Month 11)
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Predictions vs.. Actual Data
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Actual P&L Year 1
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Actual Payback
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Future Goals

Traffic vs.. Investment
12 months later you are ranking on the first page
Average Ranking positions of 10 to 5.
How much is a top 2 position worth to you?
How much are you willing to spend?
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Traffic vs.. Investment
23 x more traffic in No.1
5.6 x more traffic in No.2
3.7 x more traffic in No.3
It is very likely that companies may need to double or triple SEO budgets to gain positions 1 & 2, this is well worth it!
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Overview

Learning Objectives - Recap
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Question / Debate
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How To Track Investment In SEO

by Just Search on May 25, 2010

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How To Track Investment In SEO — Presentation Transcript