Once upon a time...

“The conclusion here is quite obvious: SEO forecasting is unreliable by nature of the data. Intelligent estimates can be produced, though doing so is immensely time consuming and a poor allocation of resource.”

Sam Crocker, 2010

Then we started doing a lot of this...

Search volume / Projected rank / Average CTR= potential traffic / CR = potential revenue

78% forecast their activity

75% say their forecasts are wrong

It doesn’t have to be this

But first, some considerations...

The different forecasting psychologiesOptimist

It's a big opportunity, let's smash it

Low ballerforecast low and

exceed expectation

Statistician Best statistical method possible

Sales & CSAnalystsSEOsMe

The reason Worf & Guinan don’t get along is because actually, they’re doing different things

Forecasting vs Opportunity analysis- not the same data!

Opportunity Analysis Identifying the size of the market opportunity. What can happen.

Forecasting Estimating or predicting what will

happen

Is it so bad to be wrong?!

When good is good enough

Historical data is essentialhttps://www.distilled.net/forecaster/

As a baseline

If you have outliers in your data you can also use this...

http://kirstyhulse.com/forecasting-for-seo/

We need to use a search volume/CTR model to add specific SEO activity/page level impact to the baseline

I googled ‘ctr studies’ and in the top 10 results a first place position captures about...

31.24%

17.16%

18.20%40.20%

21.24%

35.12%

Big brand

Big brand Who?!

Brand size

Search Engine

DesktopMobile

Search Volume

Work out your own CTR

Calculate CTR with GWT

https://www.branded3.com/blog/calculate-true-ctr-wmt/

Test with SERP Turkey

http://www.tomanthony.co.uk/tools/serp-turkey/create_new.php

Take your baseline and add in proposed traffic increases from SEO activity

Forecasting is NOT the first thing you do

● Based on investment

● Based on proposed activity

● Based on sign off● Based on

implementation

Forecasting adding new pages

Forecasting link campaigns

Down with link targets!

Page level forecasts against proposed activity = tangible page level reporting against proposed activity = proving value = JOY

Thank you!