Some of the features described in this article might be available only for Tracked Campaigns. Learn more.
Translate SEO goals into business metrics
The Forecast estimates how much additional non-brand organic traffic would be generated if you achieve a specific SEO goal over a specific timeframe.
An SEO forecast helps you visualize your change/growth in Visibility on reaching the target ranks each month. It also helps you validate your SEO opportunity, pitch to clients, and justify your proposal's budget, by providing estimates in terms of business metrics – sessions, conversions, and revenue (just like the way Keyword Planner does for Google Ads).
We use the keyword data from the Rank Tracker, the progression speed, and the ranking target you set as the SEO goal, to compute how many additional sessions would be generated if the goal is achieved over the specified timeframe. To do this, we first filter out the brand traffic to focus only on the non-brand organic traffic. We then use our forecast algorithm to estimate the amount of additional traffic you'd get.
Create a scenario
Start by creating a scenario to make your business case tangible. Your main controllable inputs are the keyword groups, the forecast timeframe, the goal progression speed, and the desired target ranks.
You choose the keyword groups you set up in the Rank Tracker, set ranking targets over a timeframe, and specify how quickly they will progress towards the top 100, top 20, and each group's target rank, to set an SEO goal.
Note: You can also add a Key Competitor to see their average ranks on these keyword groups next to yours and use it as a point of reference to decide your own target ranks. For a more realistic scenario, you can also set the target rank as a range (best- and worst-case estimates). Learn more about these settings in this article.
Additional sessions over the entire timeframe are calculated and displayed as you define your goal, and you can use our Goal Chance metric to calibrate your goal so as to achieve a good number of additional sessions.
Once you finalize your SEO goal, we do a precise calculation at a keyword level, taking into account the key variables that influence organic traffic:
the effect of SERP features on CTR by calculating the percentage of searches that end up clicking on organic results
search volumes calibrated by Year-over-Year trends and split by device
the long-tail effect generated by semantically related keywords
the most probable conversion rate and Average Order Value from the available data (our "Best Match" Conversion Rate) or custom data you enter.
Read about how our Forecasting algorithm works here.
You can see how we calculate the metrics in each step and control the variables with custom inputs or by excluding those that don't apply to your case.
You can then view the forecasted Visibility, average ranks, additional sessions, conversions, and revenue generated for the scenario as part of the forecast results.
To create a new scenario for a different SEO strategy and forecast data for it, use the Scenario Navigator. You can create up to five different scenarios.
Read more on how to visualize forecasted results using Forecast scenarios.
To help you pitch your SEO strategy to your team and stakeholders, scenarios show future SEO results in terms of how much it would cost to generate the same number of sessions and conversions with the same keywords through Google Ads. That can be a relevant price anchoring for your SEO budget.
Adjust the SEO goal
Based on the difficulty of the website to rank in the Top 10 for the selected keywords and your target rank, we calculate a Goal Chance metric that indicates your chance of achieving the set goal, from Realistic to Too Ambitious.
When creating the forecast scenario, tweak your SEO goal until you have a good balance between the number of additional sessions and how realistic the goal is (see how the Goal Chance changes when you adjust the target rankings).
Note:
Based on the current ranks of the keywords you select and the progression speed you set, the Forecast estimates the rank which the keywords will get to, in each month of the timeframe. If more than 50% of the search volume of a keyword group wouldn't meet their monthly target ranks in the forecast timeframe, you can see a warning, so that you can adjust the inputs of your forecast accordingly:
View the estimated results
You can check the estimated additional traffic and the estimated monthly performance trend in the "Overview" tab.
You can also view the change in your website's presence every month in terms of Visibility and Average Ranks, by choosing these options from the dropdown.
With the Extended forecast turned on, you can see the estimated monthly additional sessions, conversions, or revenue generated throughout the extended forecast timeframe.
Go to the Detailed tab to explore your forecast at a keyword level, where you can see the keyword data, the SEO goal, and the estimated additional traffic for each keyword included.
New: AI Summary
Analyze your forecast within minutes, with our AI Summary feature.
A forecast comprises different inputs, metrics and results. Analyzing your forecast can be overwhelming, and AI Summary eases this process. It summarizes the results, provides key insights on the supportive and possibly detrimental factors to reaching the set target, and surfaces any potential risks.
Generate the AI Summary on forecasts of all your draft campaigns by clicking on the AI Summary button on the results screen.
Discover content opportunities
SEOmonitor's deep integration enables you to get insights across its different modules. As soon as you set up a scenario, you can see an overview of the content optimization opportunities for that group of keywords on the sidebar. Clicking on it opens the Content Audit dashboard that shows you the content optimization opportunities for that scenario, so that you can quickly assess the resources required to work towards the target, based on the opportunities. You can also include these insights in your client proposal to reflect your preparedness to take on the campaign.
Pitch your forecast
The Forecast module calculates the estimates in terms of business metrics, and makes it convenient for you to include them in your proposal. Pitching the value of the SEO project in these terms, alongside other key metrics such as the Ads Equivalent, helps you justify your approach and get your clients' buy-in.
Set an Objective
Once you've decided which scenario to pursue, set it as the Objective for your campaign. This way, you can constantly track your progress by comparing the actual sessions with the estimated ones.
The Objective Status helps you understand if your campaign performance is on track with its non-brand organic traffic objective.
To keep progress in check, track the Objective Status of each campaign in the Agency Dashboard and run comparative analyses of the actual non-brand traffic and the estimated one in the Organic Traffic module.
With SEOmonitor's Forecast, visualize your growth in Visibility, validate your SEO opportunity, pitch to clients, and track your campaign's objectives. Showcase how achieving specific SEO goals could impact your client's business — measure and track SEO success in additional sessions, conversions, and revenue.
It's not magic.
Our precise Forecast takes into account almost anything that can influence the performance of the non-brand organic traffic so that you can validate the SEO opportunity with your team, pitch tangible business cases to your clients, set realistic expectations, and justify the SEO budget.