Measuring SEO results while it’s currently happening
It becomes difficult for businesses to see the ROI from search optimization during the time their website is being optimized.
Search engines are still the largest driver of traffic and inquiries for any business, online. Period.
If you’ve not done SEO for your business, I suggest doing it NOW
Like many things in life, the longer you wait, the harder they become. Your Toronto competitors are already doing SEO. If you’d like proof of this, simply turn to Google and search for a couple of keywords you think customers would use to search for your business. Let’s say you are a “Toronto accountant”. Try searching for things like “Accountant in Toronto”. You’ll see the businesses that rank there. They’ve all done SEO, take my word for it.
The factors that influence your SEO rankings
Most businesses believe SEO is still about the number of links you build, and the amount you pay your Toronto SEO agency. It isn’t really the case, certainly not most of the time. Domain age and domain authority are two factors that people ignore when calculating their current SEO status. You can’t go immediately up against a business that has been around for ten years longer than you have. And you shouldn’t register a new domain exclusively for your online marketing efforts. You’d be better off using your existing domain. At least it will have some domain age. Social media signals are another thing people ignore. Your Google+ local listing matters, as well as your Facebook likes and activity on your business page and updated content. The speed of your website is also crucial. You can use tools like Pingdom to evaluate and optimize web pages for faster loading and performance. And let’s not forget, without a mobile friendly website, no amount of SEO can save you.
Measuring progress
Before you rank for a particular set of keyword gems selected for you, it can be hard to justify why you should continue to spend your budget on SEO. Your SEO agency will tell you that things are going fine, and that your keywords are moving up the ladder, but how do you know, really? Well that’s why it’s important to receive monthly ranking reports and have Google webmaster tools (now called Search Console) at your disposal. You can login at search.google.com/search-console/ and get your website verified (if you don’t know how to do this, get your agency to do it for you). Once done, head over to the “Queries” tab and check the current status of the keywords you’re supposed to be ranking for. You can also go back a little and see where those keywords were a month back, and you can see the number of impressions and clicks those keywords have gotten you. Don’t judge your progress by the number of clicks and impressions when your keyword is on the fourth page though, those clicks and impressions probably come from your SEO agency.
Once SEO has taken full effect, most customers start singing its merits to the heavens. It’s just that interim period where they have to “wait and hope”, that things become difficult. But with good code structure and an in-depth search engine optimization plan, the interim period will be a thing of the past before you know it.
