Recently a potential new client asked:

What KPI do you set to assist me in knowing if SEO is working?

This is an excellent questions so I wanted to post the answer here in a platform where it can be easily seen as well as evolve into a more complete accurate answer.

This is an important question and one that every company should consider when they are working on SEO, and every company should be working on SEO.

It is really a two part question.

What KPI do you use for SEO?

The simple answer is it depends. Every client we work with has their own KPI. It depends on where they are in the process.

For every client we set goals with the client as part of our onboarding process. We then work together with them to help them accomplish those goals.

There are almost an unlimited number of ways of looking at a vary large amound of data.

Some simple KPI that we often look include:

- The number of search clicks
- The number of views from google seearch
- The average position of certain pages.
- The amount of engagement.
- The number of leads
- Sales volume

Please note some of these same statistics can be used to manipulate businesses in the short term to think seo is wokring as well, when maybe relavant traffic is not being generated. For example, there are unethical ways to get a large number of clicks to show results, while the clicks themselves are irrelevant clicks.

Having worked in the industry since the 90's we have seen unethical practices over and over again. They are like viruses and new ways to "game the system" come up all the time. They provide what appears at first to be positive results, but in the long term is not beneficial for the client.

This is why it is important to also include some end goal items like changes sales volume.

The golden rule is this "if you want to be first in search engines, then you need to deserve to be there."

How can I know SEO is working?

Fortunately the tools to be able to determine if SEO is working are free and readily availbe.

There are sophisticated paid reporting companies that charge a lot of money for reports that are difficult to understand, confusing, and which can obfuscate the process. These are great for the right users, but the majority of businesses should follow the following advise.

1. Have access to your statistics directly on Search Console and Google Analytics.

2. Go and check your results periodically ( Hey guess what Search console will send you insights directly when achievements are made)

They look like this :

Working with us you are sure to get these.

You absolutely need to be keeping your thumb on whether or not SEO is working for you company.

We bring on new clients all the time who have been paying thousands of dollars a month for SEO and seeing no progress. Unfortunately we also discover often that they have been doing it for over a year.

This really hurts, and as a small business owner myself, it makes me angry.

The iBCScorp Process for determining KPI's and if SEO is working

For most clients the first thing we do is setup google analytics and google search console. We make sure our clients also have access to these tools independent of ourselves.

In our first onboarding with the client, we setup goals and KPI's together and agree on them with the client.

Then depending on the clients needs we meet with them weekly, monthly, quarterly or as required.

In these meetings we determien what tasks we will complete and the client will complete in order to accomplish our goals together. We also report on what we completed in the previous period. iDeliver is our motto and it is at the bottom of all of our emails. We don't just say it we do it and have these meetings to show you what we have done.

Do you provide a Dashboard with report widgets and monthly email with link monthly report

There are hundreds of reporting tools available as previously implied. Most digital marketing atencies send complicated reports. For some clents we do too.

We recently had a client get a report from a competitor that was 20 pages long. We to can easily auto generate these reports. The problem with them however is it obfuscates the most important things and provides little or no value to most customers. They don't have time to pull out the details or understand those reports.

We can provide reporting dashboards like every other digital marketing agency from the providers of these tools. We typically don't though unless the client wants such things. In most cases Analytics and search console are more than enough and easier to undrstand.

We don't just rely on automated tools we explain what is happening in our client meetings and show progress towards results.