The measure of success on Google - discuss

rankings, PR, click-thrus, ROI?

[fom2001uk]

I still get clients who seem to think the measure of how well they're doing is all about their ranking on the Google SERPS. How many clients are still in the dark over this?

Personally, I measure success based on ROI, and to some extent, click-thrus. But rankings, no way!

What's the general feeling and what do your clients think?

[Dave_Hawley]

Being my own client I'm only interested in ROI, although this does have some correlation to search engine ranking. This is why I don't bother paying for Overtures ppc as it simply dilutes the ROI down too much.

There appears to be little difference in the top 3 spots.

Dave

[cabbie]

Absolutely.Its one thing to optimise a site for positions in serps.Its another to optimise a site to sell.

[jbinbpt]

EGOS

Clients want to see their names up as high as possible. Top billing. It is a visual thing.

It doesn’t matter if the keyworded product accounts for 5% of their overall sales. It doesn’t matter that business has never been better for them. They want to know why that other guy is ahead of them.

Clients gauge SERPS as ROI. It’s easy for them that way. It’s up to us to sell the total package and to educate them on what their ROI really is. Each client is different; you just have to find the best method to approach them.
This is a recent client comment….
“Why do I need Adwords if I can rank well in Google?”

jb

[meta_PI]

I think one of the problems is that most clients are not measuring the ROI of their search efforts. Less than half of all the people that run PPC campaigns are actually tracking ROI. Many of those that do are probably not tracking it deep enough, and those that are tracking deep enough are probably not spending the time to really analyze the data...

I try to see the glass as half full...

[dirkz]

As my own client:
For me, conversion rate seems to be the critical thing. You can visitors in masses, but if they don't buy ...
This together with your ranking and the overall popularity of the keywords.

In the end, it comes down to ROI.