What are the key SEO metrics you should track for your SEO efforts?

Out of many SEO ranking factors, the metrics you should monitor to measure your campaign’s success vary according to the goals. For instance, some brands may want to boost their organic ranking and traffic, while others might want to build credible backlink profiles. Some brands may again focus more on conversion than traffic. Therefore, understand your business goals, the timeline to achieve the same, how you identify SEO success, etc., to determine which metrics to monitor. This blog will discuss a few critical SEO metrics to help you select the right one for measuring your campaign’s success. Moreover, you can also take the help of an SEO agency in Ontario to identify appropriate SEO metrics based on your business goals.

9 SEO metrics you should measure

You should measure the following SEO metrics to measure the success of your SEO efforts. Let’s discuss them further.

Organic Search Visibility

It indicates the number of times your website appears on search results for appropriate keywords. This metric will help you compare your website’s search visibility to your competitors. You can also compare rankings of different pages on your website. You can also compare your website’s visibility on different search engines and locations. Improved organic visibility doesn’t necessarily mean increased engagement or conversion. However, it increases the possibility of reaching prospects searching for products and services similar to yours. As a result, it increases opportunities for lead generation and business conversion. You can use various analytics tools to assess search visibility. Google Search Console displays the total number of impressions for a specific period to help you get an overview of your search visibility.

Organic Traffic

It is the traffic your website receives through organic means and not due to paid advertisements. Monitoring organic traffic helps you determine how well your ongoing SEO efforts help drive traffic to your website. Continually tracking this metric over a period can help you determine which campaigns or strategies have helped drive traffic. It will further help you optimize your SEO strategies accordingly.

You can use Google Analytics to track your organic traffic growth. First, go to the ‘acquisition tab’ on your reporting page, click on ‘overview,’ select ‘organic traffic,’ and select a date range for which you want to check your traffic growth. You can assess the displayed results to determine how the organic traffic rate has varied throughout that period and what changes in your strategies and campaigns have caused the same. Sometimes, a dip in the traffic might also result from search engine algorithm updates.

Leads and Conversion

Monitoring leads and conversion can help you determine the success of your campaigns. Further, you gain a detailed insight into your buyers’ journey. For instance, once you identify the sources of your leads, you can focus your marketing efforts on the same to generate more leads. You can use lead-tracking software to identify the sources of your leads.

Further, for tracking organic conversion, you must set a ‘goal’ or conversion events in Google Analytics. A conversion can occur when your customers purchase from you, opt for free trials for SaaS products, submit contact forms, sign up for email newsletters, etc. Knowing your conversion goal can help you determine how far your campaign has achieved the desired results. Therefore, once you have identified your goals, it’s time to track them on Google Analytics.

First, you need to add ‘organic sessions’ segment to see these metrics specifically. Next, go to ‘Conversion’, click ‘Goals’ and then ‘Overview.’

Keyword Ranking

Identifying and focusing on relevant keywords through your SEO strategies helps boost your campaign performance. Therefore, along with selecting appropriate keywords, it is equally critical to monitor their rankings to determine the success of your SEO campaign. Monitoring keyword rankings helps you identify how well your website performs on SERP for relevant search queries or keywords. Accordingly, you can determine which keywords to focus more on. You can use various online tools to track your keyword rankings.

Core Web Vitals

It is a ranking factor that Google considers when ranking your website. The three critical aspects of Core Web Vitals are –

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – It measures how fast the main content of a web page loads.
• First Input Delay (FID) – It measures the time between when a user first interacts with your site, such as clicking on a link or button, and the time the browser responds to that interaction.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – It measures how much a webpage unexpectedly shifts during its lifespan. The factors that cause the shifts are fonts, images, buttons, etc.

You can use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to track Core Web Vitals. First, log in to your Google Search Console account, go to the ‘core web vitals’ tab, and select ‘mobile’ or ‘desktop.’ You should check these reports regularly and use the data to improve your site’s user experience.

Page Speed

It is another critical SEO metric that Google considers when ranking your website. If your page takes too long to load, it results in a bad user experience that can contribute to losing plenty of potential customers. Hence, you should optimize different visual elements on your website to improve your page speed.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors leaving your website without taking action after viewing only a single page. A higher bounce rate might indicate your website is not relevant to search queries, resulting in poor ranking and traffic. You can calculate the bounce rate by dividing the number of single-page visits by the total visit. Monitoring bounce rate helps identify issues concerning navigation, relevance, user experience, mobile responsiveness, etc. Identifying the factors responsible for the increased bounce rate can help you take necessary action to improve your website’s performance.

Average Dwell Time

It measures a visitor’s time on your website before returning to SERP. A higher dwell time implies that your web page is engaging and helpful. You can calculate dwell time by checking ‘Average Session Duration’, which measures the duration of a user’s entire visit to a website. While dwell time shows results from SERP, Average Session Duration can include visitors from social media, email links, landing pages, etc.

New Backlinks

It is a critical Google ranking factor. Acquiring high-quality backlinks improves the authority of your website and further helps you rank high on SERP. You can compare your backlinks to your competitors to determine the quality of your backlink profile.

Different SEO metrics help determine how well your website is performing on SERP for related search queries to drive traffic, generate leads, improve conversions, etc. Monitoring the critical SEO metrics can help you acquire crucial data that you can utilize to boost your SEO efforts and derive better results. HireH Consulting offers comprehensive SEO services in Ontario. We can run an SEO audit on your site and help develop strategies to boost organic ranking and traffic, generate leads, improve conversion, etc.