Are You Measuring SEO KPIs?
One of the key questions most SEO nerds are asked is, “How will I know if SEO works?
The quick response is, “You’ll get more customers!”
While this is far and away the most important metric to track, your SEO expert doesn’t usually know if the customers you’re getting from search engine optimization are actually converting. In other words, your SEO company can see data like your website traffic, etc, but we can’t see how many times you’ve answered your phone or responded to contact forms. In that way, SEO can be an open loop.
Below, we’ll dive into some of the other ways we measure the success of SEO work.
What Are SEO KPIs?
SEO KPIs are vital indicators of the health and success of search engine optimization efforts. They allow marketers to measure the tangible results of their SEO strategies for improving website visibility and organic ranking on SERPs. By tracking trends over time, marketers can gain insights into what works best and make adjustments to maximize the impact of their efforts.
Some examples of SEO KPIs include things like:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Average position
- Organic traffic
- Bounce rate
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Keyword selection and relevance
- Pageview metrics
- Domain authority score
- Backlink quality and quantity
- And more.
Tracking these metrics gives marketers an understanding of how visitors interact with their websites when they come from organic search engines. This enables them to assess where improvements can be made to increase engagement levels as well as drive higher conversion rates from organic traffic sources.
With this data in hand, marketers can put together effective campaigns that drive quality leads while also improving overall performance in the SERPs.
The Benefits of Tracking SEO KPIs
Monitoring SEO KPIs is essential in ensuring that your website remains successful and competitive in the online market. Tracking these important metrics allows you to identify areas for potential improvement and gain a better understanding of how your website is performing overall. Here are some of the main benefits of tracking SEO KPIs:
First, analyzing SEO data allows you to accurately measure the results of your strategies. With comprehensive reports, you can get an overview of how effective each strategy has been at improving organic search engine rankings and traffic.
This data can be used to identify underperforming tactics and then shift focus towards more successful ones. Additionally, tracking your progress over time will enable you to create accurate forecasts which can help with long-term planning.
Second, keeping an eye on activity related to key performance indicators enables you to quickly react in case something goes wrong or an unexpected opportunity arises. Comprehensive monitoring allows you to react swiftly and address any emerging issues before they become major problems. Plus, having access to up-to-date information about your competitor’s activities provides invaluable insights into their techniques that can be applied directly to yours for improved success rates overall.
Tracking the right SEO KPIs is relevant for all types of businesses regardless
The ROI Of SEO
One way to measure the return on investment from SEO efforts is to track metrics that directly impact revenue and profits. An SEO dashboard software can be used to compile these important data points into tangible results.
Companies can then use this information to compare their initial costs of investing in SEO against the gains they receive from these investments. To understand the ROI of SEO, you can consider this simple equation:
(Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment * 100
Google Analytics is another tool for measuring ROI from SEO efforts. By tracking goals and other key metrics, companies can gain insights into which marketing campaigns are most successful in yielding customers and conversions.
Though measuring ROI is not an exact science, there are many formulas available that can help guide decisions when it comes to allocating resources toward SEO marketing initiatives. Calculating marketing ROI involves seven popular formulas such as those provided by Investopedia, as well as reporting tips so that companies have a better understanding of which strategies bring in the highest returns.
Some Essentials For Measuring KPIs
To measure whether or not your site is hitting the right targets, it’s essential to collect data on how your site is performing. The quickest way to do that is to install Google Analytics or some other analytics software. Since Google Analytics is free, it makes sense to start there.
Google recently retired Universal Analytics but Google Analytics 4 is more than capable of giving you the data you need to make informed decisions on how your site is doing.
Some KPIs To Track
Here are some performance indicators we suggest you or your SEO agency track on a consistent basis:
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is an essential metric for measuring success in SEO. It is the volume of visitors that come to your website from unpaid search engine results and indicates the number of people who are visiting your site without you paying for it. To gauge the performance of SEO efforts, keeping tabs on organic traffic is a great indicator of success.
