seo
Struggling to Prove SEO Success? Let Us Enlighten You
Published: 03/04/25 - Updated: 08/04/25
For many businesses, SEO remains a crucial yet misunderstood part of the digital marketing strategy. While search visibility, traffic, and rankings are important, proving the true impact SEO has on a business to key decision makers, especially those outside the marketing team, can be a challenge. The key to success lies in aligning your SEO goals with broader business objectives and presenting the data in a way that speaks to your senior stakeholders.
Understanding Channel Goals vs. Reporting Metrics
Each marketing channel has its own objectives, but reporting these as one is something that we know a lot of marketers struggle with and can often become a battle between channels. For example, SEO and PPC often compete, and strong performance for one channel might come at the detriment of the other. There are obviously strategic reasons as to why you might to prioritise one over the other (such as competitor bidding or time-sensitive campaigns) but it’s important to take a holistic approach to reporting, covering and reporting on all areas which might impact your sphere of influence.
SEO, for example, traditionally tracks organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversions. However, these metrics may not mean anything to finance directors or senior directors who focus on the bottom line.
The easiest solution to this is to create a unified report that ties SEO performance directly to company-wide goals. SEO should support revenue, lead generation, and customer acquisition goals, not just rankings and reporting on what matters most to the business is what’s going to be the most critical. While conversions and traffic are important, engagement metrics, authority scores, and visibility metrics (such as Share of Voice) also help demonstrate value so it’s worth including a range of metrics in reporting.
Demonstrating SEO’s Value to Decision-Makers
The people who sign off on SEO budgets aren’t always those who understand the day-to-day intricacies of search. For them, success is often boiled down to one question: What’s the profit?
To answer this you must use data-driven forecasting:
- ROI Forecasting: Demonstrating the expected return on investment based on past performance and industry benchmarks. Use past performance to highlight the importance of what you do.
- Incremental Forecasting: Showing the additional value SEO can drive compared to a baseline scenario.
- Opportunity Forecasting: Highlighting untapped potential and the cost of inaction. Look for data before your SEO campaign starts to show the improvements.
Industry case studies can also play a powerful role, particularly when 1st party data might not exist. Looking at competitors that have invested in SEO can paint a clear picture of its impact on your own business.
Building a Business Case for SEO Investment
When pitching SEO strategies internally, you may only have one chance to convince your decision makers. A strong business case should anticipate objections, address potential challenges, and provide clear, actionable solutions.
Use historical data, projections, and competitor benchmarks to support your argument. Ask and answer the questions: What happens if SEO efforts stall? How does this compare to competitor growth?
Identify common blockers (e.g., resource constraints, technical limitations) and propose workflows to overcome them.
Your goal is to eliminate uncertainty and make SEO investment a straightforward, low-risk decision for your stakeholders.
Effective Reporting: Clarity Over Complexity
Even with a solid SEO strategy, poor reporting can undermine its value. To keep stakeholders engaged and informed make sure your reporting is detailed but not drowning in data. You can use API-powered dashboards to track performance dynamically across channels. Make sure you focus on insights that tie back to business goals rather than overwhelming stakeholders with excessive numbers. Highlight key takeaways upfront so they get the essential information straight away.
SEO success isn’t just about driving traffic, it’s about demonstrating business impact. By aligning your goals, presenting your data effectively, and anticipating any challenges, you can secure the buy-in you need.
For more insights on proving the value of SEO, check out our webinar on securing buy in: Webinar Link.
Introducing Media Match: Kaizen’s AI-Driven Prospecting Tool
One of the most time consuming aspects of Digital PR is journalist prospecting. Finding relevant journalists, collecting contact details, and building targeted outreach lists. Traditionally, this process requires hours of manual research.
To solve this, we developed Media Match, an AI tool that automates journalist prospecting. By analysing the most relevant stories across publications and cross-referencing them with our journalist database, Media Match compiles tailored outreach lists in minutes rather than hours. These lists are manually checked by our team to ensure accuracy and maintain a high standard of relevancy.
This technology significantly enhances efficiency, allowing our team to focus on the higher-value tasks such as building relationships with journalists, storytelling, and campaign execution. The next evolution of Media Match will incorporate tone of voice analysis, helping us tailor pitches to individual journalists based on their writing style and preferences.
Balancing AI with the Human Element
The more we integrate AI into our workflows, the more valuable it will become. As an organisation we remain mindful of the risks, particularly around misinformation and content authenticity. AI-generated content can never replace human judgment, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking.
At Kaizen, we embrace emerging technologies in Digital PR, while staying true to the fundamental principles. AI can enhance our capabilities, but it’s our relationships, creativity, and industry expertise that makes our PR team truly impactful. As technology continues to evolve, we’ll continue adapting. We won’t be using AI as a shortcut, but as a tool to drive even greater results for our clients.
Want to see great results from your Digital PR in an effective and efficient way? Speak to our team today
Ed Coles
Ed is the SEO Lead at Kaizen, with 8 years experience in the SEO industry. Having worked across various agencies from small to large multinational independents, Ed initially started in the world of PPC before quickly moving to the world of SEO. From helping clients in the third sector and retail, to working on larger global ecommerce sites, Ed has been responsible for supporting the roll out and delivery of global SEO strategies in EMEA and NORA across some iconic brands such as Vans, Timberland, The North Face, LEGO, and Adidas, among many others.