SEO may be the way to increase your search results ranking and attract new businesses to your digital presence. Here’s an important question to ask your internet people, though: How do you know when it’s actually working? SEO doesn’t affect your site and traffic in the same way as Pay-Per-Click, so how do you measure the success of your SEO efforts? The signs and metrics are all there, but they are definitely more subtle than you might anticipate compared to PPC.
How to Measure the SEO Success of Your Website
Here’s how you track and measure the success of your website SEO:
Tracking SEO: Two Ways To Go
You have two options for tracking your SEO rankings: SEO tools like Ahrefs and creating your own SEO dashboard in your Google or Facebook analytics account. Both are fantastic options, but if you are new to SEO and tracking website metrics, you may want to try one or the other first. First, let’s get a quick overview.
Ahrefs
This app has built-in rank tracking that allows you to configure notifications whenever your rankings rise or fall. There is even an option that allows you to track your progress compared to your competitors, providing you with a rating for your search visibility.
The metrics available aren’t necessarily 100% accurate, but they are great for showing you measurable progress for your SEO keywords over time. One caveat: you need to give the system time to collect data. You won’t see progress daily, but you should check to see if there’s been a measurable change at least once a week. You can use this progress tracking to adjust your keywords and update your content SEO, too.
Google Analytics Dashboard
Anyone looking for a free way to track SEO metrics not concerned about a little DIY can use Google Analytics to check organic traffic and engagement metrics. Don’t just look at the direct ranking improvements; instead, look at increases in search traffic and what landing page that search traffic reaches. Armed with this information, you can calculate what keywords are ranking you.
Double-check your results by performing an incognito Google search, as this will prevent personal search history from affecting what comes up on the results page. This will give you your current search rank, and if you aren’t using a paid service like Ahrefs, you’ll want to note where you stand to track your progress over time.
Points to Ponder: Interpreting Your SEO Measurements
An important point to remember with all SEO tracking is that you are looking for incremental changes, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see sudden jumps either. For example, if you are on page six at the start of your campaign and jump to page two a week later, something you are doing with your keywords is clearly working.
Additionally, it would be best to keep in mind that while keywords are integral to SEO, Google also parses content for matches. So if you haven’t got strong, informative, and useful content, your keyword selection will not make any difference in boosting your search results ranking.
Furthermore, consider where your traffic is coming from. Desktop traffic is traffic. Still, low volume mobile traffic means you may be missing an entire audience that finds your site difficult to navigate via mobile. Finally, make sure that your content is optimized for viewing on small screens and computer monitors, or you may find that your reach is falling short of the results you need.
Ultimately, SEO is only part of the equation for increasing your search rank. You can do many things right and select different options that are more or less successful. The most important factor to remember is that you can always tweak and adjust your SEO and content to perform better. If you don’t see results right away, give it time and keep trying changes. Eventually, you’re going to make progress and rank up. Trust the process, and you’ll start to hit those ranking goals.
Author Bio –
Mike Patel is a digital marketing enthusiast and the President of a leading Digital Agency and E-commerce Development Agency in Dallas, Texas.
