How to Prove the Value of SEO: 7 New Data Points

To prove the value of SEO, you need to show a correlation between search engine optimization efforts and revenue. This guide shows you how.

Explaining the value of SEO to stakeholders is tough, especially when they expect immediate, tangible results.

Thankfully, SEO is quantifiable. We’ll share the proof you need (real case studies and stats included) to convince anyone it’s worth investing in, as well as the quantifiable metrics to prove the value of your existing efforts.

The challenges of proving SEO’s value

It’s difficult to quantify the value of SEO because results take longer than other digital marketing strategies and can be hard to isolate or directly attribute to revenue growth.

But what makes it more challenging is stakeholders who lack an understanding of how digital marketing and search algorithms work. In this case, education is key.

Let’s explore the factors that make it difficult to prove SEO’s value.

• A longer results timeline: Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) and other paid advertising efforts — which generate more immediate results — SEO results don’t manifest overnight. SEO strategies take months (or longer) to deliver outcomes. Because of this, it’s difficult to establish a direct cause-and-effect correlation between SEO efforts and bottom line results.
• External influences: Search engine algorithm changes, competitor actions, and shifts in consumer behavior are some of the largest factors that SEO specialists encounter. Because of these variables, it can be challenging to isolate the effects of an SEO strategy.
• More nuanced revenue attribution: Unlike PPC, where every click and conversion can be tracked to a specific dollar amount, organic search traffic doesn’t come with a straightforward price tag. It’s hard to assign direct revenue value to SEO efforts when a visitor may have touched multiple channels before converting.
• Hard-to-predict outcomes: The dynamic and often secretive nature of Google and Bing algorithms makes SEO strategies feel like best practices and educated guesses rather than concrete and predictable formulas.

The value of SEO: Key points

SEO has many business benefits, despite not always delivering immediate or easily measurable results.

These benefits ultimately translate into measurable business impact — from lower acquisition costs to long-term revenue growth.

Here’s why SEO is worth the investment:

• Cost-effectiveness: SEO is far more cost-effective than PPC advertising, especially long-term. Paid advertising can require higher budgets that frequently change depending on a keyword’s cost-per-click (CPC). The cost of SEO is much lower depending on the scope of the project.
• Increased website traffic: Creating high-quality content rich with relevant keywords can improve website rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs), allowing businesses to attract more organic (unpaid) traffic.
• Brand credibility and trustworthiness: Websites that rank higher on search results are usually perceived as the most credible and trustworthy resources. SEO helps build trust, brand awareness, and authority in your specific industry.
• Higher conversion rates: Because websites that rank higher in the organic search results are considered more trustworthy, they are more likely to earn a conversion from high-quality leads.
• Enhanced user experience: SEO marketing efforts include improving site load speed and mobile-friendliness while providing valuable, authentic content. This improved experience leads to higher retention.
• Competitive advantage: Ranking higher than competitors can give you a competitive edge in your target market, especially if other businesses in your industry don’t have an SEO strategy.
• Long-term strategy: A well-executed SEO strategy offers long-lasting traffic when implemented and maintained correctly.
• Local engagement and traffic: For local businesses, local SEO strategies can drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar businesses  by securing a spot in Google’s Local Pack, which puts businesses in front of nearby customers actively searching and ready to act.

7 ways to measure the value of SEO efforts

If you have already invested in SEO, chances are you need to prove to leadership that your efforts have been worthwhile.

Here are tangible ways to showcase that SEO works:

1. Identify your key performance indicators

First, make sure your team has identified key performance indicators (KPIs) that guide your strategy.

The right KPIs depend on your business model, but they should always tie back to revenue or pipeline growth.

Common metrics that are used to measure SEO value include:

• Organic traffic
• Keyword rankings
• Backlinks and domain authority
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Bounce rate and time on page
• Conversions (form fills, calls, sales)
• ROI and revenue attributed to organic search

2. Calculate your SEO ROI

Your SEO ROI compares the cost of SEO efforts to the revenue it generates.

To calculate your SEO ROI:

• Add up the amount you’ve invested in SEO
• Calculate your conversion value from SEO (such as average order value or assigned lead value X number of conversions)
• Then, use the following formula to calculate your SEO ROI:

SEO ROI = (Conversion Value – Investment Cost) / Investment Cost x 100%

Further reading: How to Measure SEO ROI (+ An Easy 3-Step Formula)

3. Demonstrate revenue impact

Tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and your CRM can connect organic traffic directly to revenue by tracking organic conversions like signups, leads, and sales.

In addition to calculating ROI, you can prove revenue impact by:

• Assigning lead values for non-ecommerce businesses
• Using multi-point attribution to track the entire sales journey
• Tracking customer lifetime value (CLV) to prove the long-term value from customers acquired from organic search
• Comparing organic vs. paid acquisition costs to show that while SEO takes longer, the cost-per-acquisition over time is often lower and continues to generate leads even after initial investment

4. Show higher keyword rankings

While ranking at the top of the SERP may not immediately prove revenue growth, it does demonstrate authority and trustworthiness that leads to higher quality leads.

Focus on rankings for high-intent search queries that are closely tied to conversions, not just overall position improvements.

Pair ranking improvements with traffic and conversion data to show real business impact.

5. …And AI citations

If it wasn’t challenging enough to prove the value of SEO through rankings — the rise of AI-driven search has made this even more complicated.

This is due to Google’s AI Overviews, which appear at the top of the SERP. Now, brands need to not only rank highly — they also want to be cited by AI engines.