Organic traffic can fluctuate significantly due to changes in rankings or other explorations into optimization tactics such as keyword research. As such, it’s important to keep track of organic traffic month over month so you can obtain a read on whether or not certain adjustments are having an impact, either positively or negatively. Without organic traffic growth, it may be time to shake up your existing SEO strategy and look for more efficient ways to boost visibility online.
Average Time On Page
Average time-on-page metrics are an important metric for marketers to track because it provides signals about how much a user is engaging with content on the page. Thomas Adams of Tech Prosperity LLC has pointed out that high time-on-page averages can suggest the potential for increased rankings in the future.
By paying attention to usability, which affects how long a user spends on your page, marketers can increase their chances of success by providing content that users will become deeply engaged with. This concept is echoed by Ivan LaBianca of The Seventh Sense who notes that average time on page has proven to be an accurate indicator of whether or not a blog post will rise in the rankings over time.
By producing quality posts with higher word counts than competitors and ensuring each offers value related to searcher intent, marketers will have better success reaching target audiences for given keywords. Effectively utilizing every element of proper SEO thus involves monitoring average time on the page together with other metrics like word count, click-through rate and more.
Session Duration
Session duration is a powerful metric to track to determine how successful your website is in keeping users’ interest. If the average session duration is high, this could mean that your content is delivering what the user was looking for and engaging them enough to spend more time on the site. On the other hand, a low session duration could be indicative of a misalignment between your content and what users were looking for when they landed on your page.
It is important to both track and look into session durations, as it will give you insights about how well-aligned your website’s content is with users’ interests. It’s also beneficial to use additional metrics such as page views and bounce rate alongside session duration, as they can reveal deeper details about how users interact with your website. By understanding user patterns, you are able to modify and optimize features on your website in order to make it more enjoyable and increase engagement time from your users.
Pages Per Session
The pages-per-session metric is an essential SEO element that provides business owners and marketers with great insight into how user interaction is progressing on their website. It is a reliable indicator that allows the root cause of success or failure to be accurately determined in terms of overall navigation and internal linking. With this information, businesses can pinpoint areas where changes must be made in order for organic traffic and engagement numbers to improve.
For example, if the pages-per-session rate is low it may indicate a lack of adequate internal linking or that users are having difficulty finding what they’re looking for within the site.
Data from Google Analytics can then be used to investigate further and analyze user behavior flows which will help understand precisely why the rate is as it is and inform developers regarding what needs tweaking in order to achieve better results. With the help of this metric, websites can optimize their content strategies in effective ways that lead to even higher engagement levels over time.
Bounce Rates
Measuring website bounce rate is a great way to understand how visitors are engaging with the site and track changes in performance over time. Going further, analyzing the bounce rate of specific pages or segments can offer additional insight into which areas of the site are working well and should be optimized for better engagement.
With VizConn’s Deepak Kumar Tamil Selvan’s suggestion to measure bounce rate by source or topic, you can see exactly how different segments interact with particular content pieces. For example, if you find that one source has a particularly high bounce rate on a specific page then you might need to focus on optimizing your content for that segment. By understanding these patterns in engagement, it is possible to make informed decisions about developing more tailored experiences for their users and improving overall conversion rates.
Page Load Speed
Page load speeds are increasingly important for website success in both user experience and search engine rankings. Failing to meet page speed metrics can be detrimental to any given website, resulting in a bad user experience, increased bounce rates, and lower search engine rankings.
According to Ryan Johnson of Critical Mass, the speed of the mobile version of a website is now a factor in Google’s rankings due to their mobile-first indexing. Robert Rand of JetRails emphasizes that page loading speed impacts how long someone stays on the website as well as other ranking metrics.
Colin Mosier of JSL Marketing & Web Design points out that if it takes more than three seconds for a page to load someone typically clicks away, making page loading speed critical for both keeping users on the site and providing them with important information without delay.
