Re: Search engine ROI

From: Simon Rolfe <ideas_at_creativegenius.ca>
Date: Fri 18 May 2001 11:20:29 -0500

ROI or in this case search engine ROI should be based
upon the increase or decrease in your traffic divided
by the cost of your search engine optimization efforts.
As an example if you spent $10,000 to have your web site
optimized and as a result this effort (over time) are
rewarded with 20,000 added visitors, the cost of your
efforts are .50$ per visitor. While this cost is
interesting to calculate, it is often meaningless,
let me explain ...

If I spent 10K on a print campaign or a search engine
optimization effort engineered to bring added traffic
to my site and I had a large increase in visitor counts
but failed to sell my product/service or cause to any of
those same visitors would you say that the respective
campaigns failed?. I would argue that as a significant
increase in traffic resulted the campaign was a success,
however since this effort failed to sell my product/service
or cause was the failure due to the campaign or something
else?

In both instances (i.e. the print campaign and your search
engine optimization) the efforts could be viewed as a
success. However, if your real goal was to sell your
product, service, cause or generate an influx of in-bound
leads then I would have to surmise that your efforts
failed. But what failed?

As a site owner if you are able to generate/attract a
significant level of traffic but find that your Visitor
to Client conversion ratio falls below your expectations
it would be safe to assume that your problem lies in your
use of weak site content. To guard against this happening
it is recommended that before one agrees to spend large
portions of their budget on search engine optimization
efforts, you review your content (in detail) and correct
any shortcomings or weakness this aspect of your site
projects.

Just my view from here,


Regards,

Simon Rolfe, Senior Partner
Creative Genius Communications
ideas_at_creativegenius.ca
www.creativegenius.ca



Received on Fri May 18 2001 - 11:20:29 CDT