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Many of you work as SEOs in-house, many as independent contractors and many for yourselves on your own web sites. Those who have to answer to a boss, does your SEO work get judged on ranking of pages or based on if those rankings ultimately lead to a conversion?
Kim Krause Berg posted a thread at the Cre8asite Forums asking this question. She asked, "Does Your Job Depend On Conversions?"
She asks specific questions based on her experience working for management:
- Is your dependent on ROI? In other words, if your SEO work does not translate into a certain set of criteria, do you lose the job?
- What are the criteria for ROI as managers see it? Is it higher revenue, rank, traffic, what?
- Anyone: What are the typical expectations for meeting ROI? For ex., if an organic plan doesn't seem to be working, how long does it take to decide this?
- Anyone: Are conversions just something SEO's make happen or does user experience web design play a part in the overall marketing plan?
Let me make it simple. If you rank your client/boss in the first position for all the keywords he wants to rank well for, but ultimately the conversions are not there, do you think you'll still have a job in a year for now?
Here is my more basic poll:
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
Comments:
No Name
10/13/2010 08:44 pm
Irrespective of whether you're technically obligated to produce conversions, rank is meaningless without the business to fund SEO efforts. Every marketeer's job is ultimately tied out to revenue production.
Freddy @ InMarketingWeTrust
10/13/2010 10:20 pm
Agree with Previous comment. As marketing folks our credo should be to improve the bottom line, in any way, shape or form, Your management might see pride in being #1 for [Credit Card], if your best converting, most money generating kwd is [debit card for small business owner with custom made logo] then so be it. As professional we should always encourage senior management to seek the most cost effective solution. After All, shouldn't we be the experts in revenue optimisation :)
ozzy
10/13/2010 10:41 pm
I work for a big agency and our performance is based on ROI. Performance based on rankings is soooo old school and doesn't mean anything commercially..
Samith
10/13/2010 10:48 pm
If you think of your website is a car, seo is fuel (not the only fuel source, there can be other sources as well eg: sem, smm, banner advertising etc) does it matter how much fuel you pump into your car, if the car is not in a stable condition to drive? this is where the conversion optimization kicks in, end of the day it's all about conversions (revenue or leads)
Taylen Peterson
10/13/2010 10:55 pm
Wouldn't a vote for "depends" be a vote for "yes" technically speaking? If your job depends on conversions and you answer depends...just sayin'
Srinivas Kumar
10/14/2010 06:24 am
Great question.. No matter how much effort you put in.. people will only look at the results.. If you dont show the results and conversions.. you will be fired..
Rob Abdul
10/14/2010 10:02 am
Okay, I'm going to make this really simple. It does not matter if you are number 1, or on first page of a search engine for any given keywords; none of it matters unless it you can cash-in on it or generate leads. Even if you're site is not an ecommerce site and is an information site, revenue can be generated through ads or affiliate marketing. Hosting, domain renewal, maintenance and the day to day upkeep all costs money.