After you’ve made the effort to optimize your website, how do you know if it’s actually working? Your internet marketing strategy is more than a slew of backlinks. There are three key performance indicators (KPI) when measuring the success of an SEO campaign, according to Search Engine Watch.
Keyword rankings are the most obvious KPIs. If your business neglects to track keywords, you won’t be able to manipulate your SEO strategy around the most effective keywords. Discover what keywords need additional attention and what keywords fail to bring your website to the top of search results.
What if some keywords aren’t bring your site to the first page of Google? You have two choices: invest more optimization efforts or focus on other keywords. If a specific keyword is too competitive, it may not be worth the effort to bring it to the top of the search results. Instead, focus your efforts on bringing the remaining keywords to the top three spots where they’ll bring the desired traffic.
The success of keywords will steadily increase your website’s traffic volume, but it’s important to understand how to achieve volume and quality. Traffic is the second KPI when evaluating the success of a SEO campaign.
When measuring your website’s traffic, pay attention to the “pages per visit,” “average visit duration” and “bounce rate.” If the pages per visit and average visit duration are low and/or the bounce rate is high, your keywords may not be bringing the right traffic.
Let’s say your business sells customized dog collars in a variety of sizes and colors. In your SEO campaign, one of your keywords is “gifts for dogs.” It lands in the third spot on Google’s search results and brings a significant amount of traffic. The keyword makes sense, right? Unfortunately, it’s trickier than that. When someone searches “gifts for dogs,” they’re still in the research phase and could be looking for dog toys, dog treats, etc. On the other hand, if someone searches for “colorful dog collars,” they’re looking for exactly what the business sells. This person will be more apt to look through what the company offers and purchase a personalized dog collar for their lucky pug.
Conversions are the third KPI and the ultimate measure of your campaign. They bring business to your business.
But what is the goal of your SEO campaign? For the company that sells personalized dog collars, it may be increased sales. But maybe it’s also e-Newsletter subscriptions or social shares of cool products. There are several conversions that indicate a person is interested in your business.
By tracking these KPIs, you can evaluate the success of your internet marketing campaign and make the necessary changes for your business to thrive.
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