Different Ways to Measure SEO Success	Visited: 1439 4.5/5.0 (26 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Nick Stamoulis January 14, 2010

There is more than one way to really measure the success of anything. If you are an optimist you will see the benefits of almost any marketing action regardless. If you are running your own online business you have to be an optimist in today’s marketplace. Many of us are conditioned to only look for sales and revenues but there are other very valuable benefits to SEO not just sales.  Let’s take a look at some of the other areas to acknowledge before you stamp a big red “failure” on your search engine optimization campaign.

1. Visitors: Take a look at how many visitors you had prior to your search engine optimization efforts. How much different are they from present time? Did they improve? If the numbers are up the SEO worked. It might just be elements of your website that are stopping the sales from actually happening. Your SEO results will be about as good as your website structure so if your conversion aspects are not 100% your final results will suffer.

2. Rankings: Where was your website before you started your SEO? Where you buried deep in the search results for your keywords? Have you made it to the first few pages of the search results for certain keyword phrases? That seems like an improvement to me? You shouldn’t base the entire growth of your business on just your search engine optimization. Remember that it is just one component of your marketing plan.

3. Branding: Have you received any increased exposure from other writers and bloggers? Possibly a news outlet has done a little story or write up on your business? This is a great step forward for any business that might have not occurred if you’re SEO efforts were not happening.

4. Partnerships: When SEO works even a little bit the extra exposure could lead to a variety of actions not just sales. Have you been approached by new partnership opportunities since you have started your marketing? These possibilities would most likely not even occur if you didn’t have that extra bit of visibility.

There is more than one way to determine success with search engine optimization. You just have to take a step back and think outside the box for a moment. SEO has many different values and once you realize this you will appreciate your time spent on your efforts quite a bit more.