What Is the Best Way to Track Progress With SEO?

Following the discussion on the foundations of tracking SEO progress, it was time for the how-to.

Sebastian Schaeffer, CTO and Co-Founder of Dofollow, suggested that “Defining your SEO KPIs depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your SEO, but metrics that are universally respected and provide good insight into how your SEO is progressing include leads, website visitors, brand awareness and signups.”

Reiterating that, David A., Author and Marketing Strategist at Net Influencer, said that “active users, conversion rates, and new leads and clients are among the key metrics to analyze.”

One repeatedly stated metric was also bounce rate. “Bounce rates should be between 40 and 60%, depending on your industry. If the proportion is excessively high, the page is unrelated to the search query,” said Darshan Shomashekar, Founder & CEO of Spider Solitaire Challenge.

Jason McMahon, Digital Strategist at Bambrick, also finds bounce rate a behavioural indicator of SEO performance but combines it with Average Time on Page. “In general, a higher bounce rate is a bad sign. However, combining this with the Average Time on Page measure is a fantastic idea. Is it a success or a failure? For example, if you have a long guide article with a high time on a page AND a high bounce rate?”

Stewart McGrenary, Director of Freedom Mobiles, additionally factors in Average Session Duration. “It’s an important indicator to consider when gauging user engagement on your website. You’ll be able to examine the quality of your site and determine whether any modifications to its structure are required.”

Speaking of engagement, William Cannon, CEO of Signaturely, finds it one of the most important, coupled with conversion metrics. “First, you need to evaluate how people are engaging with your site. What is the most efficient way they engage, and how is that engagement further elevated via any form of content? Second is the conversion rate which you are getting out of those engagement-enhancing tactics.”

Expectedly, organic traffic and click-through rates occupied the lion’s share of responses. Tony Kelly, Founder & CEO of CameraGroove, finds CTR to be “an important metric to keep track of because it informs you more than simply how highly your sites rank in the SERPs. It also indicates how appealing the information is to people.”

By the same token, Pranchil Murray, Head of Customer Success at Malwarefox, believes that rankings and CTR are tied. “High rankings won’t help you attract more people if your search snippets aren’t appealing enough. As a result, your CTR falls short of expectations.”

As for organic traffic, it’s commonly tracked. “Our SEO efforts come down to one thing: organic traffic. This is what we spent money on when it came to SEO, and it’s all that really matters to us,” said Lindsey Allard, CEO and Co-Founder of Playbook UX.

Steve Scott, CTO of Spreadsheet Planet, also perceives organic traffic as “one of the most significant metrics to evaluate because its rise indicates that you’ve achieved your key SEO goal”. Similarly, Miranda Yan, Co-Founder of VinPit, finds it “vital since it aids the site’s functionality and can help it grow in popularity.”

Coupled with these metrics, keywords rankings are essential. They’re “everyone’s favourite SEO measure,” as Sam Browne, CEO and Founder of Find a Band, puts it. “The keywords you rank for will reveal a variety of information to you!”

“Tracking your rankings helps you measure if your SEO efforts are having an impact,” explained Seth Richtsmeier, Associate Director of SEO at Champ Internet Solutions.

Based on the results, Miklos Zoltan, CEO & Cybersecurity Researcher at Privacy Affairs, recommends using the Keyword Opportunity KPI. “By comparing current positions to Google’s predicted search traffic volume and competitiveness rating, the Keyword Opportunity KPI determines whether there’s room for improvement in search ranks.”

Putting it all together, Jack Shepler, Founder of Ayokay, concluded that “Rankings in Google and site traffic are great indicators of your SEO progress. The better your SEO, then the better your rankings. And the better your rankings, the better your site traffic. At the end of the day, you’re just looking for a boost across the board – better rankings, more traffic, and more overall keywords that your site is showing up for in Google.”

Accentuating that, Ben Richardson, Director of Development Academy, said that “SEO is frequently seen as a distinct endeavour when, in fact, it should be seen in the context of your website’s overall performance and marketing activities.”

And, of course, backlinks weren’t forgotten. “Concentrate on increasing the quality and quantity of your backlinks, and Google will reward you handsomely,” advised Edward Mellett, Founder/Co-Founder of WikiJob. 

Chris Zacher, Content Marketer at Intergrowth, also tracks backlinks and domain rating or authority to “determine which sites we have a realistic chance at ranking for by using the amount and quality of your backlinks to predict how Google will perceive your site.”

Farhin nazMondal, Intern at HireCream, equally perceives domain authority as crucial. “One of the most important goals of any SEO strategy is to improve the site’s level of authority in Google’s eyes.”

On a micro level, other performance metrics were discussed. Tayyab Akram, Digital Marketing Manager at Analytify, mentioned “the performance of your website pages in term of page loading speed”, while Michael Robinson, Security Expert at Cheap SSL Security, recommended tracking “keyword click-through-rate with alongside the target goal completion rate metric for a holistic picture of your digital marketing success.”

Finally, mobile traffic was mentioned by Adam Garcia, Founder and Owner of The Stock Dork. “Tracking your mobile SEO performance is more important than ever. You have a problem if your organic traffic on mobile is trailing behind desktop.”