First things first – SEO KPIs are short for Key Performance Indicators. You probably already know this but since we are starting our little tutorial it’s important to clear everything up. After all, if only one person doesn’t know what that means – now we are all on the same page and we can begin with everything cleared up. We will show you the most common KPIs that you should track regularly in order to keep your SEO game strong and to get a better insight.
Tracking SEO KPIs properly
This is one of the most important parts of your SEO strategies and yet it so often gets overlooked. Without doing it regularly you won’t be able to keep track of your campaign’s progress and success. This is a way to ensure that all your efforts are paying off. It can also be a way to determine if you are on the right track towards success. So, make sure to do it! SEO takes time to deliver any results. It takes a lot of time to deliver amazing results. It’s just the way this works, but you need to be patient and keep trying and working on it. Key performance indicators will tell you if you are doing it right or if there is something you need to improve.
SEO KPIs you need to track
This can get confusing and overwhelming so here is a list of the KPIs you need to track regularly :
- ROI
- Sales and Leads ( Conversations )
- Organic Visibility
- Organic Sessions
- Branded vs. Non-Branded Traffic
- Keyword Rankings
- Backlinks
- Organic CTR
- Bounce Rate
- Average time spent on page
- Coverage issues
- Page Speed
Don’t worry, we will cover most of them a bit so you get a better picture of the importance of tracking each one of them. Of course, there are some things like Page Speed that don’t need a lot of explanations. Would you come back on the website that takes forever to load? And we won’t be dealing with Click Through Rate (CTR) since we left you an amazing article about it so just click the link and read all about it.
Keyword rankings and backlinks
Keyword rankings might not be the most important metric, but that doesn’t mean they should be overlooked. Being able to see your primary keywords increasing in rank ultimately means that your strategy is starting to pay off. On the other hand, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors according to Google and there are simply no signs whatsoever that that will be changing in the near future. It’s important to know the state and health of your backlinks just as you need to know if you have any issues with toxic backlinks. Don’t worry, even if you find out that you do have some we left you a way to get rid of them.
Click-through-rate
CTR is a pretty simple metric that will show you the percentage of the people/customers who click on your page after their search triggers an impression. You want your CTR to be organic and you want it to be as high as possible. CTR is used as a ranking factor but in reality, if you have better organic CTR more people will be clicking on your listing on the SERPs. If you find yourself thinking “what does this mean” or “I don’t fully understand this” there are websites where you can learn more about this and maybe even learn some more SEO strategies. Or you can simply hire an expert to help you.
Bounce rate and average time spent on page
Bounce rate is an important measure. It shows if your content is engaging viewers who land on your page. Also, it’s a great way to understand how relevant it is to the search queries that it’s ranking for. If you see a high number that indicated that the page isn’t capturing the attention of users. That means missed opportunities to turn this traffic into conversions. So the goal here is to keep your bounce rate as low as possible. Average time spent on the page is also important because the longer a user spends on a page, the more engaged they are going to be. You want to find a way to keep people engaged.
Conversations – sales and leads and visibility
A great way to measure and track organic conversations is by tracking things like sales, leads, and such. That will show you the success. An increase in organic conversations is what you want to see and that will mean you are doing everything right! That means all your efforts are paying off. Organic visibility is something you can track from Google Search Console. The chart will explain everything and you will see if all your efforts are paying off. To see an increase in impressions shows an increase in organic visibility and a great measure of continued growth – that’s what you want.
If all of this is starting to sound like too much work for you
It’s completely understandable that sometimes you can not handle everything on your own. Especially if your business is growing and there is a more pressing matter you need to focus your attention on. You need to pick your battles and see your priorities. Dealing with SEO KPIs is something others can do for you. For example, you can hire an SEO expert occasionally or you can hire one to work full time for you or with you. That can be a great way and help your growing business. There are so many young professionals nowadays that can do wonders for your SEO. So, if this fits in your budget you can give it a go and try. Very soon you will see the results. Just make sure to explain exactly what you want and need to the person you are hiring.