SEO Forecasting

Make data-driven predictions to support your ROI forecasts.

This page provides traffic, value and conversion forecasts at keyword level, and can present a model showing how these factors would be affected by improved ranking performance, as either a static representation of ultimate potential, or a staggered, incremental view of how reaching this potential might look over time.

Build your SEO Business Case

Use the data we have in the platform to forecast the probably impact of your SEO campaign.

Model and Calculate your SEO ROI

It’s so simple. Simply drag the sliders and use our simple or advanced SEO forecasting calculator.

Use Advanced Algorithms and Custom CTRs%

Forecast potential traffic gains and a staggered ROI based on how long you feel it will take you to achieve these higher rankings.

Inform Investments

Better forecasts inform smart investments
Show stakeholders what SEO could deliver for the business
Present high, medium and low scenarios to manage expectations and inspire confidence
Set through-time goals to show when you’re going to get there
Include a level of detail that inspires confidence

Prioritise Opportunity

Focus resources where the value is
Use grouped keywords to evaluate and prioritize opportunities
Invest your resources in the most valuable activities
Spend less time forecasting and more time doing

Flexible process for calculating SEO forecasts

You control the Simple forecast by operating the two sliders to the top right of the table.

Get Summary Forecast data and detailed keyword level forecasts in a table
Select the number of months and weeks you’d like to see forecast data for going forward
You can also filter the contents by tag group and/or a text search

Simple SEO Forecasting

For each keyword you can see the Search volume and actual rank and ranking pages.

Forecast rank
Current (Estimated) Visits
Forecast monthly Visits
Current Media Value (PPC Cost for this organic traffic)
Forecast Media Value (PPC Cost for this organic traffic)
Conversion value (if you’ve assigned a Conversion Rate and Sale/Lead Value to the keyword or keyword tag)

Advanced SEO Forecasting

Our software attempts to provide more realistic results by applying a model when generating forecasts. This model can be customized if needed, and offers three scenarios:

Low – A fairly conservative expectations of achievable rank
Medium – A reasonable assumption of what is likely to be achievable
High – This shows a best-case scenario given your current rank position

You’ll notice that the Forecast Rank column now presents three possible outcomes, each reflecting potential rank based on the High, Medium or Low scenario.

Advanced Forecasting has all the same scenario controls and functionality in the Simple Forecasting model. You can set a Low, Medium or High master scenario and override this manually for individual keywords to see on-the-fly updates in the table.

The table behaves as above, showing the projected impact of an incrementally improving rank upon the selected SEO metric over the selected time span.

Advanced Forecasting takes a different approach from Simple Forecasting in that takes into account how likely it is for a rank to be achieved. Jumping from ranking position 30 to position 5, for example, may be substantially easier than moving from 5 to 1.

FAQs about SEO Forecasting

SEO forecasts are typically made using standard or customised click-thru rate models built on your keyword ranking data and search volume data for every keyword.

You will need:

Up-to-date keyword ranking data for the keywords and pages that interest you.
Search volumes for these keywords.
A standard CTR% model to apply to the search volumes for each keyword based on how well you are ranking for that keyword. You can of course customise this for brand/non-brand keywords or at a keyword or keyword tag level.
Business metrics from Google Analytics or elsewhere, that show you how many and the value of the sales or leads generated from organic search.
A model (typically in Excel) that estimates your current organic visibility and allows you to produce estimates based on you making assumptions and estimates of how much you can improve rankings by and by when.
You can do this manually by gathering data from a keyword ranking tool like Authoritas, Google AdWords (or other suppliers of Search Volume data, Google Analytics (or another analytics provider) and Google Search Console.
Alternatively, you can automate this process by choosing an SEO platform with in-built sophisticated SEO forecasting and ROI calculators.

Make realistic forecasts. No website ever gets to number 1 ranking for all their non-brand keywords!

We like using the Authoritas “Ladder Principle” – this allows you to make forecasts assuming that you can improve to the average ranking positions of the sites above you, not necessarily straight to number 1.

This caters for an incremental improvement in rankings as opposed to an overnight spike in rankings and is consequently more realistic than a lot of SEO forecasts which are made assuming the very best-case scenario (the ‘impossible scenario’).

Can we help?

If you are interested in trying these SEO tools for your sites, then please book a brief call with one of our platform experts to explore whether we have what you need.

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