Post by sumiseo558899 on Nov 9, 2024 22:55:59 GMT -5
SEO is the oldest service on the digital market. It would seem that the issues of evaluating results should have been trampled down to the ground long ago.
In practice, this is far from true. At “ Original Works ,” we regularly encounter the substitution of concepts and the blurring of responsibility, which prevent the client from correctly interpreting the result.
I will share points that are worth paying close attention to so that both parties are satisfied with the results of SEO promotion.
Key KPIs: what can they be for SEO, and what is the contractor responsible for?
To determine the KPI of SEO promotion
content writing service work for a commercial website, let's remember what a sales funnel looks like from the point of view of search engine promotion, list the possible KPIs for each stage and the corresponding work scheme:
news
The choice of a specific work scheme depends on business goals and available resources, determines the cost of promotion, the payment scheme for the SEO company's services and the contractor's area of responsibility.
Let's consider these work schemes in more detail.
How Pay Per Lead Works
At first glance, work on leads seems the most attractive, since the customer pays for the client’s target actions (application from the website, call, order through the basket, etc.), which can be taken into account using analytics.
Be prepared for the fact that the “lead” scheme is longer and requires more resources: collecting and analyzing statistics, adjusting the site to business tasks, working with the product/service, connecting additional promotion channels (context, remarketing, etc.), since SEO alone is not enough in this scheme.
For lead generation, it is critical for the contractor to be immersed in the client's business. In practice, however, not all customers are willing to share information about their business. Therefore, the issue of trust and reputation of the contractor is a cornerstone, and we will return to it later.
A conscientious contractor will not work on leads if there are no accurate statistics from each channel for at least six months (in certain topics - at least a year, to smooth out possible fluctuations in demand and assess growth points). Without information on the dynamics, it is impossible to qualitatively predict the result, estimate the cost of a lead from each channel and, as a result, competently manage the allocated advertising budget.
Going to work on leads without being prepared is a deliberately losing strategy with an extremely vague financial efficiency. The same applies to sites with complex topics.
Therefore, if lead-based promotion is not suitable, pay attention to the schemes of work by positions or traffic, the cost of which is significantly lower.
How do the “by position” and “by traffic” schemes work?
Both schemes involve moving through a list of queries, the only difference being its breadth and flexibility. I will give several criteria for choosing between them:
1) The level of demand in the subject and the specifics of the business
For the service sector or highly specialized goods, the list of queries is usually limited. To collect the maximum possible traffic, it is enough to promote the site by positions.
Example: online store of woodworking equipment
The client approached us at the end of May 2017 with a desire to increase sales of expensive equipment on the site. It was decided to work by positions, because the list of requests and the reserve for traffic growth were severely limited by the narrowness of the subject matter.
After 3 months of comprehensive work on the main site, the implementation of a regional subdomain structure, we achieved growth in positions in all 10 regions in which the site was promoted. The result is a jump in traffic by ~2-3 times.
news
As we can see from the graph, the number of transitions from search continues to grow, but in absolute terms it is quite modest. Therefore, traffic promotion in this situation of limited demand is pointless.
2) Assortment of the catalog
A large catalog with a competitive assortment is the main point of traffic growth. If you can boast of this on your site, pay attention to the traffic diagram.
Example: online store of home decor products
Due to a very negative experience with previous contractors (suspicion of artificial traffic manipulation), in the contract with our company, the client insisted exclusively on working by positions. At that time, this scheme seemed clearer and safer to the customer.
When the agency confirmed its competence with results, the client agreed to switch to traffic. We got more opportunities for website optimization and almost doubled the target traffic.
news
3) Search traffic statistics
Search traffic data is needed to make a forecast and estimate the cost of attracting a visitor. If there is no data (or not enough), working by positions is suitable for you.
These basic (in fact, there are more) criteria for choosing a scheme for a commercial site are taken into account simultaneously. For example, a site with a large catalog, but without search traffic statistics, will have to be promoted for some time by positions.
Any of these work schemes when promoting the full semantic core will ensure audience coverage.
To turn visitors into leads, you need to work on the usability of the site, your offer (price, terms of sale of the product or service) and the image of the company. We at the agency offer assistance in working with conversions, we connect the analytics department, but the solution to the problem - to increase the number of applications and calls - when working on positions or traffic remains with the client. It is better to agree on this "on the shore".
Additional kpi
Effective impressions, visibility, and other KPIs indirectly show changes in the site's position relative to competitors.
Effective impressions reflect how many times users will see your site in search results for selected queries. They are calculated for each query and each search engine separately (frequency is multiplied by a coefficient depending on the site's position) and are summed up into a total indicator.
