You don’t need to be a data nerd to be able to use data forecasting for SEO.
Sure, it takes work. But it’s not tough if you divide all the work into steps such as gathering data from defined resources, studying it to spot patterns, and making predictions based on those patterns.
另外，如果您了解其他像其他人在做出预测时所做的事情，SEO的预测将变得更加容易。
这正是这篇文章的意义。我们涵盖了SEO预测的基础知识以及在此类工作中经验丰富的其他人的精选策略。
准备学习了吗？挖掘。
What is SEO Forecasting and Why Is It Important?
SEO forecasting involves using data to make predictions related to organic growth such as future traffic levels, expected value from the traffic (read: expected leads and conversions).
For agencies, SEO forecasting helps predict the impact of their search engine optimization efforts in the future while also giving an estimate of future sales to the client.
预测企业的重要性是相同的。通过使用SEO的数据预测，公司可以预测基本的指标，例如流量水平，传入线索和销售。该预测还通过揭示活动的当前和未来健康来帮助确定资源分配。
例如，您可以决定是否继续进行广告系列，或者您是否需要根据您的数据进行调整SEO dashboard。Therefore, helping prioritize SEO efforts and resource allocation accordingly.
All this naturally brings up the question: how often should you make SEO forecasts?
The answer to this is mostly evenly divided between project-basis, monthly, and quarterly basis as 29.27% of the respondents we talked to dive into SEO forecasting on these three frequencies. Only 12.2% say they forecast less frequently than quarterly.
这些人用于SEO预测的工具是AHREFS，Google Search Console和Semrush，分别使用98.05％，63.4％和53.66％的工具。43.90％和24.39％的人也分别使用Google表和Moz。
How to Use Data Forecasting for SEO? 9 Strategies
We’ve divided the nifty nine strategies for SEO forecasting into three broad categories:
PRO TIP: How to Monitor and Evaluate Your SEO Performance
If you want to understand how your visitors are behaving on your landing pages, there are several on-page events and metrics you can track from Google Analytics and Google Search Console that will help:
- Organic sessions by landing page.哪些着陆页获得最大的有机交通并产生注册？
- 登陆页面的有机目标完成。Which landing pages reach your conversion goals and which need to be updated or optimized?
- Organic clicks by queries.Which search queries generate the most clicks to your website?
- Organic clicks by page.Which pages receive the most clicks from search results pages?
- 有机会议。您的网站收到多少个有机搜索会议？
And more…
Now you can benefit from the experience of our SEO and website conversion experts, who have put together aplug-and-play Databox templateshowing the most important metrics for monitoring your landing page performance. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!
您只需单击几下即可轻松设置它 - 无需编码。
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
步骤1：获取模板
第2步：Connect your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts with Databox.
Step 3:Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
However, for any of these strategies to be successful, you need to start with two things. These are:
- Understand what you want to achieve from the forecast
“确定您要解决的问题，”丹尼尔·弗利（Daniel Foley）的建议Litta。” I’ve seen many examples of forecasting without a business issue in mind throughout my career.
As previously mentioned, forecasting is commonly used to answer questions such as:
1.我应该在哪里投资SEO？
2. What keywords should I concentrate on?
3. Do I try to boost my ranking for brand keywords?
4. Will it be more profitable to prioritize non-brand keywords?
5.我应该专注于SEO的哪些产品类别？”
“Understand what to expect and how it would affect your behavior and decisions,” recommends索赔英国萨沙鹌鹑。
“Make a list of the metrics you want to forecast. Given the relevance of forecasting to the CMO’s office and its position in resource allocation, I strongly recommend using metrics that relate to business outcomes.”
The key is to “understand what you’ll do with the prediction… Also, keep in mind that it’s not just about picking the right metric, such as conversion value. The importance of defining the business situation cannot be overstated. To put it another way, forecasted conversion value only makes sense when it comes to improving ranking for a category of keywords.”
With that, let’s dive into the details.
Project-based SEO forecasting strategies
The tactics to use data forecasting for SEO for projects come from respondents who do so on a project basis.