To lessen loading times, Matthew Ross of The Slumber Yard recommends avoiding large images, GIFs, and videos which can affect page speeds negatively. Roman Kniahynyckyj from LyntonWeb suggests using PageSpeed Insights to analyze page shortcomings and optimize speeds around common resources such as CSS files or background images. Joe Flanagan from Suddora advises making sure pages load within five seconds or less according to Google’s threshold for
Keyword Rankings
Tracking keyword rankings is an essential part of any SEO strategy, providing insights into what’s working, and what changes could be made. Through tools like Google Search Console and SEMrush, marketing professionals can quickly gauge their SEO visibility and progress.
Identifying which keywords are in the top 10 on Ahrefs is especially important as it ensures that the most relevant topics are being discussed and improved upon. Additionally, ranking for many keywords within the top 3 search results guarantees a large amount of traffic due to 80-90% of visitors clicking on these results. This helps set objectives going forward in terms of whether improvements should be made focusing on either on-page SEO factors or off-page efforts like link building.
Ultimately, growth in overall keyword rankings showcases improvement on content authority and relevance over time and should be tracked as a key performance indicator (KPI). Staying on top of monitoring tools such as GA Organic Traffic Analysis dashboard templates also gives marketers a snapshot of their keyword performance information instantly. By tracking keyword rankings regularly, marketing specialists can make informed decisions as to how to adjust their strategies accordingly and ensure continuous achievements.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is an SEO metric used to measure the relative strength of a website or domain. It was developed by Moz, a major leader in the search and analytics industry, to help businesses understand their website’s performance in comparison to other sites on the internet. Essentially, the higher your DA score – which ranges from 1 to 100 – the greater visibility you have in organic search results.
Businesses looking to increase their DA score need to properly implement search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and backlink strategies. For instance, by creating relevant and keyword-rich content that provides value and encourages audience engagement, it will help establish trust and authority with search engines like Google which can lead to increased visibility. Additionally, developing relationships with high-ranking websites and building strong backlinks can significantly boost organic rankings on SERPs. However, careful attention needs to be paid so as not to violate any of Google’s policies and maintain credibility. Businesses should also compare their DA score regularly with competitors’ to stay competitive and attribute improvements appropriately.
Conversion Rates
Conversion rate is a key metric for e-commerce businesses, as it affects the number of sales or leads generated by a website. This metric measures how successful visitors are at “converting” from simply visiting the site, to taking the desired action; whether that’s making a purchase, signing up to an email list, downloading a document, etc.
The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the total number of conversions (the desired action) by the total number of visitors in any given period. It’s important to track conversion rates on both a day-by-day and overall basis in order to monitor its long-term performance.
To improve conversion rates, businesses often review elements like pricing, offers, reviews, and images when evaluating their website’s performance. By testing different changes thoroughly and continuously measuring the impact these changes have on the overall conversion rate, businesses can identify which strategies work best and increase goals such as sales and leads in the long term. Improving your website’s overall conversion rate can mean great financial benefit for your business – so it’s definitely worth investing effort into understanding your customers’ behavior better and optimizing your website’s function accordingly!
Final Thoughts
We all know that search engine optimization has grown increasingly more complex in the past few years Despite that, it is still an incredibly value part of the marketing mix for many companies. Clearly, it can bring people to your business who are searching for exactly what you do. If you want help with your SEO, contact the experts at Make It Loud at 678.325.4007.
For 15 years now, we have been getting our clients more website traffic and more customers. Call us if you’d like to be our next success story.
Cliff Tillery, MBA is the Chief Operating Officer and SEO Director at Make It Loud which is a digital marketing firm located outside of Atlanta Georgia. More than 14 years ago, he started search engine optimization at this award-winning agency and has taught digital marketing skills to business owners at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, the Gwinnett Entrepreneur Center, and other groups.
