{"id":223956,"date":"2020-03-14T07:23:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T01:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qcsglobal.com\/marketing\/seo\/useful-metrics-for-chief-marketing-officers-to-measure-seo-success\/"},"modified":"2020-04-18T17:10:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T11:40:37","slug":"useful-metrics-for-chief-marketing-officers-to-measure-seo-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/useful-metrics-for-chief-marketing-officers-to-measure-seo-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful Metrics for Chief Marketing Officers to Measure SEO Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/995c2b73-8f19-4a58-8c35-8ee81c7e8543\/episodes\/11e879f8-3013-4696-af04-1a4d37287fa5\/embed?theme=light-green\" scrolling=\"no\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Episode Overview: <\/strong>SEO success can be measured by a multitude of different metrics but knowing which ones are right for your business and goals pose a particular challenge. Join Ben as he concludes CMO Week with Searchmetrics\u2019 Chief Marketing Officer Doug Bell reviewing which KPIs CMOs should utilize to create success in their marketing strategies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A key metric to begin measuring success is SEO visibility to examine how your company or brand fares against competitor performance.<\/li>\n<li>The next metric to analyze is how many unique users visit your website and whether they\u2019re converting to leads.<\/li>\n<li>Metrics to evaluate nurture campaigns are slightly different depending on the buyer. They\u2019re a mix of user visits, determining if they\u2019ve consumed evergreen content, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>GUESTS &amp; RESOURCES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Welcome to SEO for CMOs week on the Voices of Search podcast. I\u2019m your host Benjamin Shapiro and this week we\u2019re going to publish an episode every day covering what the head of your marketing department needs to know about SEO.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Joining us for the last time for SEO for CMOs week is Doug Bell, who\u2019s the chief marketing officer at Searchmetrics, which is an SEO and content marketing platform that helps enterprise scale businesses monitor their online presence and make data-driven decisions. And today Doug and I are going to wrap up SEO for CMO week by talking about the KPIs for measuring SEO success.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Okay. Here\u2019s the last part of SEO for CMOs week with Doug Bell, CMO of Searchmetrics. Doug, happy Friday, and welcome to the last episode of SEO for CMO week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hi Ben. Glad to be back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, Doug, we\u2019ve boiled the ocean when it comes to SEO for CMOs this week. We\u2019ve talked about everything from how do CMOs think about SEO, who\u2019s doing it right and how, where CMOs getting in trouble when they\u2019re implementing their SEO strategy. And yesterday we talked about some of the operational tips that help CMOs hit the ground running, put the right infrastructure and the right team in place to be able to drive SEO success. I think the last part of our conversation here has to be around performance and metrics. When you think about evaluating SEO as a CMO, what are some of the KPIs CMOs look at and where are they right and were they wrong?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Good question, Ben. So I very much start with this idea of am I progressing my SEO visibility over time? In other words, if I look at the full body of our presence on Google, am I seeing that my content is continuously growing in terms of its ability to attract new audience? That\u2019s the start. And that metric is SEO visibility. And I\u2019m also looking at that and saying, \u201cHow am I doing versus the competition?\u201d There\u2019s only so much market size, if you will, for those keywords that we\u2019re all competing for. I start there and that\u2019s an early indicator for the next most important thing, which is unique users to the website. Are those folks, in fact coming to the website and when they\u2019re on the website, are they converting? And then we started to get into these nuances around CRO or LPO, but effectively am I consistently converting those visitors to the site into, in our case, leads? In our case specifically, sales. So that\u2019s the starting point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>So, the first thing you mentioned was you\u2019re looking at visibility and this seems to be more of a brand metric, right? An awareness driven metric. How often is your content being surfaced by Google? I compare this metric very much to be about impression levels, how much and how often are you getting in front of your users? This is something that\u2019s actually shifted a fair amount for SEOs in the past year. Talk to me a little bit about how SEO is becoming more of a relevant brand channel and how should that be tracked?