People have been talking a lot about search engine optimization (SEO) these days.  Since much of the business itself is based off of theory as opposed to hard facts, there’s still a lot of debate about the whole issue.  People are asking if it’s already become a business necessity, or just a marketing expenditure to be judged on the basis of ROI.  The fact is that it’s both.  Indeed, SEO is necessary in today’s market.  Unlike 20 years ago, potential customers don’t use the phonebook to find businesses.  Instead, they use a computer, smartphone or tablet.  Any business with a website needs to be visible when a potential customer uses an electronic device to search for its product or service.  However, it’s also necessary to have people to provide that product or service to a customer.  Businesses are definitely interested in employee productivity, and are using various means to effectively measure it.  Almost every expenditure has an ROI, either in terms of reducing cost or increasing revenue, and SEO is no different.  I recently came across an article that discusses what methods are used to measure the ROI of SEO.

The first measure of this is organic website traffic, and whether or not it’s growing or declining over time.  The second measure is rankings, which decide where a site is coming up in a search.  This is actually a difficult measure to determine.  However, there are places that can help you obtain it.  Third-party companies such as Moz.com provide ranking data, and are able to demonstrate how those rankings change over time.  The third measure is known as “entrances”.  This basically means how many of a site’s pages are receiving organic referrals. The more pages, the higher the return.  And finally, the measure that means the most to business owners is leads, prospective customers who have expressed interest in your product or service but have not yet purchased it.  In most cases, they express this interest through completing a web form or calling your business.  Much like Facebook and other social media, SEO is a must-have in today’s Internet-driven market.  However, it’s also a must-have that needs to show sufficient return to justify growing investment in it.