How do you defend your SEO budget and ROI to your boss?

Defending your SEO budget to your boss involves demonstrating how it aligns with business objectives. Highlight measurable outcomes like increased organic traffic and conversions. Emphasize the long-term value of SEO, its adaptability to market changes, and its role in risk mitigation. Show transparency through regular reporting and comparisons with other marketing channels. Use real success stories and data-driven insights to illustrate its impact. SEO is not just an expense; it's an investment in sustained growth and competitiveness in the SEO

You will not start seeing results in month 1 or sometimes even in the initial 6 months if the website is very new. Here is how you showcase your work and results: 1. Show your growth pattern. One you have selected the keywords to target, show the growth patterns. For Example, today your website is ranking on 8th Page and after initial implementation it moves to 6th page, show this in your growth report. You will not get traffic or ranking growth here, but lead growth is important. 2. Show Impression Growth from Google Search Console. You may not see traffic growth in GA4 but most of the time, your impressions will grow before your clicks and traffic grow. Raise the Bar! Warm Regards, Anil?Varma

What is SEO best practice is not always what's best for the business. Aligning your SEO efforts with the business means finding a north star goal that you will be constantly optimising towards. This will earn you trust amongst leadership in a few different ways. You will speak the language of leadership and report on what they care about. You will not be wasting time and resources in stuff that does not impact your north star goal. You will learn to be an asset to the business, more than a comodity, and understanding the ROI of your own work will help you grow in your career.

For defending the budget, I think the first thing you should do is writing a comprehensive report. Your report should contain lots of data shown as charts and graphs. The focus of the data should be on conversions drove from organic search. Also conversions should be divided into different stages and each step in the funnel reported separately. For example, form completion, signup, purchase, etc. should all be reported in-detail.

SEO impacts a broader sphere of influence that extends beyond simple metrics like clicks and conversions to more intangible factors like brand credibility, user experience, and long-term customer loyalty. Success in SEO is often incremental and cumulative, building over time as you optimize various aspects of your website and content strategy.

When educating your boss on SEO best practices, emphasize the importance of steady, sustainable growth. One way to do this is by comparing it to a library. Each piece of optimized content you create is like a book in your company's digital library. Over time, this library grows, attracting more visitors and becoming a valuable resource in your industry. SEO ensures that your library is well-organized, easy to find, and filled with valuable information. By approaching SEO with a marathon mindset, you're not only setting realistic expectations but also positioning your company for enduring success. It's about building a strong online presence that continues to deliver value year after year, making it an investment that keeps on giving.

You must demonstrate to them what your business is actually lacking. Like Have you covered all the most important keywords your website is supposed to rank for? If your business has a physical location, does it appear for specific terms when people search for it? If nothing happens, now it's time to show them how you can achieve results. You can demonstrate how your competitors are making efforts to rank higher. Instead of using complex terms, explain them in layman's language. Educate them, or at the very least, show them some real results by simply updating your old content, acquiring backlinks, or promoting on social media. Even a slight improvement can make a difference and will help you convince them that SEO is worth investing in.

Show your boss what competitors are doing. That will engage them to learn. For example page speed no technical issues or rankings.

This is where a Proof of Concept (POC) comes in handy. Think of it as an experiment where you start with a hypothesis and define important metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Set a timeframe and monitor how your SEO efforts bring about changes. This could be an increase in site traffic, improvement in ranking, higher conversion rates, and so on. By using real-life data from your own company, you can make a compelling case for SEO. Once you have clear results, the discussion won't be about whether SEO deserves a budget but how much of it should be allocated.

I employ a strategy centered on showcasing success stories. I communicate the impact of the SEO budget by presenting real, tangible instances where our optimization efforts have yielded positive outcomes. By highlighting specific achievements such as significant increases in organic traffic, improvements in keyword rankings, or successful conversion rate optimizations, I paint a vivid picture of the value generated. These success stories serve as concrete evidence of the direct correlation between the allocated budget and tangible results, reinforcing the importance and effectiveness of our ongoing SEO efforts in driving business success.

At the start SEO is usually an ROI-negative exercise, so it's important to communicate this clearly to set realistic expectations. A good analogy to use is that SEO is like joining in a marathon late - everyone else is already running. If you want a chance to finish competitively, you have to run faster than everyone else who has a headstart, i.e. you need to outwork and outspend them. "We'll invest when we start seeing results" is a common mistake. Given the above scenario, would you join a race and say "we'll run slower than everyone else but speed up if we start overtaking them"? Both feet, or neither!

One approach that works really well, especially if the company/leader is newer to investing in SEO is the cost of NOT investing. For instance, you do a total addressable market analysis of your direct competitors and you see they are driving hundreds of thousands (if not more) through SEO. The longer the company/leader holds out the more expensive its going to be for them to capture this traffic through paid media or other non-organic efforts.