Search engine optimization is typically affordable, there are plenty of options out there that can easily start to add up. There are also methods that don’t have that good of a return. With all of the options out there for SEO and the limited budget that most businesses have, you need to know your investments are making you money.

Your use of search engine optimization needs to be tracked and a lot of people do the basics, such as having Google Analytics. Tracking your return on investment is one of the most important parts of SEO.

How do you measure the return on investment for search engine optimization?

Increased Traffic

The number one thing that you are looking for when you invest in search engine optimization is an increased level of traffic. Google Analytics detailed views of traffic will help you to determine where all of your traffic is coming from. To tell if your SEO is working, you will want to see an increase in traffic that is maintaining or increasing during the lifespan of your SEO efforts.

Most of the traffic should be coming through search engines or through link building efforts (like premium web directory submission) that you undertook.

Track Your Ranking

Your website’s rank on the internet is something that can actually be tracked. MozRank and your Google Ranking are two numbers that you can track. As your website gets more optimized for search engine friendliness, your score should go up. Keeping track of the score of your website will help you to identify success.

It will also help you to identify anything that might be wrong with your site. If you perform your own search engine optimization it is also possible that you might have left something out. Tracking your ranking through these sites will help you to identify anything that may have been left out.

Increase In Other Numbers

Traffic is an important number, and sales is also an important number, but there are many other numbers involved in SEO. A good example of this is your click-through-rate (or CTR). Keep track of these numbers to see if they improve will also help to show if you have a good return on your investment.

There are black hat SEO methods that will get you traffic but the traffic won’t be real (or helpful) to your business. You can use these numbers to help determine if the traffic that you are getting is real or not.

Compare Pre-SEO Sales With Post-SEO Sales

Make sure that you know your sales numbers before you implement your SEO efforts. This gives you a baseline for your sales. Once you have implemented your SEO efforts, it is important to keep tracking your sales. If overall sales increase and stay increased, chances are that your SEO measures are working.

But once your SEO has started, you want to make sure that you track each individual measure to determine what works the most.

Use Link Tracking Utilities

There are a variety of utilities that are out there for you to track links. You can have specialized links developed for SEO techniques that will tell you when people click through the link, then you can use cookies to track when a customer makes a purchase. This alone will help you to determine how much money you are making from your SEO efforts.

Keep It Simple, Use Built In Utilities

Simple is always better then complicated. Most search engine optimization services and tools have ways to track your SEO efforts. These systems are perfect because they are designed to track that specific SEO measure.

Find Specific Tracking Measures

Each SEO method should be tracked and analyzed. While SEO works as a whole, it also works to identify SEO measures that aren’t helping you at all. It will also show you where you can put more work in.

Measuring the outcome of your SEO is essential to your business. But tracking your return on investment is the most important part of tracking your SEO efforts. You should be able to determine exactly how well your search engine optimization measures are performing. Some of that comes down to traffic and another portion is sales. Use the tips we mentioned above to know how your SEO is going.