As we all know, SEO is not an exact science. SEO experts manage campaigns based on educated assumptions but in reality, it’s quite difficult to know if it will be 100% effective. Therefore, you should be up to date with the latest SEO metrics, in order for you to analyse the results and to seize new opportunities.

In today’s article, we will focus on the most important SEO metrics: organic traffic, keyword listings, user behaviour, conversion rate, backlink history, coreweb vitals, ROI and the tools where these metrics can be achieved. Analysing the effects of SEO will determine if you have found the correct strategy and motivate you to continuously optimise your website.

1. Organic traffic


SEO’s main purpose is to get more traffic from search engines, so the main metric that you need to consider is organic traffic. It is advisable to compare your organic traffic to last years performance  to highlight the changes

How to check:

  • Go to Google Analytics dashboard and select Acquisitions> All traffic> Channels.
  • Choose the data range of one month and ideally one year.
  • Check Compare to previous period/last year to create a benchmark.

2. Keyword listings


 The positions occupied by the pages in search results for certain keywords are called keyword rankings. In order to have higher rankings and get more visitors, your pages should be recognised by search engines. Moreover,  you need to be very careful when you are doing minimal change in your keyword strategy because search traffic is very prudent. Moving one position could mean lost traffic. Therefore, you should be aware of these changes and proceed quickly in order to assure a successful optimisation strategy.

How to check:

  • Log into Rank Tracker and click on Target Keywords> Rank Tracking.
  • Change the counter to add the difference column- it will display a change in keyword listings between the last and the current check.
  • Add the list of keywords that you want to rank for. If you are not certain which keywords to target, move to tab Keyword Research tab and check the keywords for which you are already ranking.
  • Come back in seven days to make sure that there are no major changes in your rankings. Manage Progress Graph to record rankings over time.

3. User behaviour


Bounce rate, session depth and duration of session are metrics of user engagement.

Behavioural metrics are important factors of page optimisation and it is recommended that you take them into consideration.

How to check

  • Go to Google Analytics Dashboard and click on Acquisitions> All Traffic>Channels>Organic search. You will discover these three metrics by using the tab Behaviour.
  • Use the Landing page as the first element to investigate metrics per page, search for those pages that perform poorly. It is recommended that you should benchmark similar pages of your website against each other, for example, product versus product, guide versus guide.

4. Conversion rate


Conversion is when your website visitor completes a desired action while on your website. It can be a subscription, a download or a purchase. A conversion rate is the management of these measures relative to the total number of sessions. The conversion rate is a two-way metric as, thanks to it, you can evaluate and optimize the design of your sales funnel and use it to evaluate the quality of organic traffic. In this way, you are able to see if your SEO strategy is being accounted by the right users.

How to analyse:

5. Backlink History


Backlinks are an important factor in SEO and a healthy backlink profile is mandatory for reaching better search positions.  This is the reason why you should keep track of any changes to your backlink profile – If you lose some good links or gain some bad ones and your ranking will decrease.

How to analyse:

  • Login into  SEO SpyGlass or a similar platform and click on Historical Data> Backlinks.
  • See the changes of your backlink profile by changing
  • Change between New and Lost Links to see how your backlinks have performed. 

6. Core Web Vitals


 Google has introduced Core Web Vitals as the latest user experience and potential ranking factors. For the moment, these are the three ‘’vitals’’ and all of them are about page speed, but Google has advised that more user experience metrics will be introduced in the future.

How to check:

  • Go to  Google Search Console dashboard and click on Enhancements > Core Web Vitals.
  • The data records technical issues over time and it is very simple to see which website changes have caused the problem. If not, the report brings a list of all discovered issues at the bottom of the page.

7. SEO ROI


The  ROI is a metric that indicates the success of your SEO effort. Calculating the SEO ROI is a very detailed process and a long-term investment. Every optimization you make, every optimized content you create, all have the opportunity to deliver successful results for the future. 

How to check:

  • Login into the Google Analytics dashboard and click to Acquisitions> Overview> Organic Search.
  • Select the time frame for at least one year.
  • Choose eCommerce in the Conversions menu. This is the revenue that is coming from organic search.
  • Go to Conversions>Multi- Channel Funnels> Assisted Conversions and choose Organic Search. This is the revenue supported by organic search- which means that users who have visited your website from organic traffic.
  • Add all your SEO expenses from the past year and include all the hours you have assigned to the optimization, software costs, paid guests posts and whatever expense you might have made.
  • Calculate the difference between the SEO revenue per one year and the SEO spending per one year and break it down by your annual SEO spending.

Conclusion:

Nowadays, SEO seems a big challenge as it is a continuously changing process. 

You put a lot of effort into optimizing your website for a few ranking factors, hoping that the organic traffic of your website might increase. Take into consideration the best practices that we have put together in this article and your website will benefit. Stay tuned to the Kooomo blog and learn more about SEO and eCommerce.