SEO Metrics
We all know that SEO is essential for any website, but why should you care about the specific metrics? This post will discuss some key things you need to know about SEO metrics and how you can use them to improve your website’s ranking on Google search engine result pages or SERPs, so more and more people visit your site.
What are SEO metrics?
SEO metrics are indicators or data points that you should track and monitor to measure performance and maintain an optimized website. Monitoring your SEO metrics can help you plan strategies for the future, whether you’re looking to track engagement or assess SERP authority. If your SEO metrics are good, your KPIs will likely be as well.
With SEO metrics, an SEO Specialist you can track pretty much everything related to it. It gives you detailed information on how your organic search campaign is doing. Furthermore, it provides you with data that you can use to formulate new SEO strategies or to enhance your current ones.
Why do SEO metrics matter?
Measuring is essential for management. If you do not measure, you cannot improve and grow. Using SEO metrics allows you to determine how effective your SEO efforts are and make adjustments based on the data to improve business performance.
It’s difficult to know whether the money and time you have invested in SEO are paying off your business if you do not monitor the relevant metrics. In addition, you could be missing out on opportunities to increase organic search traffic and revenue. You may also miss threats to your existing traffic and business.
Google updates its algorithms constantly. So, it’s essential to monitor key SEO metrics regularly to ensure that your website is properly optimized and generating profits.
SEO Metrics to track
There are countless SEO metrics to track, and some are more important than others. Some of the metrics you might want to keep an eye on regularly include:
- On-page optimization scores
On-page optimization involves optimizing a page’s contents for both users and search engines. You can use tools like Ahrefs Site Audit to analyze web pages and then provides a score reflecting its SEO-optimized status. This may include things like:
- The meta description
- Keyword density
- Keywords in heading and subheadings
- Page Title
- Internal and external linking
- Image alt tags
- Domain authority and domain rating
Domain authority and domain rating are used to calculate the overall Search Engine Optimization strength of a website. Several factors are considered in calculating the score, including the quality of referring domains and backlinks.
Domain authority is not an official Google ranking factor. However, monitoring this metric is essential because it is based on things that are ranking factors. To rank high in search results, increase the Domain Authority of your website.
- New referring domains
Google ranks websites based on backlinks. Backlinks from high-quality domains usually boost your domain authority. Links coming from domains that haven’t linked to your site before are, on the other hand, more powerful than links from sites that already link to you.
Google considers a domain that links to your domain as a trustworthy authority. Second links from the same website are slightly less valuable than ones with new domains. Keep an eye on your backlinks and referring domains in general. For your organic traffic to grow significantly, you’ll also need to increase the number of new referring domains.
- Keyword ranking
A keyword ranking is a critical SEO metric to monitor. They provide an early indication that your SEO strategy is working, as well as a benchmark for your progress. Further, rankings show your current organic market share and total potential. While keyword rankings fluctuate constantly, a sudden drop could indicate trouble. SERP trackers include Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and STAT, among others.
- Organic traffic
Your site should track the amount of organic search traffic it receives. It is a key SEO metric to determine whether your SEO efforts create the foundation for a successful program.
SEO cannot generate revenue or conversions without organic traffic. When you’re not getting traffic, something is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.
- Organic visibility
It measures how much organic search traffic your site receives compared to the total clicks it receives. Search volume and ranking position both influence click-through rate (CTR).
Most SEO tools provide you with a site wide visibility score based on where you rank for all tracked keywords, as well as keyword-specific scores. You should track both scores since they offer a snapshot of how your site is performing SEO.
- Organic conversion
Conversions from organic search engine traffic help you determine whether you’re getting the right visitors to your site. For example, it may be a sign that you’re not getting the right people to visit your site if your traffic is high, but your conversions, such as sales, sign-ups, leads, etc., are low.
Considering this, you need to determine if your keywords are driving traffic to your site and, if so, whether they are actually related to your customer acquisition funnel. To drive conversions, you should identify relevant keywords at the top, middle, and bottom of the marketing funnel and write content around those keywords.
- Page speed and core web vitals
User experience is significant, and one way to measure this is a fast-loading page. Many studies have shown that page speed increases conversion rates through the years, and conversely, page load time decreases conversion rates.
- Bounce rate
Bounce rate refers to how many people have only visited one page of your website. Bounce rates aren’t a ranking signal, but a high number could indicate a problem with any of your pages or your entire website.
- Crawl errors
A crawl error occurs when a search engine tries to reach a page on your site but cannot do so. For example, crawl errors may result from deleted pages, pages marked as ‘noindex,’ or pages blocked in robots.txt.
If a page isn’t crawled, it won’t be indexed and won’t receive any organic search traffic, so it’s essential to monitor this. If you have a spike in crawl errors on your website, Google may lose trust in your site and degrade any existing rankings.