Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important. Most marketers know this, and efforts continue to increase.

But like so many other newer forms of marketing, it can be tough to calculate an exact ROI on your SEO efforts. So what do you do when the boss, or the financial leaders want to know why you’re spending such a large percentage of your marketing budget on something that seemingly brings in no direct business? How do you measure SEO?

There are a few things that you can do:

1. Use Google Analytics to track specific keywords and how much traffic they bring in. When those traffic numbers go up, you’re winning.
   
   
2. Also using Google Analytics, track general non-paid search engine traffic. When that goes up you’re winning.
   
   
3. Use a tool like this one, offered by SEOmoz, to track specific rankings for your keywords and pages. When those rankings go up, you’re winning.

There’s not a whole lot more you can do. You can point to reports and articles about the benefits of SEO, about the link between online conversions and higher rankings/higher traffic numbers. We live and work in a marketing world where, despite our best efforts, we can’t track it all. We can track a lot. But we can’t track it all.