4 Smarter Ways To Measure SEO Effectiveness
I found myself answering many of the same questions new clients ask about how to measure SEO. My answers usually fall into one of two categories:
- Why Basic/Standard SEO Metrics Are Not Good KPIs and How to Improve Them.
- What (more advanced) metrics should we establish to determine actual business impact?
This article focuses on the first category and shows how you can use an advanced approach to make basic SEO KPIs much more effective. The KPIs I will cover include:
- Traffic (visits)
- classification
- conversions
- links
Let's start.
1. Traffic
Measuring weekly SEO traffic is key, and missed nuances can become apparent with a few tweaks.
First, use Search Console to split your traffic into branded and unbranded segments .
There's a simple reason for this: branded traffic usually doesn't SEO functionality. Instead, it is influenced by awareness campaigns, including billboards, CTV (or linear television) ads, programming campaigns, public relations, and more. In short, brand discovery is a function of your overall marketing portfolio.
Non-brand research is where SEOs can shine, especially when you identify keywords at the most important stages of your funnel and prioritize them based on their potential impact. This often works as an intent level.
Educational keywords (like “best SEO practices”) are more or less at the top of the funnel, while more transactional keywords (like “best B2B SEO agency”) are at the top of the funnel.
Second, remember that seasonality affects SEO just like any other channel.
Because of this, it is critical to set up monthly, quarterly, and yearly windows. I prefer QoQ and YoY to shorter comparisons.
Major changes in search engine optimization, whether caused by an algorithm change or caused internally, require longer measurement cycles to confirm the actual change.
2. Classification
Relying on quick screenshots of your current keyword rankings can give you a limited idea of the overall success of your campaign.
Instead, consider the following factors:
- How your target keywords rank over time (monthly, q/q, yearly)?
- How are individual pages ranked?
- Are you reaching real milestones?
- What are your trends?
Leaderboard scores over time show your progress between potential calendar events and seasonal changes.
Instead of looking at a mixed keyword portfolio that provides less useful information, look at individual pages using the Google Search Console. This allows you to isolate certain attributes that affect the ranking of an individual keyword.
When it comes to milestones, not all rank changes are the same. You can move up 50 points from 61 to 11, but that may have less of an impact than moving up a notch from the first item on page 2 of the SERP to the last item on page 1.
Finally, dig deeper to see the actual impression and click on the deltas that result in the ranking change. This also includes external trends. For example, consider that in March 2020, you could see a significant increase in impressions and clicks for "video conferencing software" without changing the rankings for that keyword.
The more activity around a keyword, the more competitive it becomes and the more potential impact it will have on your portfolio.
3. Conversions
Method 1.0 to measure engagement is to aggregate last click conversions from organic search. The GA4 integration, which uses a data-driven multi-channel model with a 30-day data collection window, gives you a more granular view of the credits awarded for conversions.
We can add many more levels to this, including measuring the impact of SEO on acquisition costs from other channels.
In this article, designed to help you better understand relatively simple KPIs, let's talk about creating different conversion events based on the intent level of the keywords you're targeting (such as transactions).
Your report might look like this:
Different conversion events have different value when used strategically with internal CRM data.
If you use different conversion events that are strategically aligned with your keywords, you should see an increase in your conversion rate . Get a better idea of the value these keywords create.
4. Labels
Links are important. This is always a ranking factor and can help measure the impact of your content.
However, the number of links is a superficial measure. Relationships are just a means to an end.
The overall goal of SEO is to intelligently manage traffic and supply. Focusing on subsequent KPIs without applying them to business impact (which is certainly more difficult) will do little to advance the needle significantly.
Focusing on the number of links encourages you to look for more links. The stimulus must have real impact.
The score gives you a bias and changes the way you run your SEO program. If you focus on business drivers, you will be interested in creating value, not volume .
The volume is light. Meaning is more difficult.
Prove the value of SEO with better stats
In most cases, these are fairly simple adjustments that help paint a clearer picture of the value you get from your SEO program and how it performs over time.
In my next article, I'll show you how to take it to the next level by helping you understand how SEO affects your overall marketing efforts compared to other channels.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Hired authors are listed here.
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