We keep saying, “Websites with successful SEO strategies make lots of money” or “successful SEO strategies are the key to high ROI”. However, we never really say what is the exact measure of that success. It is not like high school where success meant winning a race or coming first in an examination. The measure of success for SEO strategies is a little more complicated than that.
Every business is unique. They have their own goals and achievements. And the right SEO companywill help you understand the unique needs of your business.There are 5 standard ways in which you can use measure the success of your new SEO efforts. This will help you make necessary changes in your strategy to personalize your success.
- Check your organic traffic only:
This one is easy.You can always use Google Analytics data to find out whether the decline in website traffic is due to organic traffic loss. Many a times, it is not organic traffic that causes the problem.
You can start by opening your Channel Grouping report from All Traffic > Channels on Google Analytics. You can see all traffic sources segmented by channels. You can click on “Organic Search” to see a more detailed report.
This report can become the all-in-one source of data for your SEO reporting.
This report will help you determine your favorite landing pages for best search traffic, keyword strategies for highest traffic flow, search engine preferences and top exit pages of your website.
- The quality of SEO traffic:
As always, it is not just the quantity that matters. You need to know the quality of your organic traffic to understand your SEO strategy stats. Google Analytics has proven that SEO success and quality are not subjective terms. You can measure the quality of traffic by using the Assisted Conversions report from the Multi-channel Funnels nested in the Conversions menu.
Set the date range to “Last Month” and compare the progress to “Previous Period”. You can now view a month-to-month comparison of your website conversions.
You can use this report to see any improvement or decline in the conversion rates from organic search traffic and total traffic. If you are experiencing steady traffic, but the conversion rate is particularly low, then the quality of traffic is low as well.
- What’s the dollar value of your organic traffic?
The best way to understand the value of SEO is to look beyond organic traffic and visibility. You will need a more traditional approach. To begin this process, you can simply start by calculating how much a keyword would cost if you had purchased it from Google AdWords.
This is quite simple – just sync your Google analytics account with your Google AdWords account and call for a “Query”. After this, you can open AdWords in a new tab and get your Keyword Planner. Enter the top related keywords from your Queries report and click on “Get Search Engine Volume”. Click on “Keyword Ideas” on the next screen.
Each keyword displayed will carry a Suggested Bid amount. You can check the estimated cost-per-click and the amount of traffic driven by each keyword on this table. This is the best way to determine how much you are saving on a SEO strategy that you would be otherwise paying to SEO agencies and keyword planners.
- Identify the traffic killers:
Slow pages are the major traffic killers. You can check page-load times by using Google Analytics as well. Simply go to “Page Timings” from “Site Speed” under “Behavior”.
Google Analytics will present you with a detailed report on the page speed and avg. page loading time. You can easily understand which pages are weighing your site down.
As a site developer, your duty is to accept the pitfalls and do what it takes to speed up the loading times. Once you have made the changes, run the same report again and compare the changes for a qualitative analysis.
- SEO dashboard to the rescue:
You need to keep your stats in front of your eyes. You can present your reports and SEO data using a built-in Dashboard interface. You can also convert the reports to PDF forms for easy transfer. This is a built-in feature that Google Analytics offers its users. You can always add new dashboards and represent specific data. Use the “Filter this data” option to see only organic data on the dashboard.
Select “Only Show” > “Medium” > “Exactly Matching” > Organic to see only the organic data on your dash.
Always remember, if you cannot measure it, it’s not real. And this is true for SEO as well. We agree, SEO success is a relative thing and the terms of achievement will vary between businesses. However, it is also true, that you need a standard method to measure the outcomes of your SEO campaigns.