The challenge of proving the value of SEOIntroductionWe now live in a digital-first world, which has had a transformative impact on the way we live and work. Nowadays if a business is not visible online, it’s essentially hidden from a huge portion of invaluable stakeholders; whether these be prospective clients, customers or even potential investors. This increasing need for online visibility naturally correlates with SEO having taken on an ever-greater significance in the marketing mix and, subsequently, businesses are only likely to invest more in the field as time goes on. However, this increased investment also brings more scrutiny and greater pressure for SEO professionals to prove the ROI of what they do - demonstrating clearly how SEO aligns with current and future business goals.Forecasting can be invaluable for this, allowing marketers and their clients to accurately predict organic sessions, orders and revenue over a defined period, thus going a long way towards demonstrating the value of investing in SEO. However, this accuracy depends upon the data and information available, as well as the tools available to process them. As it stands, too many may still rely upon standard linear regression tools such as Microsoft Excel for forecasting purposes, which are often not fit-for-purpose, out-of-date and woefully inadequate for handling big data. In this report, we will explore the current landscape of SEO forecasting, the issues currently holding SEOs and marketers back, and the additional support the industry needs in order to forecast to the level of detail required to keep up with a progressively more demanding business landscape. Cosmin Negrescu, CEO and founder of SEOMonitorhttps://www.seomonitor.com/spark/https://www.seomonitor.com/spark/SEOmonitorAbout usSEOmonitor, launched in 2013, is a leading provider of SEO software, offering a suite of tools to help digital marketers overcome challenges and support them to easily and effectively track and measure the success of their campaigns. The team has developed a range of innovative technologies that can make the most out of available data and deliver insightful and reliable reports for SEO agencies.SEOmonitor has also committed to supporting the future of SEO through its Spark programme, wherein SEO agencies under three years old can receive a year’s worth of daily keyword rankings, full access to its forecasting tool - Business Case Builder - and data analyst app - Signals.Executive summary & highlights SummaryThe “forecasting gap” – what’s holding SEOs back? One in eight respondents (12%) are pressured into making “inaccurate” or “undeliverable” forecastsA third (33%) of digital marketers & SEO professionals would like more support in SEO forecastingLack of investment in the right forecasting tools is seen as the most common barrier to accurate SEO forecasting by 37% of r...
