How to calculate your SEO ROI using Google Analytics

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The author’s views are entirely his (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect Moz’s views.

You’ve spent hours learning the most effective SEO tactics, but they won’t be useful if you can’t measure them.

Measuring SEO return on investment (ROI) involves two factors: the KPIs (key performance indicators) and the cost of your current SEO campaigns. Monitoring these key metrics monthly allows you to tweak and optimize your strategy, as well as make informed business decisions.

To get the most out of your money (or time), consider using Google Analytics (GA) to calculate your ROI. With GA, you can pinpoint where your audience is coming from, set goals to stay in line, and incorporate the hottest keywords to rank better in search engines.

Ways to calculate your SEO ROI using Google Analytics # 1 page value

Page value is an important aspect to consider when it comes to ROI.

Think of it like money. In the United States, paper money has been traced back to the late 1600s as a way to symbolize the value of something. Instead of bartering, citizens began to value a $ 10 bill or a $ 100 bill to get an item they needed that was worth the equivalent value.

Page value assigns an average monetary value to all pages viewed in a session in which a transaction took place. Specifically for ecommerce sites, it helps to assign a value to non-transactional pages like articles and landing pages. This is helpful to understand because while a blog hasn’t necessarily produced any revenue, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t contributed to a customer purchase decision in the future.

With lead generation pages, you can assign a value to a goal such as contact form submission, so you can more accurately measure whether you are on track or not.

Below is a visual element that shows how the page value is calculated according to Google:

In the first example, Page B is visited once by a user before moving on to Goal D page (which was assigned a value of $ 10) and receipt page E (which generated $ 100). This means that a single pageview of page B generated $ 110, which gives us its page value.

In the form of an equation, this is what it looks like:

Page Value for Page B = Ecommerce Revenue ($ 100) + Total Goal Value ($ 10) Number of Unique Page Views for Page B (1) = $ 110

But not all page views lead to a conversion. That’s why it’s important to keep track of the data and recalculate the page value as more information comes in. Let’s see how it works with the second example.

Here we see two sessions but only one converted into an e-commerce transaction (session 1). So even though we have two unique page views for Page B, the ecommerce revenue remains the same. We can then recalculate our Page Bs Page Value using this new information.

Page Value for Page B = Ecommerce Revenue ($ 100) + Total Goal Value ($ 10 x 2 Sessions) Number of Unique Page Views for Page B (2) = $ 60

With more sessions and more data, you will have a better idea of ​​which pages contribute the most to your sites’ revenue.

# 2 Ecommerce settings

If you don’t run an e-commerce business, skip this section. For those of you who do, there is a more advanced feature on Google Analytics that can prove extremely useful. By activating your ecommerce settings, you can track sales amounts, number of orders, billing locations, and even average order value. This way, you can equate website usage with sales information and better understand which landing pages or campaigns are performing the best.

How to activate the e-commerce settings

In the left sidebar panel of Google Analytics, click ADMIN> under the VIEW panel (rightmost panel), click Ecommerce Settings> Enable Ecommerce> Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting.

To finalize this, go to where it says, Checkout Labeling under the Enhanced Ecommerce settings and under the funnel steps type:

Cash desk view

Billing Information

Proceed to payment

Below is an image to better explain these steps:

If you have Shopify or Woocommerce, be sure to set up tracking there too, so that Google Analytics can communicate and pass this crucial information to you.

Once you have set up your e-commerce tracking, you will have access to the following data:

An overview of your revenue, ecommerce conversion rate, transactions, average order value, and other metrics

Product and sales performance

Purchase and payment behavior

These give you a better understanding of how your customers interact with your site and which products they are selling the most. In terms of calculating SEO ROI, knowing the steps your customers take and the pages they view before making a purchase helps you analyze the value of individual pages and also the effectiveness of your overall SEO content strategy.

# 3 Sales performance

Again, this is for e-commerce only. The sales return function shows sales from all sources and mediums. You can view data for organic traffic only and identify revenue.

How to view sales performance

This gives you an overview of your income and a breakdown of each transaction. Tracking it over time and seeing how it evolves drives your content strategy.

What is the average transaction amount and what does it tell you about your customers? Does changing your copy to promote up-sell or cross-sell impact your revenue per transaction?

Another set of data that helps you calculate your SEO ROI and optimize your content strategy is the buying behavior of your customers.

How to see in depth the purchasing behavior of your customers

At a glance, you can see how effective your buying funnel is – how many sessions continue from step to step? How many people went to your page and didn’t buy or add to cart but didn’t follow up on the payment?

This helps you identify the areas that need the most SEO attention. This also helps you make predictions about how much your revenue can increase by optimizing your copy and implementing SEO to increase organic traffic, which helps you get a better idea of ​​your SEO ROI.

For example, if there’s a high percentage of users who visit your page but don’t go through the buying cycle, maybe you need to edit your copy to include searchable keywords or copy that resonates better with your audience.

Also, it’s worth remembering that while this shows organic sales, you can’t identify the keyword that led to that sale, but organic traffic can be an indicator of how holistic marketing efforts are working. For example, public relations can increase brand searches on Google.

Quick Tip: You can get an idea of ​​which keywords are driving the most traffic to your website with Google Search Console and then follow your browsing history from Google Analytics to link specific keywords with sales.

Overall, to truly measure your SEO ROI you need to find out which keywords are working for your business, because while people may be interested in your business due to tremendous PR exposure, they may not actually be interested in your services. . To really hit this home, select the keywords they are planning to purchase. This way you can attract more qualified leads to your site.

# 4 Engagement events

If you’re not working on an ecommerce site (hint, hint, my fellow B2B marketers), here’s where you’ll want to pay attention. Both ecommerce and lead generation sites can use engagement events.

Align with your sales team to value a goal based on average order value, average number of signups, and conversion rate. While useful for ecommerce, these analytics are likely to be more beneficial for lead generation sites that have longer sales cycles and transactions that occur offsite or after multiple sessions (for example, B2B SaaS or a marketing agency).

Examples of engagement events include:

subscribe to the newsletter

Sending the contact form

Download

Adding to a shopping cart

How to view your campaign engagement data?

Below is an image so you can follow:

This type of tracking gives you a deeper insight into how people interact with parts of your website and how involved they are in different parts of the journey. Use it to set goals for your lead generation and see if your SEO efforts are paying off.

Let’s say you find that your website gets a lot of traffic to your services page and that a high percentage of those visitors download a case study. This means that they are interested in what you have to offer and would like to see more case studies from you.

Use ROI calculations to make better strategic decisions for your business

Ultimately, when using Google Analytics for SEO, you should work to align business goals with specific measurable metrics so that you can create a long-term plan for sustainable growth. It’s no secret that SEO is a powerful tool for your business, but putting it into a feasible and personalized plan to keep the train rolling is what matters.

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