Measuring the effectiveness of your SEO strategy can be overwhelming with today’s access to large amounts of data and metrics. It can be challenging to decide which metrics to focus on to evaluate your SEO performance and what each metric exactly means.
In this article, I will walk you through the top SEO metrics you need to pay attention to and analyze so that you can make business-informed decisions and boost your rankings.
What are SEO Metrics?
SEO metrics, or Search Engine Optimization metrics, are quantitative measures used to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of a website’s SEO efforts. These metrics provide insights into various aspects of a website’s online presence, helping you understand how well your website is performing in search engine results and identifying areas for improvement.
SEO metrics include a wide range of key performance indicators (KPIs) that indicate the visibility, relevance, and authority of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Why are SEO Metrics Important?
SEO metrics are important for several reasons:
- Performance Evaluation: SEO metrics provide insights into how well a website is performing in search engine ranking. By tracking SEO metrics, you can assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategies and identify areas for improvement.
- Visibility and Rankings: SEO metrics help you understand your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and the rankings of specific keywords. High visibility and strong rankings are the main goals of your SEO strategy.
- User Experience Optimization: Some SEO Metrics for example click-through rate (CTR), and page load time indicate the quality of user experience provided on your website. Enhance user satisfaction and improve overall engagement by working on these metrics.
- Competitors Analysis: Benchmark your performance against competitors and identify opportunities to outperform them, by analyzing SEO metrics like domain authority, backlink profile, and content performance. Develop strategies to create a competitive edge in your industry.
- ROI Measurement: Successful SEO efforts deliver a positive return on investment (ROI). By tracking SEO metrics related to traffic, conversions, and revenue, You can understand the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and the value of the paid investment. This eventually helps you make data-driven decisions to maximize ROI.
- Continuous Improvement: We all know that SEO is a never-ending process that requires constant monitoring and optimization. By regularly tracking the right SEO metrics you can identify trends, spot issues, and adjust your strategies to stay ahead of the curve and maintain long-term success.
Overall, SEO metrics are your compass in informed decision-making, optimization efforts, and driving sustainable growth to your website and business.
Top 10 SEO Metrics to Track
- Organic Traffic
- Keyword Ranking
- Top Ranking Pages
- SEO Difficulty
- Trending Data
- Backlinks and Referring Domains
- Domain Authority
- Competitor Analysis
- Page Load Speed
- Mobile Responsiveness
1- Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is the number of visitors who reach your website without you utilizing any paid ads. It can be directly from the search engine page results (SERPs), from social media, or through a referring link.
Organic traffic is the ultimate goal of SEO and the most important indicator of your website visibility. Organic traffic is your first step in reaching your targeted audience, acquiring leads, and generating revenue.
Analyzing organic traffic metrics over time helps you identify trends, patterns, and fluctuations in search engine visibility.
By tracking organic traffic peaks or declines, you can identify factors influencing performance and make informed decisions to implement strategies to increase organic traffic accordingly.
You can track organic traffic in Google Search Console. You can also view organic traffic metrics in Google Analytics. Log in to your dashboard and select “Add Segment” in the default Audience Overview, select “Organic Traffic” and hit “Apply”.
A fast way to check the monthly organic traffic of your website and even the monthly organic traffic of your competitors’ websites is through using the Keywords Everywhere extension directly in SERPs.
2- Keyword Rankings
Another SEO metric that goes hand in hand with organic traffic is keyword rankings. Keyword rankings show your website’s organic positions in the SERPs for particular keywords.
Keyword rankings help you identify the keywords that are driving the largest organic traffic to your websites. The reason tracking keyword ranking is important is that it allows you to check if the words you are ranking for are related to your target audience’s needs and interests and that they match their search intent.
You also want to identify other keywords that are important in your industry and related to your business and products but you are still not ranking well for them.
Track Keyword ranking by using Keywords Everywhere directly in SERPs. Hover over the traffic metric explained in the previous point and then click on Total Keywords.
