Calculating the ROI of Search Engine Optimization

A company should have a budget for every operation, whether it is research and development or marketing and sales campaigns. SEO or search engine optimization is integral to a company’s marketing campaign and thus it should also have a budget. There are many ways to determine the budget but one very pragmatic way is to approach it from the perspective of the return on investment.

Every investment or endeavor of a business should have some desirable returns. The time, resources and manpower invested in market research or business development should have its appropriate returns. Sales or advertising campaigns should have financial returns or returns in the form of leads, exposure, branding and sales. The nature of the returns on investment will albeit depend on the area of investment but calculating the returns or measuring them would be a prerequisite to determine the success of the endeavor.

An SEO campaign can succeed or fail. The success or failure should be determined in many ways. That is what How To Calculate The ROI Of Your SEO Campaign will shed light on. In the info-graphic, you will come across the various parameters which should be used and the approaches you must take to determine the return on investment of your SEO campaign.

Although an SEO campaign is essentially a marketing initiative or strategy, the returns may not always be sales. If the eventual target is to acquire a few customers or to generate leads, then the returns could be assessed accordingly. If the eventual target is to generate more traffic, then the returns will be in accordance to that. Returns can be purely financial or perceptive. For instance, a campaign may be conceived to increase or enhance the exposure of a brand. An SEO campaign may be targeted at salvaging the online reputation of a company. There can be various objectives of an SEO campaign and the returns on investment should also be assessed accordingly.

An SEO campaign will have different kinds of investments or costs. There will be an initial cost to set the whole thing up. There will be recurring costs to add on to the existing content. There would be some advertising costs to associate the organic SEO campaign and there can be promotional deals or hardcore promotions that aim at outright sales. At the same time, there can be investments in creating a larger fan base, to engage the fans online through social media and to attend to customer service or even grievances online across social networks, forums and blogs. All these investments need to be accounted for in an online marketing campaign. There are specific categories in which these expenses can be budgeted but they should be taken into consideration before assessing the returns on investment. The true returns can only be assessed or calculated when you consider the actual net returns or revenue generated vis-à-vis all the expenses that have gone into making that accomplishment a reality.