- Use GA with Ahrefs
- 通过研究趋势来预测
- Study all available data
1.Use GA with Ahrefs
这个二人帮助团队Links Chemistrymake SEO forecasts. “If you want an accurate estimate for your website or page, Google Analytics or Google Search Console are absolutely the best data to use,” shares Roberto Popolizio.
Here’s how it works: “I use these in combination with Ahrefs and some custom scripts. Example: to forecast future traffic one year from now, I export the ‘Organic traffic’ chart in CVS format. Then, I run my plug-and-play script on Google Colab.”
Related:17个共同去ogle Analytics Tracking Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
2.通过研究趋势来预测SEO
Another way to make SEO predictions is by studying trending data. The team at椰子做这个。奥利维亚·坦（Olivia Tan）解释说：“对于我们的竞选活动，我们考虑趋向关键字，并尝试估算目标关键字的未来排名。
它有助于我们概述我们是否应该继续采用相同的技术，或者是否需要在竞选活动中进行任何更改。”
这样做可以节省时间、精力和金钱。另外,Tan shares they can decide whether to continue on with a campaign.
3. Study all available SEO data
This SEO forecasting method starts with gathering data from sources like Ahrefs, Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Screaming Frog as Peter Fishman fromMozartdatasuggests.
Then, identify trends in the gathered data. As Fishman explains, “We compile this data and to put it basically, we look for trends on where our clients should be putting their focus in.
We look for individual pages on their site that have potential based purely on data (Impressions vs clicks, impressions vs Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty, and a few other factors). We then provide our findings to our client in an easy to understand report with our actionable findings.”
Related:关键字难度解释了：它是什么以及它如何影响SEO
Monthly SEO forecasting strategies
像上一节一样，我们已经从每月节奏研究SEO的数据预测的人们那里收集了这些策略。
1.计算商业意图的点击
商业意图涉及确定转换正在搜索特定关键字的人的可能性。通过确定这种意图，您基本上可以立即开始业务，从而节省了时间和资源。
对于SEO预测，布拉夫顿的Jeff Baker takes this approach. “I always measure the aggregate number of commercial intent clicks (organic clicks to product/service landing pages that target commercial intent keywords).”
After getting a hold of the commercial intent clicks, Baker uses the following formula: “I then divide [the aggregate number of commercial intent clicks] by the number of days in a given month to get the average number of commercial intent clicks generated on a daily basis for that month.”
“Months that fall outside that normal range of commercial intent clicks, while maintaining keyword rankings will likely show progression,” Baker comments further. “The opposite is true as well. This also helps me forecast inbound lead generation.”
Related:How to Build a Comprehensive SEO Keyword Ranking Report
2. Track existing keywords and their rankings
您还可以查看关键字对使用一个预测性能的排名SEO仪表板软件。
This tip comes from Mudassir Ahmed of博客ging Explainedwho typically looks at only one metric for SEO forecasting: existing keywords with their rankings.
“I think we often lose ourselves in trying hard to create new content and target new keywords, that we miss the potential of existing keywords,” Ahmed comments.
Based on the data gathered on this metric, Ahmed shares, “my goal is to work on my on-page SEO such as content and keyword optimization, Interlinking, title and meta tags, technical fixes, page speed, and building links. I use Ahrefs to pull my current search rankings for the keywords I targeted and to forecast the traffic potential if I improve.”
3. Analyze past SEO trends and historical data to identify patterns
For project-based data forecasting for SEO, we’ve talked about studying trending keywords and all available data from Google Search Console and other tools.
This strategy is, however, helpful for monthly SEO forecasting too.Story Sells’Danny Peavey reveals, “we currently analyze past trends and historical data once a month on various tools like Uber Suggest, SemRush, and Moz to forecast our SEO potential. We also use Google Search Console for real-time analytics.”
尤其是所有这些数据，足够的历史数据有助于确定流量流动方式的模式和周期。这为您提供了有关在给定月份可能如何结果的图片。
Miranda Yan fromVinPittalks about how they follow this strategy. Sharing their objectives, Yan outlines, “we are currently focused on building a pipeline that matches the goals of our organization. We follow a detailed process that moves from managing sales to improving engagement.”