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah. Ben, you\u2019re speaking to one of the wonderful things about SEO as a channel. It is not simply something that is going to support your ability to drive additional revenue. It is an unbelievably useful and frankly extremely cost effective branding tool or brand awareness tool. And so the content that you would use really for those two goals can overlap quite a bit. If you think about the content that exists at the top of your funnel, that helps, again, theme for the week, users along the way when it comes to their buyer journey that content quite typically also is very good branding content, if you will. And as you work your way down through the rest of the funnel, you\u2019re starting to get to content that\u2019s more appropriate for, say, transactional needs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m going to go a little SEO geek here and talk about something called position zero and voice search, things that are sort of at the tip of the spear in terms of SEO geekness, but SEO has changed a fair amount where it is not necessarily a medium that is driving a click but is also very much about delivering answers to the consumer where brands are developing content assets that are meant to answer the user\u2019s question but not necessarily get them to the end destination of your website.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As we think about evaluating SEO as a brand channel and how it integrates into voice search or how Google is just answering people\u2019s questions on their domain, how do you think CMOs need to interpret this change in the landscape?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think that\u2019s asking them to have an advanced degree, but I would say ultimately what, Ben, you are speaking to is how SEO is becoming integrated into more \u2026 let\u2019s say in the case of position zero, more of the consumer\u2019s interaction with devices other than their phone or their desktop. What we\u2019re speaking to is my nine year old\u2019s tendency to order things via Alexa or via Google device in the house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ultimately we\u2019re talking about is does your brand appear at the top in this case position zero? And is it just a commercial benefit or also you\u2019re getting brand awareness benefits? But I feel like maybe that\u2019s a conversation for CMOs later on, Ben, when we start talking about how the content strategy and the SEO strategy tends to have multiple different benefits, but if we\u2019re looking at, \u201cHow do I prove this to you, Mr. CMO?\u201d, how do I prove the value of SEO? I\u2019m probably a nuance or two away from saying we\u2019re justified in thinking about that ultimately consumer benefit when it comes to awareness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>I think in a year from now your brand team is going to come to you and say, \u201cYou know what we need to be doing? We need to be creating more content because SEO is actually an increasingly important brand channel.\u201d We\u2019ll save that podcast episode for next year. Outside of thinking about awareness, as you start thinking about going down the funnel and not just how many impressions you\u2019re driving to your prospective audience and customers, when you start thinking about nurturing, are there metrics that you look at to understand sort of the repeat adoption or how you\u2019re moving people in the direction that you want them to go in your buyer journey?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, there are. And I have to say perhaps we\u2019re more sophisticated than your average bear because we have to be, but we look at our ability to nurture buyer personas through their user journey on the site. So those metrics will be slightly different depending on the buyer, if you will. So as an example, the audience we\u2019re speaking to today, CMOs, we\u2019re very much going to be targeting content to them. That\u2019s at the top of the funnel. So I would expect them to consume shorter form, quicker understanding of SEO content for the CMOs, and so my metric for regarding success with them is very simply, did they come to the site? Did they consume one of those evergreen pieces of content? Whereas if we get further down, let\u2019s say a tech SEO, that\u2019s effectively an SEO who bridges between the product team or the IT team and the SEO team, our conversion rates should go from top to bottom of funnel, and I\u2019m looking ultimately at the percentage of tech SEOs that visit the site and convert to a lead, as an example.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think about this, when you think about your site and the content that\u2019s on your site, you have your top level question, answer, categorically relevant content. If you\u2019re a fashion brand, talking about some of the trends in fashion does not necessarily educate the consumer, but it helps you understand which consumers are relevant to your brand. Then you have your product content. How are you describing your content? How do you compare against your competition? To me, this is where the actual competition of SEO really comes into play.