For brands that have been striving to improve visibility and increase reach, it can all start to feel monotonous after some time. Repeating the same tasks and attempting to increase exposure month after month and year after year makes it difficult to stay focused – particularly when measuring whether or not such efforts are producing results.

Assessing the real value of your SEO operations is crucial; if you can’t determine whether or not you’re generating results, then that calls into question the entire effort. Fortunately, there are numerous ways that you can peg a real dollar value to your SEO efforts – both in terms of the work you’re putting in and any benefits generated by it. Let’s look at three ways you can assess the situation.

Keyword Acquisition Cost

One of the easiest ways to determine exactly how much a particular SEO campaign is worth is to begin doing some paid keyword research. On platforms such as Google, you can easily evaluate the cost of paid search terms in their aggregate to discover exactly how much it would cost to be prominently visible in all relevant SERPs.

With this information in hand, you can assess how many keywords are being targeted, how much search volume exists for these terms and what percentage of traffic actually clicks on the ads in question. Combined, you can paint a true monetary value of the situation. After pinging networks to uncover this data, you’ll be able to determine whether spending the money on paid ads is a more valuable or efficient use of your time (or whether putting in the hard SEO work is a better choice). Likewise, this can also be done to calculate the total value of any past efforts, based on your current visibility in these SERPs.

Run Some Tests

Gauging the true value of any potential SEO campaign can be difficult – even with substantial market research. Sometimes, the best way to determine what is worth the effort and what isn’t is by spending a bit of money or otherwise conducting some tests.

Whether you are seeking to influence SERP performance based on organic acts of SEO or want to calculate the effective value of such a task by running paid ads, experimenting with these dynamics can produce real-world results that better inform you. From the number of clicks generated to your click through rate, these data-points collected via tests can help you further calculate whether a future effort is better handled through your time, through an ad budget or not at all.

Assess Your Worth

Last but not least, one relatively simple way to calculate just how valuable your SEO efforts have been – or could be – is to factor in your own value. How much is an hour worth to you? With this information, you can reasonably calculate how much a particular organic marketing effort will yield and whether it is better to start pinging networks with paid ads as an alternative.

Uncovering what SEO is truly worth can be done via multiple methods. Whether you’re assessing the past performance of a campaign or the potential cost of a future one, one or more of these three tactics can help you quantify the true costs and value associated with them.