If your brand does get cited by AIO or other AI engines like ChatGPT, it essentially means that out of all the content available, yours is considered the most credible.

You can track citations by monitoring mentions in AI Overviews, featured snippets, and third-party AI tools, even if clicks don’t immediately follow.

6. Highlight brand discovery through non-branded traffic

Non-branded traffic shows that SEO brings in potential customers who discovered your brand through Google search.

Segment your organic traffic by branded vs. non-branded queries in tools like Google Search Console to quantify this impact.

7. Use benchmarks to show performance over time

Demonstrate how key metrics (traffic, rankings, conversions, and revenue) have improved over time relative to your investment.

You can also compare performance against industry benchmarks or competitors to add context.

Real examples of SEO’s value in search marketing

Just starting out with your SEO campaign and lack hard numbers to show stakeholders?

We know it’s hard to determine the value of anything without proof, so we brought together three HawkSEM case studies to demonstrate the real benefits of SEO.

“SEO is a core competency here at HawkSEM,” says Rambod Yadegar, co-founder and president of HawkSEM.

“We take a performance-driven and ROI approach to SEO for clients. We learn their business, target audience, and buyer persona.  From there, we create a custom SEO program (manually, we do not use a software or tool to run seo programs), monitor and track them closely to ensure a positive ROI.”

Each case study presents the clients’ unique goals, but all use aspects of SEO to increase online growth and generate revenue.

Easly: Increase in organic traffic led to higher conversion rates

Financing solutions provider Easly sought to enhance its digital presence in search rankings, grow organic traffic, and capture more qualified leads.

HawkSEM optimized Easly’s website by improving technical SEO elements, following SEO best practices, and building a strong keyword portfolio relevant to Easly’s services.

This targeted approach led to increased:

• 2,500% increase in page referrals
• 150% increase in domain authority
• Over 40 new placements and featured snippets

Using SEO efforts, Easly’s increase in organic traffic led to higher customer engagement and conversion rates.

MileIQ: Expanded global reach

MileIQ is a mileage-tracking app that wanted to expand its digital footprint and reach its target audience.

To address these challenges, HawkSEM optimized its website content, enhanced the user experience, and refined its keyword targeting to more closely match search intent.

The results:

• 125% increase YOY in organic site traffic
• 207% increase in organic sessions
• ~4,000 new first-page keywords

Swimsuits Direct: 110% increase in revenue

Ecommerce brand Swimsuits Direct wanted to increase revenue and reach more digital shoppers.

HawkSEM used a combination of SEO and PPC tactics to achieve its overall goals, even in the off-season.

Together, HawkSEM and Swimsuits Direct devised detailed customer personas, performance objectives, and unique selling points, then created an SEO plan.

The results: Nearly 110% increase in revenue YoY.

8 of the best tools to prove SEO value

There are countless analytics and tracking tools that make quantifying the value of SEO easier.

These tools help translate SEO efforts into measurable data, making it easier to report on performance and prove ROI.

1. Semrush: An ideal all-in-one tool for small businesses and medium-sized businesses alike with the largest backlink and keyword databases in the industry.
2. Ahrefs: Similar to Semrush, Ahrefs is another top SEO toolkit that helps users track progress. It also provides a range of tools from competitive analysis and link building to PPC and allows users to integrate with other important platforms like Google.
3. Moz: A wide set of tools for site auditing, keyword research, link building, and more. Moz is highly renowned for its creation of the domain authority metric, which many businesses use to measure their website’s credibility. It also offers the MozBar extension, which helps you examine webpage metadata.
4. Screaming Frog: A desktop program marketers rely on to conduct on-site SEO evaluations. It can crawl links, images, CSS, scripts, and applications and provide users insights into how to improve their technical SEO.
5. ConversionIQ (CIQ): HawkSEM’s proprietary tool that helps teams target the correct audience, create important touchpoints in each stage of the funnel, and gather valuable insights.
6. HubSpot Website Grader: This tool gives marketers a free website assessment. Scan a single URL to see the website’s current performance. After evaluating your website, Hubspot Website Grader gives you actionable tips on how to enhance your online performance.
7. Google Analytics and Google Search Console: These Google tools are essential for any new or veteran marketing professional. Google Analytics tracks your post-click data (who clicks on what) while Google Search Console tracks pre-click data (search queries). Google tools are easy to integrate with other SEO tools on the market.
8. BuzzSumo: One of the best tools for generating topic ideas and seeing what types of content are currently trending. With this tool, you can better understand how content is performing and how competitors are leveraging their own content.

Average costs of SEO

On average, SEO pricing can vary from $3,000 to $10,000 a month. For local SEO, plan to spend between $500 and $1,000 per month.

If you’re looking for a one-time SEO project, you’ll likely spend a bit more — anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000 a month.

Understanding the cost of SEO is essential for evaluating its ROI and setting realistic expectations for long-term value.

And while this investment can seem significant, SEO differs from paid channels in that it continues to generate traffic and leads long after the initial spend — often reducing cost per acquisition over time.

The takeaway

SEO is a cost-effective way to grow and scale a business. But proving to business owners and decision-makers that it is a worthy investment can be tricky to navigate.

With pre-determined KPIs, ROI data, and education on how content marketing and SEO feeds into the larger marketing funnel, you can prove to leadership that SEO is a worthwhile investment.

If your in-house team is struggling to keep up, consider partnering with an SEO agency.  Reach out to HawkSEM to learn more about our SEO services.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July 2024.