December 12, 2022
From my point of view, creating forecasts in SEO is one of the most challenging things to do. The lack of data in both Google Search Console, as well as Google Analytics, forces the user to channel a great amount of creativity and ability to adapt. Starting off, the first question would be: why would you start forecasting your SEO traffic and turnover?
Working in SEO requires making a lot of assumptions and relying on insufficient data. Time and experience has shown that there is quite a large margin of error that can arise during forecasting. Let’s take a look into the process of creating a forecast.
Google search console
We always start our SEO forecasting journey in Google Search Console. First, we make an export of all Google Search Console data of the last 12 months. After that, we like to first filter out branded traffic, so we delete all the lines that have branded queries. Branded search terms tend to have a higher CTR than non-branded searches have. So if your focus is on increasing positions for non branded searches, it is better to leave them out, to get an honest, more accurate average CTR, based on current positions. The next step is aggregating your queries by position. By doing this, you will get an average CTR based on position. It should look like the image below. We can use these average CTRs to calculate what keyword rankings are able to bring to the overall performance.
Google analytics
Oftentimes, a company boasts a great website. Their content is great, and the UX is fully optimized, but the site doesn’t generate enough conversions. Why? Because it doesn’t generate enough traffic! Most landing pages have a conversion rate of about 2,5%. Therefore, a steady stream of organic traffic is essential to their success. That’s where we come in! With advanced international backlink strategies, Seeders is able to generate long-term, sustainable traffic growth for your website. It’s pretty simple, really: higher online authority leads to more traffic, which leads to more conversions and revenue
Third party keyword data / or Google search console data
The last part focuses on honing in on, and defining your ambitions/goals. We would like to encourage you to do this on a keyword level. For example: build a group of keywords that you want to focus on for the next year. Create a document with the keywords, the current position and the position where you want them to be at in the next 12 months. Additionally, get from your GSC file how much traffic you have got on that keyword in the last 12 months. To sketch the potential you can again go multiple ways. You can use the last 12 months’ views from GSC. On the other hand, you can also add the previous 12 months search volume from a third party tool like Ahrefs, SeRanking or SemRush. Your document should have approximately the same lay-out as the one below;
The last step is to multiply the potential volume with the session value and you will know how much traffic and turnover there is to get. And here you go, try it out and create a great forecasting business case yourself.
Chief Executive Officer
Dennis Akkerman is the Chief Executive Officer at Seeders Zwolle. With a strong background in online marketing, Dennis leads the team in developing effective strategies for clients to grow their online presence. He is dedicated to delivering results and ensuring the success of every campaign. Dennis' expertise and leadership drive Seeders' mission to help businesses in the digital world.