Another way you can do it is by using the two options in Keywords Everywhere: Organic Ranking Keyword (URL) and Organic Ranking Keyword (Domain).
Keywords Everywhere shows the complete list of keywords the website or the webpage is ranking for.
3- Top Ranking Pages
A third metric that is related to your website visibility is tracking the top-performing pages on your website.
Now that you understand the monthly organic traffic your website is receiving and the keywords behind this ranking, you need to check the pages on your website that have those top-ranking websites and drive the largest traffic.
By understanding the top-performing pages, you can strategically place your CTAs on them to generate leads, close sales or direct the users to other pages on your website.
Utilize pop-up widgets on these pages to collect the email addresses of your visitors or to display some of your best-selling products. You can also add sidebars and related articles/products on these pages to direct the users to check other pages on your website.
Use Keywords Everywhere to find your top-ranking pages and other websites’ top-ranking pages. You can see the monthly traffic each page is driving and the number of keywords this page is ranking for.
4- SEO Difficulty
Next, we will go through a set of SEO metrics that are connected to keyword research and building your keyword strategy. Analysing SEO difficulty metrics helps you find the right keywords to target to achieve better results in your SEO efforts.
SEO can take months before results kick in, that’s why you need to have an understanding of estimated results before you invest your time, efforts, and possibly money to target specific keywords.
SEO Difficulty metrics can be tracked by Keywords Everywhere directly in the SERP. Simply enter the keyword you are planning to target and you will find the SEO difficulty metrics block on the top-right side.
There are four SEO Difficulty metrics provided by Keywords Everywhere:
- SEO Difficulty Score: This metric gauges how difficult it is to rank at the top for this search query. The higher the number, the harder it would be to rank.
SEO Difficulty is a cumulative score that comprises the On-Page Difficulty, the Off-Page Difficulty, and the Brand Query difficulty metrics which we will discuss next in detail. - Brand Query: This SEO metric tells you whether Google considers this search term to be a brand-based query. Brand queries are tough to rank #1 for unless you are the brand. For example when I search for Samsung, the Keywords Everywhere SEO difficulty widget will show the Brand Query: YES.
- On-Page Difficulty: This SEO metric gauges the on-page optimization of the top 10 pages that rank for the search query. When most results have their content optimized, this value will be high; in such cases, link metrics (or brand value) will be the decider.
You can click on the Detailed Breakdown button to open a new page that explains how Keywords Everywhere calculates each of these SEO metrics.
Keywords Everywhere takes in consideration multiple factors including Moz Domain Authority, Open Page Rate, and if the targeted keywords are mentioned exactly through the different on-page SEO elements.
5- Trending Data
Another important SEO metric that you need to take into consideration while planning your keyword strategy is Keyword Trends. This SEO metric is important in learning valuable insights about shifts in user behavior, interests, and search patterns over time.
By analyzing keyword trends closely, you can identify emerging topics, capitalize on seasonal trends, and adapt your content and SEO strategies accordingly to maintain relevance and attract targeted traffic.
Additionally, monitoring keyword trends allows you to stay ahead of competitors, optimize marketing campaigns, and make data-driven decisions to maximize your online visibility and performance.
With Keywords Everywhere, you can see trending data of any keyword you are searching directly in the SERPs. Choose the time frame you prefer, and hover over the graph to get valuable insights about the peaks and declines of this keyword term.
For example When I searched for “Best Cars”, the trends chart showed me that the lowest point of search volume is in the second half of October until the beginning of November as people wait for the release of the next year’s cars. Then the term peaks in late December and January.
Keywords Everywhere also provides trend data next to each keyword in any keyword list you generate. For example Organic Ranking Keywords (URL) or Bulk Keyword Data.
6- Backlinks and Referring Domains
Backlinks are one of the top important off-page SEO metrics. Backlinks are all the links pointing to your website on external sources. They are one large source of organic traffic and they contribute directly to your domain authority, another SEO metric that we will discuss next.
When it comes to backlinks, the quality is better than the quantity. In other words, being referred to by 100 authoritative sources is better than receiving 500 backlinks from low-quality sources.
