SEO Metrics You Should Start Tracking Right Away

Now that you’ve put so much effort into modifying your SEO strategy according to the ever-changing SEO trends, you probably want to check whether these efforts and resources are paying off.

Rank improvement of your website is not the sole indicator of your success. Your site may have several vanity keywords that are driving traffic to the website and boosting your rank. But what if a large number of viewers are leaving your site thereby increasing the bounce rate and draining your resources?

That’s why you need to track several metrics on a monthly or weekly basis to keep your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan in check and measure your success. This will help you to earn more qualified leads.

Measure SEO Metrics Like a Boss

1. Track Top Engagement Metrics

In this segment, we will mention a number of metrics including the conversion rate, time on page, bounce rate, click-through-rate, and pages per visit. You can track these through Google Analytics.

These metrics offer a quick overview of the pages on your website that are performing the best. Based on this insight, you can update the old content or create new ones.

• Conversion Rate

This refers to the number of conversions divided by the number of visits. From an email sign-up to a purchase and account creation – everything can impact the conversion rate. Tracking this metric helps you to gauge prospective ROI (Return on Investment).

• Time on Page

By measuring the time people are spending on your page, you can perceive the efficacy of your posts. Let’s analyse it with an example. If you have a 2500 word blog post and visitors are spending only 10 seconds on an average, then the chances of your audience consuming the content is slim.

However, the intent of the page is important while tracking this metric. For instance, the “Contact Us” page usually has a low average time of viewing.

• Bounce Rate

It indicates that a searcher visited your page and left it without scrawling further. Several factors may be responsible for this – the site may have a slow loading time, the content may not be relevant to the searchers’ query, and so on.

But there’s a catch! Some people may check a site for business hours, contact info, or menus (applicable for restaurant sites, of course). In such cases, the bounce rate doesn’t mean that the business is lacking relevance.

That’s why the experts at any top SEO agency suggest to gauge the scroll depth metric for a better understanding.

• Scroll Depth

This indicates how far the visitors have scrolled down on an individual webpage. For instance, if the average scroll depth is 55%, it means the visitors have scrolled enough to see half of the page content.

Armed with this information, you may adopt the necessary actions to enhance the quality of the content.

Pro tip: It’s a good idea to include Call to Actions (CTAs) above the fold so that the visitors don’t have to scroll down to check the most essential element of the page.

• Click Through rate (CTR)

This metric indicates the percentage of people that clicked your page from the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). This insight can help you to optimize your page title and meta description.

You can access this data on the Google Search Console.

• Pages Per Visit

If your strategy is to keep the readers engaged and lead them to the next step, pages per visit is an important metric and you need to improve it at any cost. However, if each page is independent of other pages (e.g., visitors come, get the information, and leave), then low pages per visit can be considered as fine.

2. Track Ranking for Specific Keywords

Choosing the right keywords for your articles and ensuring that your content answers the query and satisfies user intent are crucial to driving traffic to your site.

And in order to know the performance of keyword research, you need to keep a track of the keyword rankings.

Here’s a quick tip: Avoid vanity metrics like ranking for popular keywords that are often too vague and don’t perform adequately as the long-tail keywords.

Monitoring your ranking for specific keywords may help you to understand whether your resources are well-spent.

Take a look at how to do that: Google Analytics > Acquisitions > Search Console > Queries.

Set the date to 1, 3, or 6 months to get enough data. The list will show your the highest traffic earning keywords.

You may also try a keyword research tool like Keysearch. Here you can get a quick overview of the keywords position, plus a change in the stats. A positive change in the stats indicates that your keyword rank is improving.

3. Check the Percentage of Traffic Earned From Organic Search

Let’s get this straight – your SEO efforts are directly addressed to improving the organic traffic. That’s why keep a note of your sources of traffic to learn whether you’re earning or losing organic traffic.

To get this information, follow the steps: Google Analytics > Acquisitions > All Traffic > Channels.

Here you will find all the channels that drive traffic to your site. These include Organic, Social, Direct, Referral, and Others. Now take a look at the Organic Search channel.

If you don’t find a substantial amount of traffic earned through this channel, it’s time to add more rankable keywords and satisfying user query through your content.

Slow but steady is the key to increasing organic traffic. So, if you notice only a bit of traffic is driven organically, don’t be demotivated. The goal is to enhance the percentage every month. Pay attention to that.

4. Keep a Check on Mobile Traffic

According to the recent findings, 80% of users search the web with a mobile device (source: Quora Creative). To leverage such a wide audience, it’s crucial to ensure that your site is mobile responsive, has a quick loading time, and high engagement attributes like an aesthetic layout, presence of videos, etc.

Without these in the proper place, you cannot rank on mobile search.

To monitor the mobile traffic stats, head to Google Analytics > Audience > Mobile > Overview. This data presents the percentage of traffic received from mobiles. Based on this info, you can improve your mobile SEO strategies.

5. Monitor Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric coined by Moz. It indicates the authoritativeness of your website. The data compels you to adopt the right strategies to enhance your performance and achieve a competitive edge.

Check out our comprehensive article to learn everything about Domain Authority.

Conclusion

We admit that it’s a bit overwhelming to keep up with the latest SEO trends and continually monitor all the metrics. That’s why engaging SEO services can be advantageous at this hour.

However, make sure to contact a reputed company offering digital marketing services since misleading SEO practices recommended by inexperienced people can do more harm than good. To save your time and money, you may take a look at how to select the top SEO company.