Ensuring effective online marketing and optimizing your business involves monitoring various metrics. Determining which metrics to track and how frequently to review them can be challenging. Yet, tracking SEO efforts remains critical for assessing success and planning future strategies. Here are ten essential key performance indicators (KPIs) worth monitoring:
- Keyword Ranking
- Why: Keyword research forms the foundation of any SEO strategy. Tracking rankings helps gauge the effectiveness of keyword optimization efforts.
- How: Choose target keywords and create a benchmark report. Track rankings regularly to observe improvements.
- ROI (Return on Investment)
- Why: ROI is an objective measure of success. While attributing conversions to SEO efforts might be complex, calculating ROI helps assess the financial impact.
- How: Formula: (Revenue generated by SEO efforts – SEO investment) / SEO investment * 100 = ROI
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Why: Achieving high rankings is good, but compelling meta titles and descriptions are vital for enticing users to click your link.
- How: Calculate CTR using impressions and clicks in tools like Google Webmasters.
- Conversion Rate
- Why: Beyond high rankings and CTR, conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors completing desired actions on your site.
- How: Analyze the number of organic visitors and how many complete desired goals.
- Percentage of Traffic from Search
- Why: Indicates the effectiveness of organic search efforts in driving overall site traffic.
- How: Compare organic search traffic to total site traffic.
- Backlinks
- Why: Quality backlinks improve domain authority and enhance search rankings.
- How: Focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that attracts authoritative backlinks.
- Branded vs. Non-Branded Keywords
- Why: Differentiates between direct brand-related traffic and organic, non-branded keyword-driven traffic.
- How: Use analytics to compare the ratio of branded vs. non-branded keyword traffic.
- Visitor Increase
- Why: Tracking monthly unique visitors helps assess the impact of SEO efforts on site visits.
- How: Monitor monthly visitor numbers and compare month-over-month (MoM) and year-over-year (YoY) trends.
- Landing Pages Driving Traffic
- Why: Identifying top landing pages provides insights into optimization success and overall site exposure.
- How: Analyze top landing pages, aiming to enhance their performance, decrease bounce rates, and increase conversions.
- Keywords Driving Traffic
- Why: Track the number of visitors per keyword to evaluate keyword performance over time.
- How: Maintain a spreadsheet of targeted keywords and monitor their performance regularly.
Monitoring these KPIs provides a comprehensive understanding of SEO performance, guiding strategies for improvement and success.
