Benchmarking SEO efforts
It is important to have a fixed point of measurement that you can use as a starting point, both when setting objectives for work on search engine optimizationand when you later need to evaluate the results of your work. Therefore, benchmark (i.e. clarify) your current presence on Google and the impact your current presence has on your business as much as possible.
We recommend that you measure and document the following:
- Your visibility on Google.
- Your visitor traffic from Google (i.e. organic traffic).
- The number of visitors from Google that convert to sales and leads.
- Your return on SEO compared to other marketing channels.
- Your resource consumption on SEO.
If you also work with Google Ads furthermore:
- Your return on investment (ROI) on Google Ads.
- Your return on Google Ads compared to other marketing channels.
- Your resource usage on Google Ads.
You can document your visitor traffic from Google and the number of conversions using Google Analytics(free). You can document your visibility on Google using Google Search Console(free) and/or an SEO tool such as SEMrush(commercial).
The other points may be difficult to document, especially if you have not previously kept statistics on the costs and benefits of your marketing efforts. But try - data is a valuable asset when you later evaluate and prioritise your work.
Objectives for SEO
SEO work should be based on defined objectives (so-called KPIs). Objectives must be measurable, because only then can you assess and evaluate whether the effort is worthwhile. At the same time, they provide incentives and motivation for the work. Objectives can be formulated at three levels:
Economic objectives
The economic objectives are typically the end goal of the effort. They may be to:
- increase sales of certain products or services
- increase the number of leads and customer enquiries
- spend fewer resources on support and customer service
- attract new qualified employees.
Tactical goals
The tactical objectives are the foundation for the economic objectives. They can be to:
- increase the number of visitors to the website
- strengthen visibility on Google in specific product areas
- increase visibility on Google to new audiences
- hide negative publicity on Google (reputation management)
- outperform one or more competitors on Google.
Operational objectives
The operational objectives are the foundation for the tactical objectives. They can be to:
- prepare a keyword analysis
- fix a number of technical bugs on the website
- optimise the content of a number of landing pages on the website
- build a number of new links monthly to selected landing pages
- hire an SEO specialist or a SEO agency.
Quantification of objectives is an advantage. If you have not worked with SEO before, the quantification will probably be very loosely based. If you work with an SEO agency, they can help you set more informed, realistic goals.
The measurements are not static. The conditions and foundations of the goals set may change along the way, and so the goals will naturally change too. The actions of you, your competitors and Google all influence the goals and their achievement, and therefore no SEO agency can guarantee the achievement of specific tactical and financial goals.
Evaluation of SEO
Evaluation is a systematic, professional assessment of the quality and output of your work. A continuous evaluation ensures that you use your time and resources wisely and at the same time forms the basis for the further prioritisation and optimisation of your work efforts.
Evaluation is carried out on the basis of defined, measurable objectives (see Chapter 2), typically broken down into operational objectives, tactical objective and economic objectives. In this chapter you can read about each of these three target categories. The objectives are not static. The conditions and prerequisites for the goals set may change along the way, and so the goals will naturally change too.
Remember that SEO is a long-term process and you can only make a reasonable assessment of the benefits after a minimum period of six months. In our experience, the return on investment is greatest if the work is carried out over a period of at least 12 months. This is partly because it takes time for Google to detect changes and partly because the work itself takes time.
If you work with an SEO agency, they should send you regular performance reports and hold regular review meetings with you to evaluate the progress and results of your collaboration. In addition, you should regularly evaluate the SEO agency on the basis of the results and our recommendations for choice of SEO agency.
Operational objectives
Operational objectives is the target for the practical execution of the work. They may be to:
- prepare a keyword analysis
- fix a number of technical bugs on the website
- optimise the content of a number of landing pages on the website
- build a number of new links monthly to selected landing pages
- hire an SEO specialist or an SEO agency.
Operational objectives are binding in the sense that the tactical and economic objectives can only be achieved if the associated operational objectives are met. In other words, they are the foundation of a successful SEO effort, and the more ambitious you are on an operational level, the more ambitious you can afford to be tactically and financially.
Tools for evaluating operational objectives
For larger SEO projects involving many parties and over a long period of time, a project management tool such as Podio, Monday, Basecamp or TeamGantt can be useful for setting and evaluating operational objectives. For smaller SEO projects, a simple checklist in a text document may be sufficient.
Keep the operational objectives in line with your action plan (see Chapter 2) to ensure that they are achieved on time. Set new targets regularly, to the extent that you have the time and resources to achieve them, and to the extent that they are necessary to achieve your tactical and financial objectives.
Tactical goals
Tactical goals is the measure of the results of the work. They may be to:
- increase the number of visitors to the website
- strengthen visibility on Google in specific product areas
- increase visibility on Google to new audiences
- hide negative publicity on Google (reputation management)
- outperform one or more competitors on Google.
