Whenever you are doing something, you might like it better when you receive accurate results from the tasks and activities. It is the same when it comes to employing SEO strategies. Whether you perform them independently or outsource someone to do it for you, you will want to see valid and verifiable results.
You can get your preferred data information when you decide to monitor your site. If you know which SEO performance metrics to look out for, you will be able to grasp how effective your current SEO strategy is. In turn, this can help you improve or revise the SEO techniques you are using.
10 SEO Performance Metrics to Monitor
Whether you are performing SEO monitoring on your own or with the help of an SEO consultant, some numbers should be given more importance. These statistics can genuinely help determine whether the SEO strategies you are employing are working or not.
From organic traffic to bounce rates, here are ten performance metrics that you must monitor.
1. Organic Traffic
The primary purpose of improving your website’s SEO is to increase the organic traffic that it can receive. Therefore when you are tracking the performance metrics for your search optimization techniques, traffic is prioritized. More significant traffic means that more people are visiting your site, and this increase is usually attributed to excellent SEO.
There are several ways for you to track your website’s organic traffic. However, if you want an easy and free way to do it, you can use Google Analytics. You can select to segment data about your site’s organic traffic on its dashboard.
2. Keyword Rankings
If you perform on-page SEO techniques, you might remember that you place priority on keywords. You have finished keyword research, selected your target keywords, and put them strategically on your website. Now that you are monitoring your website, you can track your page’s ranking for every keyword.
It is essential to know if your search ranking positions for a specific keyword have improved. If it did, then it means that your SEO strategies have taken positive effect. If your search ranking position went lower, it might mean that you have selected the wrong keyword. It might also be because your current SEO strategies are not being effective.
3. Backlinks
As backlinking is a core off-page SEO strategy that you should have done, it is essential that you also evaluate your website’s current backlink profile. Better and more quality backlinks can ensure that your website can rank higher if you and another competitor site have similar scores on other metrics.
However, that is not the only reason why you should track backlinks. When you view your current backlinks, you can ignore the websites you have personally reached out to. If the number of organic backlinks you receive has risen, it also means that the contents you have currently published are also working towards your website’s favor.
4. Click-Through Rate
When you look for websites through the search engine, you click on a page title that you find informative or interesting. When you do that, you contribute to the click-through rate of that website. Similarly, your site has the same performance metrics.
Whether your site is in search engine results pages is an indicator of excellent SEO when your website receives a high click-through rate. Similarly, if your click-through metrics do not match the traffic your website receives, there might be some problems. Usually, low click-through rates mean that you have to revise your site’s title and meta description tags.
5. Page Speed
Another SEO performance metric that you can monitor is the speed of every individual page on your website. By page speed, it means the loading time. It is how fast your website can appear or render on the screen.
Slow page speed is usually attributed to a bad user interface and experience. It can also negatively affect your search engine ranking positions. This is why content on every page must render correctly within three seconds.
6. Conversion Rate
If your website offers services or products, you might consider conversion rates. Conversion rates are the metrics for when traffic turns into a sale or a lead. If your conversion rate is high, you are getting quality traffic.
You can take away various things after you receive the results for your website’s conversion rates. If it is low, it might mean that your website is attracting another audience apart from your target market. It might also mean that your website lacks persuasive conversion tools that can get site visitors to buy from your site.
7. Crawl Performance
Search engines usually send site crawlers to help gather data about your data. These bots traverse through pages of your websites as it stores information. To ensure that all of your pages can rank on search engines, site crawlers should be able to reach them. Search engines also give higher points for websites that can all be accessed and have no broken links.
Using different paid and free tools on the internet, you can keep track of your website’s crawl performance. If you find that bots have a hard time crawling or if there are errors, then it means that you need to repair some pages.
8. Exit Pages
If you have not heard of exit pages before, these are the last pages your site visitors visit before they leave your site. When it comes to exit pages, you should get the top ones. However, just because they are at the top does not mean they are the ones that do well. Instead, it is the opposite, and these are the weakest pages for your website.
Look for a pattern for your site visitors. If it is a common occurrence that they leave after interacting with specific pages, there might be problems with these pages. Identify these top exit pages and redesign or restructure them for better performance.
9. Mobile Traffic
Aside from measuring all the organic traffic for your website, it would be best if you also tried to measure the mobile traffic for your website. When doing this, you keep track of the number of site visitors that use mobile phones and similar devices. Aside from the traffic, you can also search for other metrics, but you should filter them to phones and gadgets only.
This is because, at the moment, more than 60% of search engine queries are done using mobile devices. If you see that your site receives a lot of mobile traffic, it points to excellent website responsiveness. Similarly, if there is a significant difference between your overall and filtered metrics, it might be an excellent idea to make your site more mobile-friendly.
10. Bounce Rates
You might have already heard of the term bounce in the past. Just as its name suggests, bounce rates are your website’s performance metrics for people who enter your website once and then hit back without visiting another page. When you use monitoring tools, these are usually represented in percentages.
You need to identify bounce rates because they determine whether the traffic you receive is fruitful. No matter how much organic traffic you get, if the bounce rate is high, then it means that your current page content is not up to par.
SEO Monitoring Tools You Can Try
If you want to monitor your website’s SEO performance on your own, there are various free and paid tools that you can use. Some provide general statistics, while others generate more specialized reports. If you start monitoring your site’s SEO, here are beginner-friendly tools you can use.
1. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that you can generate different performance metrics for your website. It is effortless to use even if it is your first time using it. Despite being freeware, it is a core monitoring tool used even by big websites.
With these tools, several things are being analyzed. It can show you your website’s current page ranking for specific keywords. It can also help you get a summary of your site’s crawl performance. Aside from that, your website’s responsiveness and other performance metrics can also be generated with this tool.
2. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is another free SEO tool that you can use. While it has a paid version with more functionalities, the original free version can already be helpful if you are starting. It is best to use this tool in conjunction with the Google Search Console to get comprehensive reports when using it.
When you use Google Analytics, most of its generated stats are related to traffic. You can use this if you want to see filtered numbers of your website’s traffic. It is an essential tool because it helps you determine the number of organic traffic your site gets. It also has a Site Contents Report section that gives you engagement metrics for your website.
Let SEO Experts Monitor Your Website SEO
Monitoring your website’s search engine optimization is vital because it can present you with actual performance metrics. When you receive these numbers, you will be able to determine if you are employing effective SEO strategies or not. With proper monitoring, you will be able to revise and improve your ongoing SEO strategies.
While you might want to do this activity yourself, you can get better and more comprehensive data by using reputable SEO companies’ services. This is because they would be using more tools than you. They are also more experienced and can better interpret the performance metrics for your website.
