How to Build Business Cases for SEO Fixes
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This document outlines how to build business cases for SEO fixes by providing data and metrics to justify the proposed work. It recommends tracking previous SEO changes and their impact, testing fixes using test sites, predicting future traffic based on historical trends, and attaching estimated revenue and profits to proposed fixes. The goal is to quantify the potential benefits of SEO work so clients understand the value and are more willing to implement recommended fixes.
How to Build Business Cases for SEO Fixes
- 1. Richard Petersen Search And Data Manager at Zazzle Media How To Build Business Cases For SEO Fixes
- 4. Request Entity Too Large
- 5. SEO In The Past
- 6. SEO Now
- 7. The Biggest Issue Facing SEO Isn’t Google…
- 8. It’s Getting Clients To Implement Fixes
- 9. So Why Aren’t Clients Implementing Fixes?
- 10. Not Enough Developers To Implement The Work
- 11. DEVELOPERS ROLE 1. Create 2. Upgrade 3. Maintain
- 12. Too Many Requests And Not Enough time…
- 13. Hire More Devs
- 14. Clear Backlog, Then What???
- 15. DEVELOPERS ROLE 1. CREATE 2. UPGRADE 3. MAINTAIN
- 16. So Project Managers Limit Access To Dev Time
- 17. So All Fixes Need Justifying
- 18. How To Build Business Cases For SEO Fixes
- 19. What Is A Business Case?
- 20. So Why Do We Need One?
- 21. 8 Components For Building A Business Case
- 22. 1. Track Previous Changes
- 23. Clients Need To Build A Case Before You Need One
- 24. Keep A Record Of All Work Undertaken
- 25. Best Way To Record Performance?
- 27. Sing Loudly About Your Successes
- 28. 2. Keep Examples of Others Websites Successes
- 30. Use Evernote Or OneNote to Keep Examples on File
- 31. 3. And Failures
- 33. 4. Run Tests
- 36. 30 Organic Sessions Per Month
- 38. Leave For 30 Days And The Check Results
- 40. 15 Extra Organic Sessions Per Month
- 41. 180 Extra Organic Session per year
- 42. +50%
- 43. 20,000
- 44. 30,00020,000
- 45. 120,000 Extra Organic Session per year
- 46. 5. Now Run Test Again
- 47. Can’t Run Tests?
- 48. 6. Build A Test Site Or Use a Sister Site
- 49. What Is A Sister Site?
- 50. Why Use Test Sites?
- 51. 7. Use Traffic Predictions
- 52. Traffic Predictions Are An Estimation of Future Traffic Based Upon Historical Data
- 54. So How On Earth Do We Do That???
- 56. What Happens If My Traffic Predictions Are Wrong?
- 57. Traffic Predictions Are Never Going To Be Perfect!
- 58. This Is How I Do It…
- 61. Work Out The Month On Month Difference For Each Month
- 62. JAN 16 110,000 FEB 16 105,000 - 4.5% MAR 16 115,000 +9.5% APR 16 120,000 +4.3% Month On Month Sessions
- 63. Create An Average Of All Month On Month Increases = 2.5%
- 64. Now Work Out Year On Year increases
- 65. JAN 15 71,500 +35% FEB 15 78,750 +25% MAR 15 80,500 +30% APR 15 90,000 +25% Year On Year Sessions
- 66. Create An Average Of All Year On Year Increases = 29%
- 67. Pull It All Together
- 68. MONTH MOM YOY AVERAGE JAN 17 139,500 148,500 144,000 FEB 16 142,000 131,250 136,500 MAR 16 145,000 149,500 147,500 APR 16 148,000 150,000 149,000 Organic Sessions 2017
- 69. Then Adjust Data
- 70. 140000 145000 150000 155000 160000 165000 170000 175000 180000 185000 Aug--16 Sep--16 Oct--16 Nov--16 Dec--16 Jan--17 6 Month Traffic Predictions
- 71. 140000 150000 160000 170000 180000 190000 200000 210000 220000 Aug--16 Sep--16 Oct--16 Nov--16 Dec--16 Jan--17 Traffic Prediction With Fix Without Fix With Fix
- 72. Is This The Best Way To Do Traffic Predictions?
