Measuring SE ranking results

I haven't found a way to measure the quality of rankings. This is important because we want to compare SEO methods and also to charge clients on contingency basis. This is, if I get them 1st screen in Google under any valuable keyword they pay a plus.

After I got my first good rankings (like 1st in a million) I was very enthusiastic, but then I realized that the clients do not care about these figures, unless they are associated with sales. Which is usually beyond my reach.

So, I decided to ask the SEO community. I know that sometimes SEO contests are organized, but I would prefer to be measured by an index rather than spending resources in contests.

I am trying to establish some kind of Search Engine Positioning Index (or SEPI), but there are many undefined areas. Like: Should I consider all the good rankings? How about variations of a keyword phrase? Which SE can be used? Google? A mix of several ones? Is the number of monthly searches for a keyword an indicator of ranking difficulty and thus merit?

The total number of pages under a keyword is an indicator of competitiveness, but it is not enough. Other factors seem also important, for instance, how strong are the competitors.

Any feedback would be welcome.

Many factors determine the difficulty of a keyword. Ultimately it comes down to:
- number of competitors
- how well optimized are they

The quick and dirty method (meaning not 100% accurate, but good for getting a reasonable idea of competitiveness) of checking competitiveness is:
- check the top 3 bids in Overture
- check the PR of the top 5 result pages and their domain's home pages
- check the number of results in Google

I'd consider those 3 the most relevent factors, in that order.

seomoz has a good tool that weights many other factors as well:
http://www.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty-tool.php

I think you have a great idea howver the implementation for this type of scorecard is difficult to say the least.

Index ScoreCard =(Total Traffic For Key Word x Average Conversion Ratio) / (SEO For Top Rank + PPC + PPP + Ongoing Upkeep ) x Average Profit Margin For Targeted Sales Driven By Keyword


Would only begin to touch on the real "worth"

I'm not sure you are going to solve your problem this way. In other words, your client is still going to measure success by the sales, whatever you come up with, because that's his only goal.

If you come up with great SERP positions for optimal KWs, but the conversion rate is near zero, he isn't going to cheer too loudly!

Let me add that I do not intend to measure potential traffic nor commercial value for clients. Just Ranking, which is the service I intend to get and sell. Converting ranking into traffic and sales is another issue.


To set a standard could be good for:

- charging customers on contingency basis
- competing among SEOs
- comparing SEO techniques


In order to measure only "Ranking Merit" the "Keyword Difficulty Tool" at seomoz.org you mentioned is great, although it is not working well right now. They declare that "seo tool" is a piece of cake, and I am not so sure. When they fix it I will do a more complete analysis.

In the meantime, for the math oriented, what about:


Search Engine Positioning Index (SEPI) =


For instance, if my page is 1st among 300, Keyword Difficulty is 50% or 0.5, my SEPI would be 249.

If my SEPIs were dollars, I might charge the client $249...

Total SEPI for a campaign: Sumatory of individual values under different keyword phrases,

Searches are allways conducted with the keyword phrase between quotes.

Values for similar searches are not counted. For instance:

Ranking merit for "seo contest" prevents consideration of "contest seo", "seo whatever", "whatever contest".

Any ideas? Thanks folks!