The 6 Most Useful SEO KPIs to Track for Your Business
SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring of results and adjustments to the strategies based on them. However, to ensure that your rankings keep improving on the search engine results pages, you have to keep a track of your SEO KPIs. We bring you the 6 most useful KPIs to track for any business. The list includes search engine rankings, search engine visibility, organic click-through rate, bounce rate, organic traffic, and conversion rate.
Search engine optimization requires continuous improvement otherwise stagnant efforts will results in no new traffic, leads, or sales, and eventually, you’ll fall behind your competitors.
You must be wondering how to improve your ranking in search engines? If you are unsure what you need to reoptimize, then we have good news for you.
By keeping a track of your SEO key performance indicators or more commonly referred to as (KPIs), you can determine what needs optimizing.
What are SEO KPIs and which ones should you track? Just sit back and read our article on the 6 most useful SEO KPIs to track for your business, to find out the answer to those questions.
What are SEO KPIs?
SEO KPIs are specific metrics related to different components of your search engine marketing.
Their purpose is to provide you with essential information regarding your search engine rankings, target audience, and the way your SEO influences your website.
Most KPIs for SEO can be determined by using software such as Google Analytics or SEMrush.
They will not only provide you with vital SEO metrics but also present your data in various visual forms such as graphs and charts.
Most Useful SEO KPIs to Track for your Business
While there are many different KPIs for SEO, we have compiled the 6 most useful SEO KPIs to track for your business. These include:
1. Search Engine Rankings
This KPI simply refers to keeping track of how your content is ranking in search engines results.
Of course, the results will vary depending on the page, keyword, and day. It is completely possible for a higher ranking page to suddenly show a drop in it on any day.
It is crucial to continuously track your search engine rankings via various tools such as Ahref and SEMrush to see which keywords or pages are ranking on search engines. If you see any page ranking low for a specific keyword then make sure to re-optimize it.
2. Search Engine Visibility
Search engine visibility refers to how many users see your pages in search engine result pages.
According to a study, 75% of internet users don’t go past the first page of search engine results pages. Usually, a high ranking will automatically lead to higher search engine visibility.
But higher search engine visibility doesn’t guarantee that people will also engage with your content.
You should also invest time in making your content and user experience better so that more and more people will engage with your business.
User experience is equally important for efficient and effective SEO. Check out why user experience is so important for SEO - right here.
3. Organic Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Organic CTR means how many users are clicking on your content from search engine results. However, it is a relation between the total number of clicks and the impressions (search engine visibility).
If 15 people see your page in search results on any given day, that’s your visibility. Now, for example, 4 people click on your page.
To find out your CTR, you will divide the number of clicks with the number of impressions or visibility and multiply the answer by 100. Your CTR will be 26.6 percent.
CTR is an important metric because it tells you whether your pages are driving clicks or not. If your pages have high search visibility but a low CTR, you might want to reoptimize your title tag and meta description to be more compelling.
4. Bounce Rate
This is one metric that you’d want to stay low. The bounce rate represents the percentage of people who abandon your website soon after arriving.
For example, if 10 people visit your website and four of them leave soon after arriving then you have a bounce rate of 40%. A high bounce rate means that your website isn’t doing a good job of holding users’ interest.
Anything can trigger users to leave your web pages as soon as they arrive on them. It can be a misleading title, a bad user experience, or a poorly designed interface.
You’ll want to spend some time identifying and fixing the issues that are causing your traffic to bounce in a very short amount of time.
5. Organic Traffic
Organic traffic refers to the number of people that visit your website after finding it on search engine results pages.
It’s important to keep a track of it so you can see how much traffic is coming from your SEO efforts. This will help you determine if your SEO campaigns are successful or not.
Organic traffic is different from the total traffic on your website. Organic traffic only refers to the traffic coming in from search engine result pages.
6. Conversion Rate
The final most useful SEO KPI on our list is the conversion rate. It is the measure of how much of your organic traffic ends up converting.
Conversion means any call to action that you intend the user to perform such as making a purchase, submitting a contact form, or signing up for a newsletter.
The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of people who converted by the total number of organic traffic and then multiplying the answer by 100. The more the conversion rate, the more revenue your business generates.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it, the 6 most useful SEO KPIs to track for your business. While tracking your SEO KPIs is one thing, optimizing your web pages, content, and business to boost those metrics is completely another task altogether.
The key here is to track, observe, and monitor the KPIs, and their data, and to adjust your SEO efforts and campaigns accordingly for the best results.
Author Bio
Hassan Jamil is a curious, persistent, motivated, and passionate digital marketer. He has a decade-long experience in on-page & off-page SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, PPC marketing, email marketing, and more. In his spare time, he likes to write articles on various topics, watch movies, and play video games.