This is why you need to pay attention not only to the number of backlinks you are receiving but also to the referring domains. One goal of your off-page SEO strategy should be to get new referral domains regularly and not just get referred by the same domains over and over.
With Keywords Everywhere, you can see the number of backlinks and referring domains. Another metric you can see there is spam score. The spam score is a percentage metric that indicates how many of these referring domains Google found to be penalized or banned and their percentage.
You can also show the complete list of the backlinks and referring domains when you click on Show backlinks.
7- Domain Authority
Domain Authority is another SEO metric that is crucial in increasing your visibility and the quality of the targeted audience you will be receiving.
Domain Authority is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank in search engine results. A high Domain Authority score indicates a stronger and more authoritative website, which typically correlates with high search engine rankings.
Domain Authority is calculated based on various factors. One important factor is the above-discussed SEO metric which is the number of backlinks and referring domains and the quality of those domains.
However, Domain Authority is not completely based on link-related metrics, but also on the website’s age, size, number of pages, structure, content quality, and the website’s overall popularity and credibility in its niche/industry.
You can see the Domain Authority score directly on SERP for your website and competitors’ websites next to the backlinks metrics.
8- Competitor Analysis
SEO competitor analysis involves evaluating all the above SEO metrics of your competitors to gain insights and identify opportunities for improving your SEO strategy.
By analyzing competitors’ organic traffic, ranking keywords, backlink profiles, domain authority as well their content strategies, and overall SEO tactics, you will better understand what works well in your industry and identify what gaps or opportunities need improvement.
Run Competitor Gap analysis using Keywords Everywhere to identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This information can inform strategic decision-making and help prioritize SEO initiatives to stay ahead in the competitive landscape.
All you need to do is to enter your website domain along with up to 5 competitor domains.
By carrying out competitor analysis you can identify untapped keyword opportunities, learn from successful content strategies, and discover potential backlink sources.
9- Page Load speed
Page load speed is a critical technical SEO metric that measures the time it takes for a webpage to fully load its content. Google uses page load speed SEO metric to determine the ranking in the SERPs as it directly affects the user experience. That’s why you need to focus on monitoring this SEO metric regularly and fix any potential technical issues that might be affecting the page load speed.
By optimizing page load speed through techniques like image optimization, browser caching, and minimizing server response times. Improving page load speed can enhance the website’s overall performance, increase user engagement, and fulfill your SEO objectives.
10- Mobile Responsiveness
Another essential technical SEO metric is mobile responsiveness or mobile friendliness. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in SERP rankings.
A mobile-responsive website adjusts its layout, content, and functionality to provide a seamless user experience across various screen sizes and devices.
By analyzing mobile responsiveness metrics and improving them, you increase user engagement, reduce bounce rates, and boost conversions.
Create an excellent mobile user experience with fast-loading pages, easy navigation, and content that is readable without zooming or horizontal scrolling. Ignoring mobile friendliness puts you at risk of losing traffic and chances of rankings in mobile search results.
To measure mobile responsiveness use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Google Analytics also can provide data and recommendations for optimizing mobile performance.
Conclusion
When it comes to the data available today in general and SEO metrics in particular, you can get overwhelmed and lost in the amount of data and metrics available to track.
It gets even more complicated with all the SEO tools out there to measure SEO performance. That’s why you need to focus on what is most important first.
Analyze all SEO metrics related to visibility and reach like organic traffic, keyword ranking, and top page ranking.
Also monitor SEO metrics related to website credibility and position in the market like the domain authority, backlinks, and referring domains.
To improve all the above-mentioned SEO metrics you want to conduct strong keyword research to find and target strong keywords related to your audience’s interests, needs, search trends, and intents. This is where SEO keyword difficulty metrics come in along with tending data and competitor analysis.
Remember that SEO optimization is a continuous process and so is SEO metrics analysis. Regularly keep an eye on these 10 SEO metrics and plan your SEO strategy to improve them.