ROI the Bigger Picture – How Rankings are Not Everything in SEO

SEOblog recently published an article displaying the top SEO (search engine optimization) companies in South Africa. There was a great amount of feedback and questions, and one that struck a chord was the question that looked at the bigger picture of SEO.  Maybe rankings are not everything, and in fact it is the ROI (Return on Investment) that is what is important. Also there has been the debate as to whether it is important that your SEO company ranks, or if it just matters that you rank your clients. Let’s take a look at this from an objective point of view and see what we end up with.

First of all, let’s look at the argument that SEO is more along the lines of achieving ROI at the end of the day, instead of just achieving rankings. Well there is defiantly a case for this, because if you are ranking on the first page, or even first, what does this mean. Sure, you may feel like you have achieved by appearing on the first page, but what does this bring you besides pride. Well it will bring you traffic, there is no doubt about that, but what does all that traffic mean if it is not achieving your goals. Whether it be selling products, getting clicks or making bookings – all sites have goals of some sort. This is where the question of conversions come in. If you have these rankings and traffic, but are not getting the ROI payoff and the right conversions, then what is the point? There seems to be this obsession with rankings and this can be seen in many SEO companies who are not thinking of the bigger picture – which is to not only get the rankings, but turn that traffic into conversions. It possibly may be that SEO companies need to realise that there is a bigger picture and in fact  it is not all about rankings, but rather how those rankings reflect with the ROI for a client. If we want to look at a perfect example of rankings with no conversions (i.e. no ROI) look here http://www.bodyabcs.com/.

He is ranking number one for “San Diego chiropractor” and was even ranking for a number of months before this without a contact number (which has only recently been added). But as you can see, what is the point of ranking for a keyword like that if you are not increasing your profit and business – with a few improvements here, returns could increase tenfold.

There are some very good arguments above, but let’s look at the other side. SEO, no matter how important you feel it is (myself included), the fact remains that it falls under the heading of online marketing. Search engine optimization, as we all know, focuses on SERP’s and the rankings that appear. Conversions, PPC Advertising and other services will fall under the broad spectrum of online marketing. SEO focuses on rankings and getting your website optimized for the search results – that is the basic outline and understanding. For my part, conversions do not form part of SEO and are another matter entirely. As said above, there seems to be an obsession with rankings and many clients just ask for these. Most companies still say that they don’t care about the ROI, as long as they rank – this, it seems to be a sense of pride and achievement that your company ranks. So one can see that when looking at seo it is to deal with rankings and optimizing for the search engine, and rather conversions and the ROI is the bigger picture which is in fact the Online Marketing Strategy as a whole, which seo may but only be a part.

Finally I would like to see whether it is important for your SEO Company to rank, or whether it only matters where their clients rank. I can answer this twofold; of course it matters where you clients rank, because plain and simple, if they are not getting the rankings you promise, then you are not the SEO company you claim to be. However, aside from just getting referrals and testimonials from clients, how do you plan on getting traffic to your site, or better yet, those new clients to take your company to the next level? It is necessary to show you have the ability to rank for in the highly completive SEO industry and the general online marketing world. Simply, it gives the indication that if you have the ability to rank here, then surely you will be able to rank for your clients – and more importantly, potential clients. Clients may ask the question: as an SEO Company, if you cannot get your site to rank for prime keywords, then how can you deliver this service to your clients? So, in conclusion, it does seem logical that to be seen as a really successful SEO company, you need to rank in your own industry. After all it’s pretty easy to rank your own SEO company, so why wouldn’t you want to do it?