You know that SEO is essential to online success. But how do you measure your results? What do you use to determine how well (or poorly) your SEO efforts are doing?
Determining whether your SEO-related efforts are having the intended effect can be hard. Google uses over 200 different factors in its algorithm. Trying to cover all of those can be a full-time job in itself. Instead, focus on a few key metrics and let those guide you forward.
One of the most important metrics that indicate success or failure is the amount of organic traffic your site receives. Unless your site is brand-new, Google should have indexed and ranked it based on the keywords used in your on-page content, metadata, etc. If you’re not seeing the traffic that you should, then your SEO efforts haven’t been successful. You should also benchmark your performance against your competitors.
Search visibility is a measure of how many people see your website in the search results for your targeted keywords. While the keywords you choose certainly play a role, other factors also affect visibility, including what are called SERP features. These are things like image packs, featured snippets, and knowledge panels, all of which can increase your ranking.
When a visitor reaches your website, what do they do? How do they interact with your content? What pages do they visit? Engagement metrics give you this information, including things like page dwell time, bounce rate, visitor flow, and much more. Balance this information against your intended goals for those visitors and you’ll have a better idea of your SEO success.
When a searcher sees your page URL in the search results and clicks through, that action is recorded. Your click-through rate (CTR) is a measure of how many people see your link and click through versus those who see it and do not click through. A higher CTR means that your SEO efforts are more effective, while a lower one indicates you have work to do.
Tracking SEO success-related metrics is challenging at the best of times. Add in multiple ad campaigns, various traffic sources, and other factors and things become even more complicated. Working with a trusted SEO partner gives you access to expert tracking and analysis to ensure your site ranks highly and consistently delivers the results you need for success. If you should have any questions, please contact Search SEO Chicago today!
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