While most of our posts are for small Internet businesses and how to improve search engine marketing or SEO strategy, this post is for our optimizers. Whether you’re freelancing as a search engine optimizer, are from a web solutions agency, or you’re the owner’s kid who has to “fix the Internets,” at some point, you’re going to have to show you are earning your keep.
There are three measurable metrics to show your worth as a search engine marketing strategist for web businesses: Reporting, Research & Results.
Reporting your SEO analytics and research is the first and foremost way to establish the value of what SEM you are doing for the Internet business. SEO Analytics and webmaster tools allow you to show your online business owners the key phrases ranking on their website, and how the paid search and organic search campaigns are generally operating.
As for research, this is a combination of using the right tools and searching for the optimization flaws in your website design and web analytics. It’s also about personalizing and focusing the research for your target audience and your web business’ needs. If your research isn’t focused, then you cannot do any measurable reporting and this entire system crumbles.
Results are the final step, and basically the one that proves if your search engine marketers will be kept around at the end of the contract. Website business marketing strategy wants a fairly decent ROI within a shorter amount of time than traditional businesses, based on how quickly results show up in the online business world. You should know what your research you need to do, what reporting your people are looking for, and finally, get the results they are looking for, or at least show them positive results of measurable progress and profit.