Search engine optimization (SEO) allows you to earn a top rank for relevant keywords on the search engine results page. But how do you tell if your SEO efforts are effective enough? How do you measure your OKRs and KPIs? What can you do to boost your SEO performance? This is why tracking your SEO rankings is essential. After all, if you invest your resources into SEO, you want to be sure that the investment is worth the results. And you can only determine that by measuring your results.
The best thing about digital marketing is that it is possible to track your results. Resources like Google analytics provide you with a wealth of information about how your website is doing, so you don’t have to be in the dark about your SEO performance. The good news is that SEO tracking is easier since it involves determining the key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics that are most important for your business.
Let’s look at the SEO metrics that matter when tracking your SEO rankings.
Keyword rankings
Search engine optimization involves improving your website’s rankings for relevant keywords in your industry. Therefore it makes sense to track how your rankings for these keywords change. For instance, if your business appears on the local Google map pack, you want to ensure you dominate the position. You can only achieve that by constantly monitoring your SEO. You can know where your business stands by simply performing a manual search on Google. Beyond that, you can use tools that give an organic search report detailing the keywords your site ranks for and the positions on SERPs.
Organic traffic
Another way to track your SEO is through organic traffic. Organic traffic represents all the users who visit your site based on organic search. After all, SEO aims to improve your search engine rankings for keywords related to your business and industry organically. Consulting a KPI selection guide can help advise you on which performance measures will help you track your growth. Obviously, organic traffic is a critical value, but there are lots of factors that support traffic growth which are also essential to keep an eye on. The growth of your organic traffic means that your SEO efforts are working. Evaluating your organic traffic is easy with Google Analytics by navigating to the acquisition overview and then clicking organic search. You can also adjust the period to view your organic traffic performance over a specific period.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Your website’s Click-through rate (CTR) indicates the number of users who visit your website after finding one of your pages in Google search results. For instance, if ten users saw your page on a search engine results page but only one of them visited your website, you have a CTR of 10%. This KPI is one of the best measures of how effective your website pages are in capturing users’ attention on search engine results.
Note that when your page appears on a search engine result page, the title and meta tag determine whether a user will visit the page. Therefore a low CTR means you must work on your metatags and meta descriptions. Also, pages ranking in the top positions will likely get more clicks. You can create tracking links and customize your social media campaign URL displays to improve your CTR wherever you share it.
Domain authority
One of the goals of search engine optimization is to boost your website’s domain authority so that Google ranks it higher. The most effective strategy for improving your domain authority is getting trusted websites to link to your content. However, you have to measure if your efforts are making any difference. An SEO rank tracker can help you assess your site’s authority depending on your backlink profile. This is important for evaluating the impact of your link-building strategies and seeing how your site’s credibility improves over time.
Page speed
As the attention of online users becomes shorter by the day, page speed plays a crucial role in your site’s ability to rank higher and convert visitors into customers. Therefore it is vital to keep a close eye on your site speed as you optimize your website to see the impact on load speed. Thankfully Google’s page speed insights or optimization score helps you monitor your page speed and spot any issues that can harm your SEO efforts.
Conversions
This is arguably the most important metric for tracking your SEO since it reflects some of the critical goals of your business, including leads and sales. You can generate more leads and sales with SEO, but you must track visitors’ purchase rates when they visit your website. You can create calls to action for online purchases, email newsletter signups, lead form submissions, etc., to make impactful progress towards your business goals. You can analyze your conversions using Google analytics.
Bounce rate
A bounce is when someone gets to your website and clicks the back button without continuing on another page. It indicates that your website’s content is not in line with the user’s expectations when they select your page from the search engine results list. If you have a high bounce rate, your page ranking in the search is not satisfying the search intent and vice versa.
Conclusion
Quantifiable SEO metrics are the best because they leave little room for confusion.