To this end, the team uses “in-house data metrics and analyzes data sources like Google Analytics and the Google Console for forecasting SEO results and potential room for improvements.”
To study all this data and drive forecasts from it, Yan shares their forecasting process involves:
- “创建一个预测模型。
- Acting upon opportunities available.
- 根据可用指标采取必要的措施。
Actions can be subjective and counterproductive at the same time. We pay more emphasis to forecasting results like conversion value, CPC, PageRank, Avg. Value per conversion, etc.”
Quarterly-based SEO forecasting strategies
In this section, we’ve sourced strategies from only relevant sources with hands-on experience with quarterly SEO forecasting.
1.Make predictions from search volume and keyword difficulty
这种策略最适合企业，只有他们的SEO努力才开始。
It comes from Nelson Jordan who is recently starting SEO forecasting efforts atObodo。“Having recently joined Obodo, a new design and development agency that have a limited web presence, laying the foundations for SEO are front-of-mind right now,” Jordan writes to lay out their goals.
“In order to forecast SEO potential, I look at two main metrics – search volume and keyword difficulty. As our domain is so new, we stand little chance of ranking for high-volume, difficult keywords. Instead, my job is to find ‘hidden gems’, low-difficulty keywords that still have a reasonable volume and search intent that relates to our services. I use Ahrefs to find and compile these, and Clearscope to help optimize content.”
In short, if you are new and your domain authority isn’t high enough to beat prevailing ranking content, go ahead and use data from search volume and keyword difficulty for SEO forecasting.
2. Use Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and a Google spreadsheet
This trio is great for SEO forecasting too. It takes a bit of work, but Tracey Wallace from营销makes it sound easy.
Sharing their process, Wallace points out, “I use Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Hubspot and a Google Spreadsheet for SEO forecasting.”
Then, the process divides into the following steps:
- “First, I’ll use Ahrefs to create a list of target terms and their monthly search volume.
- Then, I build my spreadsheet with the key terms and key queries.
- Next, I’ll look in Google Analytics to see how much traffic I’m getting for content already ranking on page 1 for the key term.”
“I find that Ahrefs and even Google Search Console seem to under-report what I’m actually seeing in terms of traffic for posts,” observes Wallace.
“So, I just use GA and then figure out the percent of monthly volume I’m getting based on Ahref’s monthly volume prediction.”
Continuing with the steps, Wallace writes:
- “从那里，我将该公式应用于所有关键字，然后返回到6-12个月内的整体搜索量。
- Moving forward, I average the last 6 months of our organic search funnel – and apply that to the overall session number.
现在，我可以清楚地看到，如果我可以根据现有主题获得内容的投资，可以在6-12个月内驱动妈妈有多少铅和销售。这绝对是一个过程 - 但一次又一次地工作！”
3.使用计划和诊断工具方法进行SEO预测
Lastly, you can use this elaborate SEO forecasting strategy too – same asAlex Birkett做。
Birkett lays out all the details: “my favorite way to use SEO forecasting is as a planning tool, and my second favorite way to use SEO forecasting is as a diagnostic tool.”
使用预测的工作开始ing as a planning tool:
“对于第一种用例，您要做的就是构建内容增长模型。Map out the keywords you’re planning on ranking, your assumptions on how much traffic each keyword will bring if you hit a given SERP position, your likelihood of hitting that position, the CTR of that position, your average conversion rate and LTV, and the cost of your content.
You’ll never be able to perfectlypredict the output and ROI of your program，但是一个简单的增长模型练习将确保您朝着正确的方向瞄准。”
As for using SEO forecasting as a diagnostic tool, here’s how things unfold:
“For the second use case, I like to use historical data to project future feasible traffic. Then, if I change something or produce additional content that causes my data to sink below or rise above the expected future traffic, I can typically attribute those changes to my actions. This gives you a little bit stronger attribution, which is typically hard to do in SEO.”
There’s no correct way to use data for SEO forecasting. Simply aim to choose (and stick with) a strategy that suits your goals and objectives the best. See how it works out for you. And, only change your strategy if you aren’t able to make close-to-accurate predictions.
