We work with a variety of companies to help them increase rankings, traffic, and conversions as well as partnering with digital agencies to help them provide best-in-class SEO services to their clients. One of the initial questions we ask is “How are you measuring SEO success, and what data are you gathering to determine progress?”
Many companies track the basic elements of SEO: traffic and rankings; but most miss some of the other core data points that should be included in every SEO measurement strategy. Below you will find ten of the core data points we monitor for every client to help provide strategic direction for current and future SEO campaigns.
1. Total Keywords Your Website Ranks for
What It Is
Organic reach is a representation of almost all keywords ranking in the top 100 search results in Google. Reach has been typically used in traditional media such as TV and Radio which sell advertisements based on reach (and frequency).
What It Means
Seeing a positive trend in reach means you’re expanding your footprint in Google and most likely reaching new users.
Where to Get the Data
We get this number from SEMrush. The great news is that this basic SEO report is free.
Simply go to SEMrush.com, type your URL into the box, and hit Start Now.
It will bring you to this screen (your domain will be auto-populated in the box.) Simply click on the All Reports dropdown and click on Organic Research.
This will bring up a trended line chart that shows all the keywords you rank for in the top 100 Google positions. If you hover over one of the lines, it will show you a breakdown of the keywords by position.
2. Organic Traffic
What It Is
This is the traffic that comes from the organic search results due to keyword rankings.
What It Means
Organic Traffic is a representation of how much traffic your website is receiving from the organic search results across search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, etc.
Where to Get the Data
You can get this number from Google Analytics. Simply go to Acquisition > Overview.
3. Referral Traffic
What It Is
Referral traffic represents traffic that comes from other websites outside of the primary domain or sub domains on the primary domain.
What It Means
Growth in referral traffic means that you are receiving more visits from links on other websites, including social, website links, etc. This correlates with content value, linkability, and how well your content marketing is working.
Where to Get the Data
You can get this number from Google Analytics. Simply go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals.
What It Is
Social traffic is a representation of traffic coming from social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
What It Means
This represents how hard your social marketing is working for you. Growth in this number means that your content is being valued, shared across networks, and users are clicking on the links within your social media updates.
Bill Ross, CEO of Linchpin SEO, a Durham SEO Company
Where to Get the Data
You can get this number from Google Analytics. Simply go to Acquisition > Social > Overview.
5. Direct Traffic
What It Is
This represents traffic from users who type your URL into the address bar and directly accesses your website.
What It Means
Direct traffic is usually a result of a marketing campaign or brand awareness and value. The more aware of your business or brand a user is, the more likely they are to just type it into the address bar and not search Google.
Where to Get the Data
You can get this number from Google Analytics. Simply go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.
6. Traffic by Website Section
What It Is
This represents how well each section–or page–on your website is doing based on a specific data requirement.
What It Means
Segmenting traffic by section can help your business better understand which sections of your website are underperforming and which are doing well.
Where to Get the Data
This one takes a little extra work within Google Analytics.
First, you’ll need to understand the URL structure of your website to be able to segment that page within Google Analytics. For example, if all your services pages have /services/ in the URL, and you want to know how your services pages are doing, you’ll need to set up a filter.
First, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. This will list all the URLs on your website that are receiving traffic.
Then, above that list, you’ll see a bar that can be used to filter the data set.
Click on the blue link labeled “advanced.” Clicking on this will open a box that has criteria you can use to filter the pages. Use this area to include (or exclude) pages which contain (end with, begin with, etc) a certain word.
7. Traffic Year-Over-Year
What It Is
Year-Over-Year (YOY) compares a date range from one year to another.
What It Means
This metric is extremely important for companies who have a seasonal business. Without monitoring YOY traffic, your data may show huge swings in traffic patterns.
Where to Get the Data
This number can be found using the date option in Google Analytics.
Simply click on the date in the upper right corner of Google Analytics; this will expose a drop down. Choose the initial dates you want to compare.
Then check the Compare To box.
Once this box is checked, you can use the drop down to choose “Previous year.”
8. Rankings for Priority Keywords
What It Is
Rank tracking is a controversial subject as some SEO professionals don’t feel this is valuable. We agree–to some extent. Your website rankings represent the approximate location a page on your website is ranking for a specific keyword. We say “approximate” because rankings from one person to the next can vary slightly.
What It Means
It is important to understand the volatility of rankings and to be deliberate and focus on managing the rankings only for priority keywords (those you have data on), not vanity keywords (those that it would be “cool” to rank for).
There is more on types of keywords in our DIY SEO article.
Where to Get the Data
You can get this number from any ranking tool. We use SEMrush.
9. Conversion Rate by Source/Medium
What It Is
This represents the source and/or medium that is contributing towards conversions. You’ll need to have a goal or conversion tracking set up to view this data. If you need help contact us.
What It Means
Understanding where you conversions are coming from is a vital part of any marketing campaign. Understanding which channel has the best ROI or is sending the most value can help shape strategies.
Where to Get the Data
This can be found in Google Analytics within Conversions > Goals > Overview.
Once in that section, you will see an area where you can select Source/Medium. Simply select Source/Medium, and you’ll see your goals segmented.
10. Page Speed
What It Is
Page speed can be described in either “page load time” (the time it takes to fully display the content on a specific page) or “time to first byte” (how long it takes for your browser to receive the first byte of information from the web server).
What It Means
Page speed has two primary benefits: SEO value and user experience.
For SEO Google has said many times that page speed impacts rankings, but to what extent, we don’t fully know. In general, slow-loading pages suffer from low user engagement, and if it’s true that Google takes into account user behavior data to influence search rankings, then a slow loading website could negatively impact rankings.
For UX Users will exit your website if a page takes too long to load. Several page-load speed case studies have demonstrated that fast loading sites can significantly increase conversions and boost sales while conversion rates drop when page loading time increases from 0-1 to 3-4 seconds.
Where to Get the Data
There are many places to get page speed numbers. We like looking in Google Analytics and within Google’s new Page Speed Tool.
Google’s new tool can be found here. The tool helps analyze specific pages and provides insights into how to make your pages faster.
Within Google Analytics, you can find data on each page on your website. Simply go to Behavior > Page Speed > Page Timings.
Final Thought
These are the basic elements that we track for each client we work with. On top of these, we additional custom metrics that help the business track and manage their marketing efforts online. If you need help defining an SEO measurement strategy for your website, please contact our founder directly.