How to Calculate Your Average Return on Investment for SEO

One of the smartest and greatest investments you can make into your business is SEO.

Search engine optimization is not only worthy, but the average return on investment also proves very profitable.

SEO helps your business build credibility and trust in the online market. When users experience an effective website that’s easy to find, it builds faith in your brand. After SEO helps you establish a great user experience, the end result is an increase in traffic.

Users engage more and end up becoming repeat customers. That puts your business in a positive buying cycle.

Do you feel lost when trying to calculate the return on investment for SEO? Use this quick guide and discover what will work best for your business.

What is SEO ROI?

The ROI concerning search engine optimization is a basic calculation that measures the return on investment of SEO.

There are several elements that factor into calculating SEO’s ROI:

• Website Traffic
• Search Engine Rankings
• Goal completions

Business owners can subtract the costs of the investment by the overall gains. Take that number and then divide it by the cost of investment. That’ll give you the ROI of the current SEO campaign.

Of course, this number changes as your campaign changes. Use it as a basic formula to keep track of your search engine optimization investment.

SEO’s Average Return on Investment: The Two Types of ROI

There are two types of ROI you need to consider to understand SEO as a needed investment. There’s Anticipated ROI and Actual ROI.

Anticipated ROI measures the difference between the anticipated revenue from SEO efforts and the proposed cost of it. Take that difference and divide out the proposed cost of the campaign.

Actual ROI is the reality of your SEO campaign. It first measures the sum of the total SEO revenue and total goal value. Use that sum and find the difference between that number and the actual cost of running the campaign.

Divide that final number by the actual cost of running the campaign.

When to Report ROI

When your campaign first rolls out, it common for the numbers to reflect a negative ROI. Don’t get alarmed or panic when you see this happen.

Continue to support the campaign, and give it time to achieve a positive ROI.

As soon as the campaign brings in positive numbers, even if it’s as low as 2%, report it. Any size positive ROI speaks to a productive campaign.

Negative ROIs aren’t worth reporting. Any good SEO agency would agree.

Do What’s Best for Your Business

Getting a good average return on investment on an SEO campaign spells success for your business. Do what’s best for your business by doing the numbers. Make sure your SEO project gives you great ROI in the end.

We have more business tips like this we’d like to share with you. Check out our business guide for the latest top business marketing hacks.