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The large company that I work for has a site that isn't spidered due to a particularly unfriendly dynamic content management system, a load of client side Javascript and session strings in the URL. It's in a bad way, but I've slowly been making progress towards overcoming the problems one by one.
Now senior management have gone luke-warm on the idea, and have asking for figures justifying the expenditure of altering the site to get it spidered. In other words:
What increase in traffic can we expect?
What increase in sales can we expect?
Can't we just pay (Adwords/Overture etc.) to get to the top?
I've always optimised sites I've developed as a matter of course, and so I've rarely had to justify the effort. However, I guess that some of you who run SEO companies or work freelance get asked this sort of thing all the time. What do you say and what figures do you quote?
>>What increase in sales can we expect?<<
That all depends on how good you are at identifying and targeting keywords that will bring about a good conversion rate for your website, and more importantly how good your Site is at making those conversions. (Your SITE sells the product to your visitors, not the keyword that got them there!)
>>Can't we just pay (Adwords/Overture etc.) to get to the top?<<
Sure you could. If you don't mind doubling or even tripling your spending budget. But with paid listings, the positions disappear the moment you stop payment. With good SEO, you may achieve rankings a bit more slowly, but they will stay for much much longer. It's a question of short term vs. long term investment.