The tactical objectives are the foundation for the economic objectives. If your website has no visibility on Google and if there are no visitors to the website, you cannot realise your financial goals. At the same time, the achievement of tactical goals is a direct indicator of the extent to which you have succeeded in your operational goals.
Tools for evaluating tactical objectives
Your number of visits to the website can be read in Google Analytics or an equivalent statistical programme. Click on 'Acquisition' in the menu on the left and then on 'All traffic' and 'Channels'. The work on SEO mainly concerns traffic from search engines (Organic Search), but remember that it can also have a positive impact on the amount of traffic from the other traffic channels.
Select a date range at the top right of the window and compare with the same period last year. The data interval should be at least one month, and should not extend over a period longer than the one during which you have been working with SEO. Optionally, click on the 'Secondary dimension' button and select 'Behaviour' and 'Landing page' to view statistics for individual pages on the website.
Your visibility on Google can be measured in SEMrush or an equivalent tool such as Ahrefs or Searchmetrics. Enter your website in the search box at the top and click on 'Organic Research' in the menu on the left to get an overview of your visibility in search results compared to your closest competitors. You can also see which specific keywords you are visible on.
In your work on content optimisation of the website, you have probably carried out a keyword analysis and from this selected a number of keywords on which to focus your efforts. Make sure you create a project in SEMrush (by clicking on 'Projects' in the left menu) where you enter your keywords and selected competitors so you can track your position on the words.
You can also use Google Search Console to map your traffic from Google. Among other things, Google lets you see which keywords you're visible on and how many visits you've gotten from each keyword. The data is more accurate than SEMrush, but you can't track your competitors or create projects to track your visibility on specific keywords.
If you want to hide negative publicity on Google, you can only evaluate the result by manually performing a Google search for the keywords where the negative publicity appears. Hiding negative publicity is difficult and requires you to build links to lower ranked search results (not necessarily your own website) to get them to appear above the negative results.
Economic objectives
Economic objectives are measures of the business value of the work. They may be to:
- increase sales of certain products or services
- increase the number of leads and customer enquiries
- spend fewer resources on support and customer service
- attract new qualified employees.
Increased financial turnover is often an end goal of SEO efforts. This can be direct revenue (sales) or indirect revenue (leads). Sales can be purchases of services or products. Leads can be anything from meetings with potential customers to downloads of brochures, subscriptions to newsletters and attendance at trade events.
Tools for evaluating economic objectives
Many companies find it difficult to evaluate financial targets because they do not have useful or sufficient data. Sales can be made via the website, through an app, over the phone, via email or in a physical store, and this puts a lot of demands on your data collection. And if you need to simultaneously collect data on which marketing channel the sales are coming from, it can be a resource-heavy task.
If your entire business is online through your website, you can set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to track the number of sales and leads. Sales are good as a metric because they have a tangible economic value. Leads can't always be valued here and now, because the prospect only becomes a customer later - and some never become customers.
If your sales and leads also occur elsewhere, you should have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system where you collect data on all sales and leads. This can be done more or less automatically depending on the system you choose. However, if you have a very small business, a CRM system is likely to require an inappropriate amount of resources.
Just as you may find it very difficult to evaluate financial targets yourself, so too will any SEO agency you work with. Therefore, the evaluation is typically done at a tactical level, including your positions on Google on selected keywords, your overall traffic from Google and your visibility compared to selected competitors.
Reasons for failure
If you have not achieved your goals, it may be for several reasons. Maybe you haven't finished the work yet, maybe you've under-prioritised one of the four areas (technical, content, links and user signals) or maybe your competitors are actively working on SEO, in which case you need to prioritise or reprioritise your own efforts.
Typically, you will find that you get good results on some keywords, while on other keywords you do not get the desired results. This is quite common. In this case, you can focus your efforts on the keywords where you can improve. You can do this by doing a Google search for each keyword and comparing your website with those ranked above you.
The comparison can be based on several parameters, including:
- Text length. As a general rule, the body text on the page should be longer than the text your competitors have on their page.
- Headlines. The heading of the page should contain the keyword, and the keyword should also be included in one or more of the subheadings.
- Page title. The page title should contain the keyword at the beginning and should be formulated as an easy-to-read, appealing text.
- Page description. The page description should contain the keyword 2-3 times, possibly in different inflections, and should contain relevant sales messages.
- Links. The value of all inbound links to the page should be higher than the value of all links to your competitors' page. Use Ahrefs for comparison.
- Technique. The site should not contain technical errors or inadequacies. Pay particular attention to load time, mobile-friendliness and duplicate content.
Remember that a page is typically visible on many different keywords, and that optimising for one keyword should not be at the expense of a more important keyword. In your keyword analysis, you probably have the most important keyword for the page. Alternatively, you can enter the page in Google Search Console to view all keywords on which the site is visible and determine the most important keyword.