- 73. The More You Do It The Better You Will Get
- 74. Remember, Always Show Your Workings Out
- 75. 8. Attach Earnings To Data Predictions
- 77. 120,000 Sessions
- 79. 120,000 Sessions X 2% = 2,400 transactions
- 80. Average order value of £100
- 81. Of which £30 is profit…
- 82. 2400 x £30 = £72,000
- 83. Takeaways…
- 84. 1. Build A Business Case Before You Need One
- 85. 2. Monitor Others Success And Failures
- 86. 3. Test All Ideas If Possible
- 87. 4. Then Test Them Again
- 88. 5. Use Test Sites Or Lower Value Sites (Sister Sites) To Run Larger Tests
- 90. 7. Use Revenue Predictions Where Possible
- 91. 8. Don’t worry if you are wrong.
- 92. 9. Show Your Workings Out
- 93. Thank You! Keep in touch: @richardpetersen
Editor's Notes
- #2: Hi my name is Richard Petersen and I’m the Search & Data Manager at Zazzle Media.
- #3: I head up a team of 5 amazing SEO’s, who find this kind of thing funny…
- #4: It says Do you have something in your pocket or is that a 413 status code? And if all those who didn’t get a chance to Google what a 413 status code is…
- #5: (Pause) What Can I say they are Geeks…
- #8: We used to have to convince the client what we were doing right. This got easier the more fixes we got implimented.
- #9: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #10: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #11: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #12: There are three main responsibilities for in-house developers which they must on a day to day bases: Create Upgrade Maintain
- #13: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #14: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #15: Now the issue is getting the clients to implement the fixes.
- #16: There are three main responsibilities for in-house developers which they must on a day to day bases: Create Upgrade Maintain
- #17: How to build business cases for SEO fixes. What I mean by that is how can you build arguments so you can push through changes to your site so that it will increase rankings… Because if you can’t get fixes through then your rankings will suffer..
- #18: How to build business cases for SEO fixes. What I mean by that is how can you build arguments so you can push through changes to your site so that it will increase rankings… Because if you can’t get fixes through then your rankings will suffer..
- #19: How to build business cases for SEO fixes. What I mean by that is how can you build arguments so you can push through changes to your site so that it will increase rankings… Because if you can’t get fixes through then your rankings will suffer..
- #20: How to build business cases for SEO fixes. What I mean by that is how can you build arguments so you can push through changes to your site so that it will increase rankings… Because if you can’t get fixes through then your rankings will suffer..
- #21: How to build business cases for SEO fixes. What I mean by that is how can you build arguments so you can push through changes to your site so that it will increase rankings… Because if you can’t get fixes through then your rankings will suffer..
- #22: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #23: The first one is track pervious SEO changes. What I mean by that is keep records of all SEO fixes you have done in the past and this is for two reasons: It shows to other stakeholders that SEO works – you must sing about your successes. It will also allow you to understand what kind of impact is received making it easier to estimate the improvement felt with SEO fixes.
- #24: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #25: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #26: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #27: Now the best way to track this is to use annotations in Google Analytics. Select the data, write a comment and save. This will allow you to really record when changes are made to the site and the impact they make. Its also worth noting other factors using annotations such as website upgrade, UI changes or even radio or tv advertising campaign going live.
- #28: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #29: In the same way we need to record past changes its also worth taking note of other websites successes.
- #30: We tend to use search metrics for this because it allows us understand performance of a third party site based upon their rankings and the score that Search Metrics attributes to each site. This example is of a site that moved a large content heavy section of their site to sub domain to sub directory which nearly tripled their search vis.
- #31: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #32: Its also worth taking note of others failures because after all SEO is as much about protection of current rankings as it is in gaining.
- #33: Again using search metrics this is an example of well known out of town retailer that not only redesigned their site but alsoswitched domain names at the same time and didn’t go to plan.
- #34: This one is an important one. One of the best things you can do to get accurate data. So instead of rolling out complete change, why not pick a single URL or section of the site to make a change and monitor the impact from a user and rankings point of view.
- #35: And we want to test a new version which has a slightly smaller header and more content. Unlike A/B testing we don’t show 50% of users one version and then the other 50% another version. In fact we take that category an implement the fix and we leave it and monitor any traffic increases or decreases. So for example
- #36: And we want to test a new version which has a slightly smaller header and more content. Unlike A/B testing we don’t show 50% of users one version and then the other 50% another version. In fact we take that category an implement the fix and we leave it and monitor any traffic increases or decreases. So for example
- #37: So for example we found an internal category that gets 70 organic sessions per month.
