Search engine marketers trying to get new business from medium to large Web sites can ask for log files from potential clients. They can then determine percentage of traffic from search engines for those potential clients. They can compare it to average, and use that number to prove need for their services as well as importance of search engine marketing.

The same principle applies to SEOs trying to prove to marketing or management departments that search engine marketing needs to be taken seriously.

Measuring percentage of traffic from search engines over time is one way to measure effectiveness of an online marketing campaign. But hang on, because we're going to explain a few other definable elements that you may have previously thought of as un- measurable.

What other elements can be truly and effectively measured?

What about measuring things you probably haven't considered before, such as site stickiness and brand blurriness?

Site stickiness measurements are normally taken from first page of a Web site as it's usually most trafficked page and entry point for majority of online visits. The stickiness metric measures if people are finding what they expect to find as soon as they arrive on site.

Brand blurriness refers to visitors who have searched for a similar product but landed on your page. In that case, your product or company names are similar, and it appears you may have a branding problem.

But how can you measure site stickiness and brand blurriness?

Have you heard of "scorecarding"?

So Who Really Is Your Competition? ------------------- The answer to that is always--Never most obvious. So let's take example of kitchen designer. Having decided that another kitchen designer isn't his competition, he now has to decide who is his real competition.

His Real Competition Could Be A Car Salesman ------------ Is this for real? How can a car salesman be a kitchen designer's competition? Let's analyse this more carefully. A kitchen and a car are both fighting for same thing-- The householder's limited budget.

If kitchen designer, were able to convince a couple that a kitchen is more important than a new car (which he could easily do if there was a foodie around), he now has a better chance of them dropping car in favour of kitchen.

The Advantage Of This Method Of Positioning ------------- The most obvious advantage is that you're not losing any current customers. All your past advertising is bringing in customers that are looking for kitchens anyway.

What it does do however, is bring in a new lot of customers that would never have thought about kitchens, if you hadn't implanted it in their minds. Effectively, you have both, customers who are looking for kitchens as well as customers who are forfeiting their new cars in favour of new kitchens.