While there are a lot of online business owners who believe that there is no way for them to track their SEO campaign ROI, there’s actually a vast array of online analytics software available. These do an excellent job of helping online business owners to track the ROI on their SEO campaigns

In the past, online business owners tracked their campaign ROIs by:

1. Looking for the amount of exact matches a keyword generated every month.
2. Looking at the average Adwords CPC of each keyword per month

This was a fast and loose way that many used to guess at whether or not their campaign was successful. For example, a keyword that generated 100k searches per month and costs $2CPC would be said to generate $200K in organic searches per month.

However, this system is a bit flawed for a few reasons:

1. Everyone who creates a search engine query doesn’t click on the first result. More than 50 percent of online searchers click on lower-ranking result links.
2. There are many who click on Adwords results, instead of organic search results.
3. Some campaigns prove to be unprofitable. This is why using Adwords data can be a bit misleading.

How Can Search Engine Optimization ROI Be Measured Properly?

Because of search engine analytics software that is now available, the online business owner no longer needs to rely upon Google Adwords to try to measure their campaign’s ROI. They can simply use Google Analytics to measure their ROI.

Google has even created a guide to teach people how to use Analytics to measure metrics such as sales. You can view how the keywords you are using are generating sales, inquiries and leads from your SEO efforts.

There’s no way that you can accurately track SEO results immediate. The process takes time. This is why you shouldn’t track your ROI every day. What you should do is use the following principles to track your SEO campaign ROI:

• Don’t track your SEO revenue in real time: It’s common for site visitors to visit your site then decide to make a purchase at a later date.

This is why you should track your SEO revenue by using historical data. Go back to your analytical data from a few months ago and then look for data that shows you that your campaign is progressing and working.

• Track Your Offline Orders Too: Since Google Analytics can only work online, you’ll have to manually track any sales that are being generated offline. You’ll need to do this if you are using Google’s Local Search program to generate phone or in-person orders.

You Can Leverage Your SEO Campaign In Other Ways

Did you know that when you rank highly online, other income producing opportunities will come your way? Your website might be featured in a magazine or on the local news, for example.

You could realize a broader scope of name recognition or authority positioning. There’s a lot more that SEO can offer you, besides direct revenue sources.