SEO is the most important part of online marketing. You prepared SEO strategy and started implementing. What about the results? How you would know whether or not your SEO strategy is generating results.
To get the best out of your SEO marketing strategy, it is critical to prepare and follow the right strategy.
Keep in mind, you should be just implementing. Apart from implementation, keeping an eye on the analytics is also very important.
It’s not just about SEO. No matter which online marketing method you are working on, measuring and tracking the results is the must. By monitoring and analyzing your results, you will come to know about the effectiveness of your implementation.
Depending on the business niche you are in, the success of an SEO campaign varies. In this post, we will explain how you can measure and track your SEO success.
KPIs to Measure Effectiveness of An SEO Campaign
To get an idea of the effectiveness of your SEO campaign, there are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) you should always consider. Here are they:
Rankings
No matter how much effort you put in your campaign, if you have lower search rankings, it’s not worth it. When it comes to SEO, your goal needs to be on getting higher search rankings. According to statistics, websites listed on the first page of Google receive up to 92% of traffic share. In short, the higher your website ranks on the search engine, the better it is.
Keep in mind, it’s not just about rankings. You need to make sure your website and the web pages are ranking for the targeted keywords. No matter how high your website ranks, if it does not rank for the right keywords, it’s not worth it. Your question might be, how can I track keywords my website is ranking for?
Well, there are so many free and paid SEO tools available. Some of the popular ones are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest. An SEO tool will provide you data for various metrics like traffic your website is getting, keywords your web pages ranking for, etc.
Traffic
Another crucial metric you need to focus on is traffic. Many times, websites do rank higher on Google (even for the targeted keywords), but don’t get traffic. You will find in Google Search Console that your website is getting so many impressions, but not getting enough clicks. In this situation, the website and its pages need to be optimized for CTR (click through rate).
There can be a list of different reasons behind poor CTR. It could be due to unappealing title, meta description, or the permalink. When your SEO title, its meta description, or permalink is not so appealing, people are very less likely to click on it. These are three of the important elements of on-page SEO. So, traffic is another indicator to measure and track your SEO success.
Conversions
Another important indicator to measure SEO success is conversions. No matter how high your website ranks on Google or how much traffic you get from Google, if the website visitors are not converting, it’s not worth it. In the end, that’s what matters a lot. So, one thing is clear – SEO isn’t just about getting more and more traffic. It is about getting quality and high intent website traffic.
If the people visiting your website or landing pages aren’t interested in your product or service, then what’s the point of working on SEO strategy? By implementing SEO, you need to work on getting website traffic which actually converts. Thus, conversions are the important metric to measure and track SEO success.
Bounce Rate
Another way you can analyse your SEO success is through bounce rate. Bounce rate is nothing but an internet marketing term used to represent the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave instead of viewing other pages within the same site.
When it comes to bounce rate, each type of website has its own benchmark. By keeping a track of bounce rate, you will get an idea about the quality of the website visit. For example, when a visitor bounces (leaves) your website without coming across other web pages, it is the sign that the visitor hasn’t found your website useful. By analyzing this metric, you will get a better idea about the improvements your website needs.
Backlinks
Backlinks play a crucial role in the entire SEO process. Here, I would like to add that quality matters a lot. No matter how many backlinks your website has, if those links are from low authority websites, it’s not worth it. So, when you think of backlinks, remember quality is more important than quantity.
In a nutshell, backlinks tell that the website is more authoritative. Getting backlinks from quality websites won’t just help you build authority, but it will also help with higher rankings on Google. Unfortunately, currently there is no free useful SEO tool to check backlinks. In order to monitor backlinks of a particular website you must use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush.
Time Spent on Page
Another effective way to measure and track SEO success is by looking at that time spent on the website page. Obviously, the more time people spend on your website, the better it is. When users spend more time on your webpage, it is a sign that they found it useful and informative.
Your content might be useful but not matching the user intent. This is when this metric plays a significant role. Chrome Google Analytics you can check out that time duration of users on your website pages. From Google Analytics you can check out how much time users are spending on your website. If you find a particular page with lower time duration, it is a sign that users haven’t found it useful or informative.
Final Thoughts
So in this post I have walked you through various key performance indicators to measure and track your success. If you want to check out whether your SEO strategy is generating results, just focus on the above mentioned points.