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the third piece when you talk about direct response and actually getting people across the funnel. When you think about revenue attribution for SEO, talk to me about what the KPIs are there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Good one, Ben. I have to say that when we think about how we attribute \u2026 so, the first thing is what\u2019s the attribution model? And then we get into this conversation about first versus last touch. I tend to lean towards last touch and as I look at attribution for SEO, what I\u2019m looking at is content consumption, so if I have a prospect visiting the website and they\u2019re consuming content that\u2019s designed for that prospect, in other words, SEO content, they tend to be attributed to the SEO channel. Otherwise it\u2019s getting attributed elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, Doug, as we wrap up SEO for CMO week, we\u2019ve talked about everything from how there are misconceptions about SEOs, who\u2019s doing it right, who\u2019s doing it wrong, some operational tactics. And now metrics. Help me put a bow on this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you\u2019re landing the plane on what CMOs need to know about SEO, what are the biggest things that you\u2019re trying to drive home?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Three things, Ben. The first is that SEO is not magical, that it\u2019s a discipline like any other in if well-managed and given the right perspective, it should be a foundational strategy for you. It\u2019s the first. The second thing is that ROI can\u2019t be measured. It\u2019s not true. Again, it\u2019s a matter of scope and time. And then ultimately that SEO results aren\u2019t predictable. Those are the three myths I\u2019m trying to break down. And I do think that the highest performing SEO organizations in the world also tend to be the ones with the highest earnings per share. So it\u2019s not a function of what I believe per se, but it\u2019s really what the market will bear and why. Well, it\u2019s because your typical organization that is using SEO well has a lower cost per acquisition and therefore has more money to invest elsewhere in things that typically drive better funnel results like brand and like SEO. So it\u2019s a self-fulfilling prophecy or self-fulfilling cycle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think the last thing that I\u2019ll say to land the plan on this week is performance marketing is great. It obviously serves its purpose and performance marketing is like eating sugar. It gives you an immediate burst of energy and immediate response. SEO is eating your broccoli. You have to consistently do it to get bigger and stronger and if you do that over time, you A, aren\u2019t as reliant on sugar to have enough energy to get by, but you also have the muscle to be able to handle the bumps in the road that may happen. I\u2019m mixing metaphors, hopefully understand what I\u2019m saying. Go home, eat your marketing broccoli, think about your content marketing strategy and don\u2019t wait till it\u2019s too late by being dependent on performance marketing to start thinking about content marketing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doug:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Great job, Ben.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hey Doug, I\u2019ve had the opportunity to work on this project for, I don\u2019t know, a year and a half, and without your support and sponsorship, I wouldn\u2019t be able to figure out nice little ending metaphors like that. So thanks for being our guest. Thanks for sponsoring the show. And that wraps up this episode of the Voices of Search podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Doug Bell\u2019s CMO of Searchmetrics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019d love to continue this conversation with you, so if you\u2019re interested in contacting Doug, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. You can contact him on Twitter. His handle is @marketadvocate, or you could visit his company\u2019s website, which is searchmetrics.com.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just one more link in our show notes that I\u2019d like to tell you about. If you didn\u2019t have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast head over to voicesofsearch.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes, contact information for our guests. You can send us your topic suggestions or your SEO questions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ben:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You can even apply to be a guest speaker on the Voices of Search podcast. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is @voicesofsearch on Twitter and my personal handle is @benjshap, and if you haven\u2019t subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, we\u2019re going to publish episodes every day during the work week. So hit that subscribe button in your podcast app and we\u2019ll be back in your feed soon. All right. That\u2019s it for today, but until next time, remember, the answers are always in the data.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.searchmetrics.com\/us\/useful-metrics-for-chief-marketing-officers-to-measure-seo-success-doug-bell-searchmetrics\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Episode Overview: SEO success can be measured by a multitude of different metrics but knowing which ones are right for your business and goals pose a particular challenge. Join Ben as he concludes CMO Week with Searchmetrics\u2019 Chief Marketing Officer Doug Bell reviewing which KPIs CMOs should utilize to create success in their marketing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224904,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223956\/revisions\/224904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}