Visibility will tell you the share of the current number of effective impressions from the maximum (from the total frequency of the list of queries). A high level of visibility is achieved due to the width of the semantic core or good positions for high-frequency queries.
By comparing yourself with your competitors on this indicator, you can understand who objectively covers the audience better. Below are real data from three sites (floor coverings, region - Moscow), collected by an independent service on a wide core of requests.
news
From the graph we can conclude that site3.ru has a better audience reach, but if site1.ru has started some promotion activity in the last 2-2.5 months, then site2.ru, on the contrary, has seen an intensified decline.
How to evaluate the composition of works
Without practical experience in website promotion (if you are not an optimizer), it is difficult to give an adequate assessment of the scope of work. Even having delved into the subject, having studied a lot of articles and “useful” tips on the Internet, you will not be able to objectively assess the volume or composition of the required changes, the order of their implementation and the degree of influence on the result.
For example, there are still misconceptions about link mass evaluation circulating on the Internet: first, that links are not needed, second, that the main quality criterion is the subject of the donor site. The requirements of optimizers today are different and mostly technical.
The result should be assessed in the form that is fixed by the contract. Ideally, you should have a promotion strategy, a website development plan (in broad strokes), a roadmap of work. This way you will know WHERE and HOW you are going and at what points the statistics will show whether you have lost your way.
When to expect results or when to start panicking
The contractor will advise when to expect the first results only after the initial audit: subject matter, the company's place relative to competitors, the technical condition of the site, etc.
These are estimated timeframes, since no one can give exact guarantees in SEO: the results depend on the competence of the promotion team on the agency side, the state of the site, the customer’s involvement in the process, and the search algorithms of search engines.
The timeframes given without analysis (usually 3-6-12 months) will be as informative as the average temperature in a hospital.
The estimated timeframes for receiving results (in this section and further on, by results we will mean only positions or traffic) are influenced by:
competitiveness of the subject matter, volume and structure of demand in it;
region;
factors of website authority and its technical organization;
quantity and quality of content, logical structure, availability of required functionality and other factors.
As you can see, not all groups of factors are within the influence of an SEO specialist. That is why conscientious companies do not provide guarantees, but make forecasts and only after analysis.
If you do not use other channels that bring orders, and the goal is to get orders as quickly as possible, then we recommend abandoning “pure” SEO and combining it with contextual advertising.
Example: website for car detailing services
The new site and the new domain told us early on that organic traffic would take a long time to arrive. It took almost a year to get the long-awaited increase in traffic.
news
Tools for evaluating results
Positions
All mass reports on positions are generated based on the XML output of search engines. Regardless of which service they are downloaded from. The error between the data of different services is minimal, so you can trust the reports on positions from the SEO company.
But if you want to evaluate the results yourself, use paid or free services, for example:
All Positions,
SEOlib,
Mainspy,
Topvisor
It makes sense to do this no earlier than 1-2 months after the launch of the promotion.
Effective impressions
You can view the dynamics of effective site impressions in the Megaindex service . It covers the maximum possible list of queries in your topic, so you see the entire increase, and not just changes in your semantic core. Another feature of this service is the ability to compare your visibility with competitors. In our opinion, this is priceless =)
Traffic
We use reliable sources - Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics . I'll tell you what you need to pay attention to here:
First, the amount of search traffic. Total, by region (if promotion is for several regions), by device. Usually, this is enough to understand the result.
For example: a website for car rental services in one of the regions hosting the FIFA World Cup
The share of mobile traffic to the site has been growing slowly but surely over the past few years, but in anticipation of the influx of visitors to the city for the sporting event, mobile traffic took a leap.
news
What conclusion should the client and I draw from this? To urgently, urgently work on an adaptive version of the site.
For a more in-depth assessment, it is useful to look at sections by landing pages and search queries. The latter is especially interesting if your company is popular online. It is important that growth occurs not only due to brand traffic, but it should not be allowed to fall.
Secondly, this is a change in behavioral metrics (minimum - bounces, time on site) in general and by device.
The main thing is conversions. Achieving a goal is not an order yet, but the closest step to it. Configured compound goals will show not only the number of orders from the site, but also at what stage of the funnel some of your customers abandon the order.
Leads
If you have already reached the lead assessment stage, you will need much more information than this article can contain. Therefore, we will consider the tools for their assessment very briefly.
The best options are the same Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics , which should have goals set for user actions (for each step of filling out and until successful submission of forms, paths to the shopping cart, stages of placing an order, etc.), and connected e-commerce modules.
Another essential tool is any of the services that offer dynamic call tracking and a platform for analyzing the data collected with its help ( Calltouch , Comagic , Callibri are currently popular ).