- #38: And we want to test a new version which has a slightly smaller header and more content. Unlike A/B testing we don’t show 50% of users one version and then the other 50% another version. In fact we take that category an implement the fix and we leave it and monitor any traffic increases or decreases. So for example
- #39: So I’m going to used seven different components that I used to help to build a decent case.
- #40: If we changed all of those categories to the new version and it followed our same results that would mean monthly organic sessions would increase to 20,000, up over 30,000 sessions per month
- #41: This means version b gets 20 extra session but month, which doesn’t sound like a lot.
- #42: However that works out 240 extra organic sessions per year.
- #43: Not only that in percentage terms that works out an uplift of just over 28 per cent.
- #44: Now what if I was to tell you that this site has 250 categories just like the one we tested collectively getting 20,000 sessions a month. That means that
- #45: If we changed all of those categories to the new version and it followed our same results that would mean monthly organic sessions would increase to 20,000, up over 30,000 sessions per month
- #46: Which is equal to 120,000 extra organic sessions per year. Not bad for one fix.
- #47: However we would always advise you run the test more that once before committing, providing you have time.
- #48: However what happens if you can’t run test or the thing you want to change would change the entire site, like the main menu?
- #49: We would suggest that you build a test site and start using it to prove seo theories or better site if you have a sister site or another site in the group that you can be more riskier with then run the test on them first. So up until now all of our comments are there to allow us to estimate the uplift in term of a percentage. However its much more effective if we apply it to real traffic numbers…
- #50: However what happens if you can’t run test or the thing you want to change would change the entire site, like the main menu?
- #51: However what happens if you can’t run test or the thing you want to change would change the entire site, like the main menu?
- #52: So I want to run through creating traffic predictions.
- #53: However what happens if you can’t run test or the thing you want to change would change the entire site, like the main menu?
- #54: Now when you sit down and actually start to sit down and make predictions and you start to understand how many variables there are and stuff starts to get really complicated. So I’m going to share one method I use to work it out.
- #55: However what happens if you can’t run test or the thing you want to change would change the entire site, like the main menu?
- #56: The Good old KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. I can spend 20 hours working out predictions or I can 20 minutes. But both will be will just that, a prediction. So I might as well go with the shorter option. Because with all estimation it is just a guess that allows us to make understandings of other guesses to make a choice.
- #57: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #58: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #59: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #60: Export the last 18 months worth of organic data from Google Analytics. Make sure you have month selected in the graph.
- #61: Next open up excel and click on the third tab call Dataset2. This lists all the months along the amount of sessions where received in the month. Now in this sheet I have gone from 1 February 2015 until the end of July 2016. The reason I don’t have august data is it was half way through the month when writing these slide. Now I have spent many hours trying to produce traffic predictions and I found one thing to work amazingly well…
- #62: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #63: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #64: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #65: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #66: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #67: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #68: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #69: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #70: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #71: So this is the amount of traffic we believe we will get to the site in the next six months. Now here is where it gets interesting. Lets speculate that we have been pushing through an SEO fix that we believe will increase traffic by 16%. If that fix went live it will probably go live at the start of October. So take that increase and apply it to a traffic predictions…
- #72: And there we have it, the blue line shows the predicted traffic to the site without our suggested fix and the orange line is the our expected impact on the traffic if it goes through.
- #73: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #74: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #75: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #76: If you take our traffic predictions and you know average conversion data for your site you can communicate this in terms of profit.
- #77: Now that’s what I call winnig…
- #78: So if our fix goes live at the start of October over three months we believe we will gain an extra 84,095 sessions over a three month period.
- #79: Now we know that our site has an average conversion rate of 0.8%.
- #80: So if we times the 84,000 sessions by the sites conversion rate this means we will generate an additional 673 transactions. BOOM.
- #81: Now if we look at the average order value of £100 which would mean
- #82: The average profit per sale would be £36.
- #83: Which means our fix would generate an additional £24,228 profit over the next three months.
- #84: So what are the takeaways…
- #85: Record everything
- #86: Test all ideas first
- #87: Test all ideas first
- #88: Then test them again
- #89: Then test them again
- #92: Then test them again
- #93: After all it’s a prediction
- #94: Hi my name is Richard Petersen and I’m the Search & Data Manager at Zazzle Media.