SEO and its potential

The opportunity from SEO can’t be under-estimated.  I want to outline what traffic you could expect when ranking on Google’s top 3 search results.

In terms of potential you need 2 things – firstly to work out the search volumes for your target search terms, secondly to multiply them by the expected CTRs (click through rates).

Let’s look at CTRs first. The chart below is a reasonable one to use

This is from MOZ

So assuming you make number one, then let’s assume a CTR of 31% as that’s the latest data in the above.

Then in terms of search traffic volume you could use Wordtracker or Google’s Keyword Planner but you need to sign up to a free account first. I prefer to use the latter, but when you do remember the estimates are based on relatively small same sizes so they can only be used as estimates.

If traffic estimates are at say 3000 per month, then you could expect 3000 x 31% = around 9000.

And remember these are 9000 high quality searchers – they have actively searched for your type of service (particularly if you target very action oriented and specific/niche terms (and targeting niche terms is easier to rank for as there’s less competition for the terms), so conversion to enquiry and purchase will be a lot higher than alternative advertising you would be doing.

So all I can say is – do the maths – for a cost of say £3k per month, you will find the cost per enquiry is much more favourable with SEO than advertising.

One word of caution though – SEO is not instant and ranking number one will take some months. Until you get there you will be in the lower ranks with much lower CTRs as the above table shows – so patience!

Matt