Dynamic call tracking makes it possible to record and analyze data about calls from website visitors, namely:
In practice, this is far from true. At “ Original Works ,” we regularly encounter the substitution of concepts and the blurring of responsibility, which prevent the client from correctly interpreting the result.
I will share points that are worth paying close attention to so that both parties are satisfied with the results of SEO promotion.
Key KPIs: what can they be for SEO, and what is the contractor responsible for?
To determine the KPI of SEO promotion
content writing service work for a commercial website, let's remember what a sales funnel looks like from the point of view of search engine promotion, list the possible KPIs for each stage and the corresponding work scheme:
news
The choice of a specific work scheme depends on business goals and available resources, determines the cost of promotion, the payment scheme for the SEO company's services and the contractor's area of responsibility.
Let's consider these work schemes in more detail.
How Pay Per Lead Works
At first glance, work on leads seems the most attractive, since the customer pays for the client’s target actions (application from the website, call, order through the basket, etc.), which can be taken into account using analytics.
Be prepared for the fact that the “lead” scheme is longer and requires more resources: collecting and analyzing statistics, adjusting the site to business tasks, working with the product/service, connecting additional promotion channels (context, remarketing, etc.), since SEO alone is not enough in this scheme.
For lead generation, it is critical for the contractor to be immersed in the client's business. In practice, however, not all customers are willing to share information about their business. Therefore, the issue of trust and reputation of the contractor is a cornerstone, and we will return to it later.
A conscientious contractor will not work on leads if there are no accurate statistics from each channel for at least six months (in certain topics - at least a year, to smooth out possible fluctuations in demand and assess growth points). Without information on the dynamics, it is impossible to qualitatively predict the result, estimate the cost of a lead from each channel and, as a result, competently manage the allocated advertising budget.
Going to work on leads without being prepared is a deliberately losing strategy with an extremely vague financial efficiency. The same applies to sites with complex topics.
Therefore, if lead-based promotion is not suitable, pay attention to the schemes of work by positions or traffic, the cost of which is significantly lower.
How do the “by position” and “by traffic” schemes work?
Both schemes involve moving through a list of queries, the only difference being its breadth and flexibility. I will give several criteria for choosing between them:
1) The level of demand in the subject and the specifics of the business
For the service sector or highly specialized goods, the list of queries is usually limited. To collect the maximum possible traffic, it is enough to promote the site by positions.
Example: online store of woodworking equipment
The client approached us at the end of May 2017 with a desire to increase sales of expensive equipment on the site. It was decided to work by positions, because the list of requests and the reserve for traffic growth were severely limited by the narrowness of the subject matter.
After 3 months of comprehensive work on the main site, the implementation of a regional subdomain structure, we achieved growth in positions in all 10 regions in which the site was promoted. The result is a jump in traffic by ~2-3 times.
news
As we can see from the graph, the number of transitions from search continues to grow, but in absolute terms it is quite modest. Therefore, traffic promotion in this situation of limited demand is pointless.
2) Assortment of the catalog
A large catalog with a competitive assortment is the main point of traffic growth. If you can boast of this on your site, pay attention to the traffic diagram.
Example: online store of home decor products
Due to a very negative experience with previous contractors (suspicion of artificial traffic manipulation), in the contract with our company, the client insisted exclusively on working by positions. At that time, this scheme seemed clearer and safer to the customer.
When the agency confirmed its competence with results, the client agreed to switch to traffic. We got more opportunities for website optimization and almost doubled the target traffic.
news
3) Search traffic statistics
Search traffic data is needed to make a forecast and estimate the cost of attracting a visitor. If there is no data (or not enough), working by positions is suitable for you.
These basic (in fact, there are more) criteria for choosing a scheme for a commercial site are taken into account simultaneously. For example, a site with a large catalog, but without search traffic statistics, will have to be promoted for some time by positions.
Any of these work schemes when promoting the full semantic core will ensure audience coverage.
To turn visitors into leads, you need to work on the usability of the site, your offer (price, terms of sale of the product or service) and the image of the company. We at the agency offer assistance in working with conversions, we connect the analytics department, but the solution to the problem - to increase the number of applications and calls - when working on positions or traffic remains with the client. It is better to agree on this "on the shore".
Additional kpi
Effective impressions, visibility, and other KPIs indirectly show changes in the site's position relative to competitors.
Effective impressions reflect how many times users will see your site in search results for selected queries. They are calculated for each query and each search engine separately (frequency is multiplied by a coefficient depending on the site's position) and are summed up into a total indicator.
Visibility will tell you the share of the current number of effective impressions from the maximum (from the total frequency of the list of queries). A high level of visibility is achieved due to the width of the semantic core or good positions for high-frequency queries.
