Local SEO Deliverables: How to Prove SEO Results to Your Clients  

If you’re an SEO or digital marketer, whether in-house or at an agency, you’re expected to demonstrate and prove the importance of organic search to gain buy-in from your leadership team or clients. Delivering metrics and supporting evidence highlighting wins and reflecting online improvement is key.  

Start by determining which metrics are most valuable for your client’s business and start tracking them regularly. Are they in need of more website traffic? Can they be easily found in online search? By focusing on specific, valuable improvement areas, you can provide clear-cut proof that your optimization efforts are working. Here are just a few critical elements of your site that should be tracked closely for a successful SEO campaign. 

Increase of Organic Keywords  

Organic keywords are the total number of keywords the site ranks for in the top 100 organic search results. Organic rankings take time, typically between 4-12 months before we begin to see real results in traffic. It’s important to measure an increase in organic keywords as SEO efforts begin to take shape, and as content additions and enhancements help climb the rankings.  

Analyze Website Traffic  

The foundation of any good SEO strategy is a healthy website. We all know it; rankings are not the ultimate goal of SEO, it’s what those rankings do for us – increase traffic and sales. An increase in organic traffic is an excellent sign that your SEO is performing. Get specific when analyzing overall website traffic by looking at organic traffic data and removing activities outside of SEO that influence results. Conversely, a downtick in organic traffic indicates that your SEO is not performing well.      

Conversions and ROI  

At the center of why we invest in SEO are the results we hope for: more traffic, leads, and an increase in revenue. Conversions, or the percentage of people that take the action you want them to take when they arrive on your website, are the ultimate performance indicators. Is there an increase in phone calls? Is your email contact list growing? These metrics show that your SEO is working and determine your client’s return on investment.   

Measuring and sharing these three metrics can give your clients the insights they need to build trust, drive improvement, and foster further growth in your SEO strategy. Despite the number of ups and downs, rankings can go through, your client’s SEO investment should contribute to their long-term success by driving traffic and promoting their brand.