How can we tell if we are getting good SEO results?

So if everything is being done the "white hat" way, how can you tell if the analytics results you are getting are accurately reflecting website growth? Simple: watch the numbers. Are your numbers increasing, consistently, overtime? Do your sales show a pattern similar to the increases in website traffic? For example, if you are a small retail store, and have seen a 50% increase in website traffic, and also notice a 27% increase in store sales, it's a pretty strong correlation, especially if the increases in traffic were prior to the increase in sales.Though temporary increases show a great deal, they don't always tell the whole story.