By comparing yourself with your competitors on this indicator, you can understand who objectively covers the audience better. Below are real data from three sites (floor coverings, region - Moscow), collected by an independent service on a wide core of requests.
news
From the graph we can conclude that site3.ru has a better audience reach, but if site1.ru has started some promotion activity in the last 2-2.5 months, then site2.ru, on the contrary, has seen an intensified decline.
How to evaluate the composition of works
Without practical experience in website promotion (if you are not an optimizer), it is difficult to give an adequate assessment of the scope of work. Even having delved into the subject, having studied a lot of articles and “useful” tips on the Internet, you will not be able to objectively assess the volume or composition of the required changes, the order of their implementation and the degree of influence on the result.
For example, there are still misconceptions about link mass evaluation circulating on the Internet: first, that links are not needed, second, that the main quality criterion is the subject of the donor site. The requirements of optimizers today are different and mostly technical.
The result should be assessed in the form that is fixed by the contract. Ideally, you should have a promotion strategy, a website development plan (in broad strokes), a roadmap of work. This way you will know WHERE and HOW you are going and at what points the statistics will show whether you have lost your way.
When to expect results or when to start panicking
The contractor will advise when to expect the first results only after the initial audit: subject matter, the company's place relative to competitors, the technical condition of the site, etc.
These are estimated timeframes, since no one can give exact guarantees in SEO: the results depend on the competence of the promotion team on the agency side, the state of the site, the customer’s involvement in the process, and the search algorithms of search engines.
The timeframes given without analysis (usually 3-6-12 months) will be as informative as the average temperature in a hospital.
The estimated timeframes for receiving results (in this section and further on, by results we will mean only positions or traffic) are influenced by:
competitiveness of the subject matter, volume and structure of demand in it;
region;
factors of website authority and its technical organization;
quantity and quality of content, logical structure, availability of required functionality and other factors.
As you can see, not all groups of factors are within the influence of an SEO specialist. That is why conscientious companies do not provide guarantees, but make forecasts and only after analysis.
If you do not use other channels that bring orders, and the goal is to get orders as quickly as possible, then we recommend abandoning “pure” SEO and combining it with contextual advertising.
Example: website for car detailing services
The new site and the new domain told us early on that organic traffic would take a long time to arrive. It took almost a year to get the long-awaited increase in traffic.
news
Tools for evaluating results
Positions
All mass reports on positions are generated based on the XML output of search engines. Regardless of which service they are downloaded from. The error between the data of different services is minimal, so you can trust the reports on positions from the SEO company.
But if you want to evaluate the results yourself, use paid or free services, for example:
All Positions,
SEOlib,
Mainspy,
Topvisor
It makes sense to do this no earlier than 1-2 months after the launch of the promotion.
Effective impressions
You can view the dynamics of effective site impressions in the Megaindex service . It covers the maximum possible list of queries in your topic, so you see the entire increase, and not just changes in your semantic core. Another feature of this service is the ability to compare your visibility with competitors. In our opinion, this is priceless =)
Traffic
We use reliable sources - Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics . I'll tell you what you need to pay attention to here:
First, the amount of search traffic. Total, by region (if promotion is for several regions), by device. Usually, this is enough to understand the result.
For example: a website for car rental services in one of the regions hosting the FIFA World Cup
The share of mobile traffic to the site has been growing slowly but surely over the past few years, but in anticipation of the influx of visitors to the city for the sporting event, mobile traffic took a leap.
news
What conclusion should the client and I draw from this? To urgently, urgently work on an adaptive version of the site.
For a more in-depth assessment, it is useful to look at sections by landing pages and search queries. The latter is especially interesting if your company is popular online. It is important that growth occurs not only due to brand traffic, but it should not be allowed to fall.
Secondly, this is a change in behavioral metrics (minimum - bounces, time on site) in general and by device.
The main thing is conversions. Achieving a goal is not an order yet, but the closest step to it. Configured compound goals will show not only the number of orders from the site, but also at what stage of the funnel some of your customers abandon the order.
Leads
If you have already reached the lead assessment stage, you will need much more information than this article can contain. Therefore, we will consider the tools for their assessment very briefly.
The best options are the same Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics , which should have goals set for user actions (for each step of filling out and until successful submission of forms, paths to the shopping cart, stages of placing an order, etc.), and connected e-commerce modules.
Another essential tool is any of the services that offer dynamic call tracking and a platform for analyzing the data collected with its help ( Calltouch , Comagic , Callibri are currently popular ).
Dynamic call tracking makes it possible to record and analyze data about calls from website visitors, namely: