The Only Way To Sell Your Organic Search Strategy To Execs
Marketers and SEOs by nature tend to fall on the creative or technical side of the skillset spectrum. I’m no different in that regard. As a result, there are few things that cause me more stomach pains as an in-house SEO than the word, “forecasting”. These requests more often than not come from CFOs and other finance-oriented leaders. I can certainly understand why this topic comes up but it doesn’t make it any less of a pain to address. Why, you might ask? Read on.
Reasons Why SEO Is Hard To Forecast
- We have no control over how much SEO traffic Google and Bing will drive to our site. This is not as simple as throwing more budget at it unlike Google or Bing Ads.
- SEO algorithms change all the time. Forecasting is difficult when the goalposts are moving everyday.
- Competitors change all the time.
- Organic Search data is obfuscated by Google
- Making SEO changes often requires multiple stakeholders to buy-in to even do the work
- Traffic growth takes time after making updates
- I can give you detailed projections. I just can’t guarantee them.
The Importance Of Forecasting For SEO
- Forecasting is more often than not how you get your projects funded at companies
- It shows that there is potential value to be unlocked by investing in SEO initiatives
- Content, developers, engineers and tools all cost money. Often lots of money. What is the ROI on all of this?
- It forces you to be ruthless when prioritizing and create a roadmap which will come in handy when / if you do get buy-in
Ways To Forecast SEO Value
Forecasting is by no-means a science but the first place to start is to quantify what organic search is worth or potentially worth to the company. You’ll need a strong handle on analytics and data or at least have a capable and willing partner on the data team to help you. In-lieu of good 1st-party data then you’ll have to rely on traditional SEO metrics such as rankings, clicks, impressions (search volume) and click-thru rates (CTR).
Having good web analytics also helps in terms of knowing how certain pages convert to leads or sales. If you’re investing resources into a certain type of content or product for the website then it helps to know what your baseline is currently delivering. If you’re trying to make a case for technical SEO initiatives then you’ll have to figure out how to translate technical jargon into concepts that non-SEO decision makers care about. Maybe your current image hosting setup is killing your site performance. Then work with your infrastructure lead on how to save money by image hosting on a different CDN or platform.
Show the executives how the competitors are gaining ground or leaving you behind. This is often the simplest concept to grasp. If competitors rank much higher for the search terms that you want then estimate how much incremental traffic might be gained by improving organic visibility. If you are fortunate enough to have good data then you can also estimate how much revenue or leads that incremental traffic is worth.
In summary, there are many ways to go about forecasting SEO traffic and value. I’ve touched upon several ways to accomplish this. I’m sure there are things I might not have even considered before. What is clear however is that forecasting is an important exercise for most companies whether or not we like it.