SEO will only work for your goals if you set up and analyze the results of your campaign properly. A single indicator cannot measure the success of SEO promotion. Evaluating the effectiveness of search engine optimization often has vague outlines. So how do you track the success of SEO?
What are key performance indicators (KPIs) and why do we use them?
KPI (Key Performance Indicators) is a measure of performance, measured and expressed numerically. It helps to evaluate the success of work in a particular direction. You may also be interested to learn about link building opportunities. The following are the advantages of using KPI:
- The customer can see the contractor’s work (growth of indicators, budget spending items, quantity, and quality of completed work on the site).
- Ability to track SEO performance and progress. The optimizer can track SEO results, adjust the work on unsuccessful areas, identify and evaluate growth points for the project’s future.
- Control the dynamics of the project. The results of working with the site are not always and not immediately obvious. To monetize some improvements requires time.
- A personal approach For SEO-promotion services, clients with different objectives and business problems have varying abilities to pay. By choosing an individual list of KPIs, you can measure SEO performance and rational use of the advertising budget.
There are several classifications of KPI. The indicators can be divided into non-economic and economic categories.
Non-economic indicators of SEO-promotion
Attracting targeted visitors
Attendance is one of the main markers of SEO promotion. This KPI is suitable for both commercial and informational resources. It can be measured using free in-house tools (Google Analytics) and third-party services. With the help of these statistical counters, it is possible to evaluate the quality of traffic:
- analyze the audience (gender, age, region of residence, etc.);
- measure behavioral factors (time of site page view, depth of view, bounce rate);
- identify needs (to buy/order or get information on the subject of interest).
Visibility by semantic core
This indicator allows you to estimate what proportion of the site’s target audience sees it in the results of its issuance for the promoted list of search queries.
We recommend evaluating the site’s visibility by the popularity of queries. It is necessary to keep track of how key positions change at the top of search results. Furthermore, it is essential to assess cumulative visibility as well as visibility in thematic niches and compare it with competitors.
Top ranking in search results for selected keywords
The purpose of the use is to track which keywords made it to the top as a result of the SEO-optimizer’s work. The more keywords appear on the first page of the output, the better the chances of attracting potential traffic to the site.
You can use the Google Search Console to collect data on positions. It allows you to automate the process and provides convenient reports.
Cross-cutting analytics to monitor the effectiveness of SEO
It is one of the effective tools to measure SEO success. It may be a self-organized system with a manual connection and setup of all components or an automated solution with a ready-made interface. The list of end-to-end analytics tools is chosen individually and depends on the scale of the business, tasks, and budget.
With the help of end-to-end analytics, you can trace the customer’s path from entering a query into the search box to placing an order on the website. This analysis allows you to learn the payback of SEO.
Principles for Choosing KPIs for SEO Promotion
KPIs are picked individually for each site. Here are some principles:
- Set specific goals. Describe the range of objectives and specify them. It is imperative to set not just goals but measurable goals. With this clear understanding of the objectives, you can set specific metrics to measure performance.
- Establish the list of conversions. What actions of the potential client will bring us closer to achieving our goals? This may not necessarily be a sale. This can include other actions that can turn a visitor into a buyer.
- Designate a time frame. Fix the starting point of work on the site and assign reporting periods.
- Choose monitoring tools. You can get information about the project’s performance through the familiar Google Analytics and paid services. The budget of the advertising campaign usually dictates the choice of tools.
The sales funnel and the choice of KPI
Selecting KPIs to measure the effectiveness of an SEO campaign is impossible without analyzing the marketing funnel, look more. It will take into account the most relevant indicators for the business.
At the top of the sales funnel are people who do not yet have an idea of the site and the products (services) sold there. At the bottom is the buyer (the person who has already performed the conversion action). That is, users at the top of the funnel are much less likely to convert than those at the bottom.
Conclusion
What is SEO performance, and how to measure SEO success? Hope, we answered this question in our article. Measuring SEO performance is possible and necessary. Regardless of the business’s niche, scale, and goals, it is crucial to monitor its online promotion by several key indicators simultaneously. It allows you to look at the project comprehensively from multiple angles.
KPIs are a universal language that links the achievement of marketing and SEO goals. It allows SEO specialists and clients to interpret the results understandably. If you are tracking your off-page SEO progress and you see a lack of link growth, you can get backlinks from guest posts. With KPIs, business owners and their marketers understand the importance of each stage of the marketing funnel to generate revenue and return on advertising investments.
Using KPIs to evaluate SEO campaigns makes it possible to achieve consistently high traffic and conversion rates, draw global conclusions, and make management decisions that contribute to business growth.
