Imagine you’re a chef running your restaurant. Every dish you serve has to be perfect, and your customers expect nothing less. To achieve that quality, you measure your ingredients, track your cooking times, and adjust your recipes based on your feedback. Like a chef, successful SEO requires consistent effort and attention to detail. To rank higher in search engine results, you need to create high-quality content that engages your audience and keeps them coming back for more. By tracking your progress, you can make informed decisions about improving your SEO strategy and reaching your goals.
So, whether you’ve outsourced your SEO or taken the DIY approach, measure your success with trackable results. In the same way, a chef uses taste tests and customer feedback to fine-tune their dishes. Tracking your SEO performance will give you the insights you need to keep improving and stay ahead of the competition.
What are SEO performance metrics?
SEO performance metrics are data points that help you evaluate the effectiveness of your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. These metrics provide valuable insights into how your website’s performance and whether your SEO efforts deliver the desired results. You can make data-driven decisions to improve your digital marketing efforts and reach your goals by tracking these metrics. They are closely linked to your key performance indicators (KPIs), as they measure the progress towards achieving your business objectives in SEO.
How to track the SEO performance metrics
Tracking SEO performance metrics is an essential step in monitoring the success of your SEO efforts. There are two main ways to measure SEO performance: manual tracking using tools like Google Analytics and spreadsheets or automated tracking using specialized SEO tools like SemRush, Ubersuggest, and Moz.
We recommend using an automated reporting tool to save time and streamline the process. Here’s how to get started:
- Connect your preferred SEO tools to the reporting platform.
- Choose a pre-made template that suits your needs.
- Select the SEO performance metrics you want to track from the preset widgets set up based on popularity.
- Drag and drop the metrics into your dashboard as desired.
Your chosen reporting tool will then gather and present all the data in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand dashboard. This will save you hours compared to manual tracking and help you make data-driven decisions to improve your SEO strategy.
Here are some important metrics that you should be tracking.
Keyword Ranking - SEO
Keyword rankings are an essential metric to track in SEO as they measure the position of your website for specific keywords in search engine results. When you created your SEO strategy, you likely conducted keyword research to identify the best keywords to target for your audience.
To determine your keyword rankings, simply perform a Google search for those keywords. The position of your website in the search engine results will indicate how well you are competing with other sites for those keywords. The ideal goal is to appear on the first page of search results, as this will give you the most excellent opportunity to attract organic traffic to your site.
Using SEO tools like SEMRush, you can track your keyword rankings over time to see if you are improving or slipping. By regularly monitoring your keyword rankings, you can adjust your SEO strategy to improve your position and reach your goals.
Organic traffic - SEO
Organic traffic refers to the number of visitors that reach your website as a result of appearing in online search results. For example, if you’re managing a business that sells handmade crafts, and someone searches for “best handmade crafts”, your website should be optimized for those keywords so that the person can find the information they are looking for. If your website provides relevant and valuable information for the searcher, it can drive traffic.
Google Analytics can help you understand the sources of your organic traffic. It can show you which search engines people used to find your website, the geographic location of the visitors, and the time of day they performed the search. This information can give you insights into where your unique and returning visitors are coming from, allowing you to target those sources and drive more traffic to your site.
Time spent on page - SEO
Time spent on a page is an important metric that measures the length of time a user stays on your website after clicking on it from a search engine result. It reflects the engagement of your audience with your content. The goal is to create relevant, informative, and educational content for your target audience, so they will stay longer on your website and consume your content.
To improve this metric, it is important to experiment with different types of content, such as short and long-form articles, videos, and visuals. Utilizing different forms of media can help increase engagement and keep visitors on your site for a more extended period of time. Additionally, incorporating visuals and videos into your content can be an effective way to grab your audience’s attention and maintain their engagement.
CTR (Click through rate) - SEO
Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures the effectiveness of your content and its ability to attract and engage users. CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks a post or advertisement receives by the number of impressions or times it’s shown.
A high CTR indicates that users find your content relevant and valuable, while a low CTR suggests that the messaging or presentation may need improvement. CTR is an important ranking factor in SEO and can impact organic conversions. This metric is crucial not only for SEO but also for other marketing campaigns like social media advertising. For instance, a low CTR on a Facebook ad can indicate a disconnect between the ad’s meta description and the landing page, leading to a low conversion rate.
Links - SEO
The importance of links as an SEO metric cannot be overstated for content marketers and SEO specialists. Backlinks play a crucial role in determining a website’s ranking; thus, acquiring links should be a central aspect of your SEO strategy.
However, more than simply acquiring a large number of links is required. Low-quality links can harm your website’s ranking, so it is crucial to monitor the quality of your link profile.
To track the quality of your link profile, consider using backlink analysis tools such as Majestic, Ahrefs, Moz’s Links Explorer, or Serpstat’s Backlink Analysis tool. These tools provide a link authority index, with a higher index indicating better quality links. By entering your domain into these tools, you can see your link profile’s quality score based on the number and quality of referring domains.
Bounce Rate - SEO
Bounce rate refers to the proportion of visitors that leave a website without engaging in any activity. A high bounce rate can be caused by various factors, including user experience (UX).
Factors such as insufficient content and slow page loading speed can often contribute to poor UX, resulting in high bounce rates. To mitigate this issue, it’s essential to conduct research on your target audience before creating any content. Additionally, using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool in Google Search Console (GSC) can help you identify any technical issues impacting your site speed and user experience.
Remember, technical SEO plays a crucial role in UX, and ignoring it can lead to poor bounce rate and overall user engagement results.
Choosing the right set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial in evaluating the success of your SEO strategy. To determine the right KPIs, consider the following factors:
- Establish clear goals: Define what you hope to achieve through your SEO efforts.
- Determine the budget: Allocate a budget for your SEO efforts and stick to it.
- Choose appropriate tracking tools: Select the right tools that suit your needs and budget. Whether well-known monitoring tools or free tools like Google Analytics, make sure to automate the tracking process to save time and get detailed reports.
You can always contact Dexterous Solutions to help you with your SEO strategies and track the performance of your website.
