When doing Google SEO, is there a way to estimate how many customers I can bring in?

This is the most pressing question for every business owner considering SEO.

The answer is: there are ways, but they're not 100% accurate.

We can roughly estimate the number of customers we'll bring in through SEO by following these steps:

1. Look at keyword search volume

The first step is to see how many people search for keywords in your industry on Google each month.

For example, if you sell outdoor lighting, terms like "outdoor wall lights" and "solar garden light" might have thousands or even tens of thousands of searches each month. This indicates customer demand.

Google Keyword Planner is a specialized search tool provided by Google. If you're unsure how to use it, please contact me on WeChat.

2. Estimate Your Traffic Amount

Suppose you rank first on the homepage for a keyword, you can expect an average click-through rate of 30%; third on the homepage, about 15%; and at the bottom of the homepage, about 5%.

For example, if a keyword has 5,000 searches per month, if you rank in the top three, you can theoretically expect 750-1,500 clicks per month.

Adding multiple keywords together gives you an overall expected traffic volume.

3. Consider your website's conversion rate

Not every visitor to your website will place an order, but some will always send inquiries.

The average inquiry conversion rate for an international trade website is approximately 1%-3%. This means:

For every 100 visitors, you might receive 1-3 inquiries;

For every 1,000 visitors, you might receive 10-30 inquiries.

If your products fall into the high-value-added, high-trust B2B market, such as machinery or medical devices, your conversion rate may be lower, but your average order value may be higher.

4. Final number of orders = number of inquiries × closing rate

Even with inquiries, it also depends on your team's follow-up capabilities, the quality of your clients, and price matching.

Assuming you receive 50 inquiries per month through SEO and have a closing rate of 10%, you can expect to close approximately 5 orders per month.

In short:

SEO isn't a spur-of-the-moment investment; it's a project with measurable expected returns.

The key factors that can truly help you make a decision are keyword search volume, website conversion rate, and the quality of your customer follow-up.

If you need it, we can help you measure the Google search popularity of your industry for free to determine its potential and potential before deciding whether to invest.

Want to see a keyword analysis report for your industry? Add me on WeChat and leave a message with "industry name + SEO."