It’s like pulling teeth trying to explain to a boss or an investment group about ROI or Return On Investment regarding SEO and social media tactics to boost one’s website and products and services.
So many execs are under the impression that there’s some magic bullet whereby just one seo expert can perform some magic wonder to get a website to the top of the search engine lists. They just don’t understand the mechanics of what’s going on and are only interested in how fast they can get their money back and why are they expending capital for such a venture.
This is why it takes time to sit down and look at what is going on regarding the SEO and social media marketing industry and translating that information into common terms and scenarios that the execs can comprehend. You need to make sure they understand that things don’t work overnight. That this is both short term and long term strategies. They need to realize it’s just like growing crops or waiting for an investment to mature like a CD or mutual fund.
The execs need to know this takes planning and savvy as the landscape regarding SEO often changes thanks to Google and other search engines changing their algorithms to get better results for their surfers. This calls on the seo expert to work diligently to stay on top of the latest changes and tactics and to explain them in prosaic terms to their execs and investors. The social media end is especially important because it amay take some extra capital to work these venues. Optimizing things for each major social media site is tedious and has to be constantly maintained is both time consuming and worrisome.
To battle this, try to work out a timeline outline for the boss and investors. Show them the average time it takes to see SEO results and what kind of traffic you expect via the standard model. Show them the more amazing statistics only after they’re familiar with the standard procedures. They’ll begin to see that this is no magic wand ROI but one that is systematically planned and processed. It gives them something to go by on a daily or weekly or monthly basis as they pour over the statistical data to see where the traffic is coming from, what kind of traffic it is, retention, and conversation to sales and leads.
That’s the bottom line they want to see. How fast to get the good search results, how many conversions to leads and sales. That’s all they’re looking for and it’s up to the SEO professional and using social media to get them there.
Again, it’s very difficult to talk to suits. They’re often uneducated in the particulars and are only going on hype and hearsay. They’re interested in only two things, their egos and pockets. It takes the right marketer to calm them down and tell them what to do right off the bat. Take the time, demand patience, and your SEO and social media ROI duties will pay off without major problems.