Magento SEO – measuring success

What makes a successful SEO campaign?

How do you measure it? And what is the impact of Attribution Type?

For a Magento store, the number of sales from organic search more than doubled after a couple of months of SEO work. This is a good result.

Number of Sales from Organic Search

But the client was puzzled why the reported increase varied considerably according to the attribution model used.  "Last interaction attribution" reported the sales to have increased by 248%, yet using "first interaction attribution" this was an increase of 228%.  This was happening because some customers were only purchasing after a second visit to the website. The second visit was often from paid advertising, specifically retargeting or a direct visit.

Which attribution model is best?

When measuring the success of an SEO campaign for a Magento eCommerce store ExtraDigital would argue that first interaction is better.

In a simple world, consumers arrive just once at a website and either make a purchase or not. But in reality, consumers may visit a site many times before purchase.

For eCommerce SEO, the most important task is the first contact – getting the consumer to your Magento shop when they first search for one of your products. It may be that the consumer bookmarks the page and returns later as a direct visitor. Or they can be redirected back via retargeting paid search. Indeed a successful SEO campaign will improve the performance of any paid search campaigns.

For this reason, the first interaction attribution model is best for eCommerce SEO.

Summary

Many business owners use analytics to measure SEO success. But not all are aware of the substantial differences in conversion data by the attribution model, particularly for eCommerce.

Analytics, by default, uses the last interaction attribution model, which is well suited to PPC work, but less suitable for SEO work for shops where there is a clear sales value. 

So in summary, when measuring the success of an SEO campaign for a shop or Magento store, use sales data,  but ensure you understand the details of the attribution model used.

Call ExtraDigital on +44 (0)1227 686898 for more information on how our Magento SEO services can help you gain more sales.