Now that you have optimized your website either by hiring an SEO expert or done it yourself, you would like to know how effective it is.  After all you have been reading about how essential SEO is, and how beneficial it will be for your business.  Your entire process has been focused towards getting top rank in the search engines.  Here is what you need to know:

Search Engine Rankings: 
The primarily goal of every SEO campaign is to get your web page top ranking with search engines.  Here comes the reality check.  Top ranking in itself does not mean much.  Top ranking only gets you exposure to a wider range of people searching for products and services related to your business. So all that top ranking does is increases traffic, and hopes that most of the traffic you receive will convert into sales.

Traffic: 
Getting top ranking will definitely increase the traffic that visits your website.  However this traffic will not serve your purpose if it does not convert into sales.  This is where your SEO has to work.  Your traffic has to convert into sale.  For that, your key words and content has to be well researched and effective.  So actually both your ranking and your traffic do not mean much for your business.  The parameter of your success lies in the rate of conversion of traffic into sale.  It is extremely important that you have the right set of keywords, which brings you traffic that is relevant for your business.  This is the kind of traffic that will convert into sales.

Conversion of referrals to sales: 
Say if you have 100 referrals from the major search engines, and none of them buy, or perform any kind of desired action, your SEO is a failure.  You would have to tweak your website more.  Check if you have done the following

·         Have you assured the visitor about protecting personal information?

·         Are your online forms unnecessarily complicated or lengthy?

·         Do your link buttons work?  If the person clicks the pay button, does he automatically get transferred to the secure page, or does the website hang.  You would be surprised how often webmasters neglect this crucial thing.

·         Is your website easy to navigate?

Improve these and you get more conversions.

Check your Take Rates: 
This is another parameter that can help you evaluate your SEO’s effectiveness.  Take Rate means analyzing how many people are interested in your product or services.  Check out the people who have registered with your website, or left their email addresses.  Another way is to check how many people went through your free visit, or demonstration.  They may or may not buy, but if they are taking interest, many of them will buy sooner or later.  If not, those email addresses can be used for sale letters.  So you have benefited. 

If all these parameters show an increase, you have effectively optimized your website and if will soon start showing increased sale.