If you’re new to the digital landscape, you must be feeling a little uncertain and wondering how to measure your SEO efforts, but that’s okay, we’ve all been there. There are a number of SEO metrics that you should keep in focus. In this article, we will discuss the “Top 5 SEO Performance Measurement Metrics” so that you can analyze your data effectively and increase your organic traffic with ease.
Trying to measure the performance of your SEO efforts with a single metric will be cheating with yourself. You need to resolve your concerns by tracking more than just one metric. You can measure your website’s SEO performance through your website analytics and additional SEO tools of choice. Prove your worth with cold, hard data, and not just assumptions.
Let’s begin.
SEO Performance Measurement Metrics
There are a number of ways to measure your website’s success. One of the key measures is examining your SEO metrics. Fortunately, there are a number of tools available that provide you with comprehensive SEO reports so that you can measure your SEO performance without any trouble.
When it comes to tracking SEO performance, your two best friends are Google Search Console and Google Analytics. They are free to use and offer most of the metrics you need to focus on.
1. Organic Traffic
When your website appears on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) you get to enjoy relevant organic traffic on your website. You need to rank your website on user-intent-based keywords that are also relevant to your business.
It’s significantly important to track your organic traffic so that you can measure how many new users are visiting your website as a result of your SEO efforts. You can do so by:
#1. Measuring your Landing Page
Organic traffic directly relates to how much value your overall website is providing to your business. Nonetheless, you should keep a track of your organic traffic through your landing pages.
Why? Simply because that’s how you will get to know where to improvise. For instance, if some of your pages are ranking on page #1 and others are ranking on page #4, now you know what you need to do in order to improvise the pages that are ranking poorly.
Furthermore, if you’re using multiple strategies, you will also get an idea of which strategies are providing effective results and which among them need revision.
#2 Measuring Geographical Location
Another important aspect is to keep a track of the geographical locations, from where your organic traffic is coming. It comes in very handy when you focus your SEO efforts to target any specific geographic location. Also, it allows you to expand your business into new markets.
Let’s say if your website visitors, from any particular country like your products better than the people from where high traffic is coming in, you must divert your marketing resources towards those high-selling locations and increase your sales instead of traffic. That is why it is a wise practice to keep measuring your organic traffic by geographical location so that you can act accordingly.
2. Keyword Ranking(s)
Carefully go through the keywords you want to rank your website for. You must ensure that they are relevant to your niche. Once you’ve listed the relevant keywords out, there are different methods to exploit that data and improve your SEO strategy.
You should focus on capitalizing on your existing success. If your website is ranking on the first page with high converting keywords, it’s good practice to continue using them. But ensure that your position is not at risk.
Your top ranking keywords will bring you the traffic you need. Ensure that the keywords you’re using with such landing pages are on the spot. It will help you to reduce your website’s bounce rate.
3. Link Building
In simpler words, link building is a process of getting other websites to link back to your own website. As a result, it will help you drive referral traffic while increasing your domain authority.
Google’s algorithm tends to be complex for many. However, it is continuously evolving. Backlinks are important and they play a vital role when it comes to search engines, determining which websites rank for which keywords.
Websites with higher backlinks tend to earn higher rankings on SERPs. They are very important and should not be neglected when framing your own SEO strategy. They let Google know that your website offers value and is a quality resource for others. It tells Google that your website is worthy of citation.
4. Mobile Responsiveness
Do you know that today almost 60% of online searches come from mobile phones? Measuring the traffic that is coming to your website from a mobile phone is important and it can indicate:
- Mobile-friendliness: Google loves websites that are mobile responsive. If the mobile traffic is constant, despite the fact that your overall traffic is increasing, then you need to optimize your website and make it mobile responsive.
- Usage patterns: If high traffic is coming in from cell phones on your website, that shows how your target audience has shifted their preferences from desktop to mobile. This will identify whether you should invest more in your mobile development strategy or optimize it in order to extract greater traffic.
- Mobile-only search terms: You must know that the searches made from cell phones vary from the searches made on the desktop. Nearly 20% of cell phone searches are in the form of voice only. Cell phone users also refrain from long-tail keywords when compared to desktop users. When you track your mobile traffic, it will allow you to measure how effectively your website is ranking for mobile-only searches.
5. Measuring Totals
Measuring numbers is a good practice. You should do it often. However, there is no point in measuring “total numbers.” The golden rule here is to never view or evaluate your website by the total number of your visits, sessions, or page views. Nothing good will come out of it.
Instead, you should break things down into segments. It will allow you to extract accurate data so that you can improvise your SEO strategy accordingly.
Do remember that the compilation of your total visitors needs to be diverse in two aspects. Firstly, how do they approach your website and secondly, what do they know about your brand?
Your audience may have reached you via your online or offline marketing efforts or via word of mouth. There is a strong chance that they may be your potential lead as they have persisted in your funnel for a few months. To comprehend, and to take appropriate action, it will be wiser if you classify your traffic.
In a Nutshell
In order to outgrow your business, you must ensure that your SEO strategy is in place. The above-mentioned metrics will allow you to measure your website’s SEO performance. It will also allow you to see where you stand, and how you can optimize your website for greater organic traffic.
Once again, there are many tools that are available to measure your website’s SEO performance. However, the free tools mentioned above work like a charm, and we strongly suggest you stick to them.
If you still have any concern, feel free to ask us in the comments section below. Your feedback and suggestions will be highly appreciated.
