We reveal 3 indicators that help measure your SEO Success
SEO aka Search Engine Optimisation is a necessity for website success. SEO is a set of strategies applied to your website on a consistent basis to help Google and other search engines decipher what your website is about and which search keywords your website should list for.
Although your SEO might seem more difficult to measure the success of, compared to the likes of a Facebook Ad for example, here are some good indicators that can help you reveal whether your SEO is working effectively!
Website Rankings
The better the SEO of your website, the more likely your website is to list in the top spots on the likes of Google. Your website should have a list of keywords that it is being optimised for. These keywords will be placed on your website, in your Meta Tags and so on. If the keywords are being used well, you should be listing on the top pages. There are some great tools out there to help you track how your keywords are performing and which page you are listing on for them. Listing on the first page of Google is a bit like the holy grail; websites on the first pages have a much higher click through rate than websites that some argue are “lost” on the second page. A higher click through rate means more traffic to your website and if your website is up to scratch, hopefully that means more business!
So, we’ve already identified that rankings are a great way of knowing whether your SEO is working well, but you shouldn’t just leave it at that. Google Analytics is a great tool that shouldn’t be over looked. By analysing your website in a little more detail, you can get a great insight into what’s really going on.
Website Traffic
Traffic makes its way to your website through a variety of sources. Analytics provides you with a detailed breakdown of where this traffic is coming from. You can do this by taking a look at your acquisition > all traffic > channels. It should look similar to this.
The organic traffic is a good indicator as to how well your SEO is working. Organic traffic includes traffic that has come to your website via a keyword search. It’s a good idea to then check your bounce rate; you want to make sure that the traffic you are getting to your website isn’t leaving straight away.
Conversions
You should have deemed a number of actions that you would consider to be valuable/ a conversion; this could be newsletter sign ups, completing a purchase, clicking on your telephone number and so on. You can track these actions in your analytics account.
You should identify whether your organic search traffic is then leading on to a conversion. After all, you want to ensure you are getting traffic to your website that is actually interested in your business and likely to engage. Tracking your conversions is a great way of measuring whether the keywords you’re listing for are actually resulting in actions deemed valuable to your business.
Remember, if you can measure it you can improve it! Monitoring all your digital strategies, not just your SEO strategy, is important. By keeping an eye on what’s going on, you can identify what’s working and what needs to be improved.
If you need help analysing your digital strategy, Carrick would be happy to help you.
To read more about our SEO services, visit the dedicated service page.