Measuring Online Performance: The Key To SEO Success
When it comes to measuring online performance, we all know there is one metric that every client/manager/CEO/board of directors wants to know – what was the ROI? In other words, how much money did we invest, and in turn, make? And while a simple ROI calculation can quickly tell you just how profitable your online efforts were, how do you know any growth in revenue or increase in performance is the direct result of your online efforts, and not simply a change in the market or a random increase in demand?
1. Measuring User Intent
No amount of technical SEO will improve organic rankings if your content fails to satisfy the user who lands on your website. So if content is indeed king, how do you know the content you are producing reigns supreme? There are three major metrics you can use to measure content performance and analyse user intent: bounce rate, time on page and pages per session.
High bounce rates could indicate low levels of on-page engagement or poor CTAs. Read more about how to reduce bounce rates on our blog.
A low average time on page could mean that the content on the page is not what the user was looking for. And the number of pages a user visits after landing on a specific page proves that they found what they were looking for and are now making their way further down the conversion funnel.
2. Measuring Organic Traffic and Revenue Growth
It seems simple enough: the more traffic you drive to a website, the greater the chance of someone purchasing whatever you have to offer. Right? Unfortunately measuring organic online performance is never as clear-cut as that. While increased organic traffic indicates greater search visibility, if this does not translate into an increase in sales, you could be visible to all the wrong people. Or worse, you could have a poorly optimised site on your hands. Which means you could be attracting all the right traffic, but your would-be-customers are dropping off somewhere along the conversion funnel. Track where customers are falling off and focus on improving performance on those pages.
In short, the right keywords will drive the right people to your site. The right content will keep them there.
3. Measuring Search Queries Performance
Finally, two other performance metrics to track when measuring online performance are search queries that lead users to your site, and their average position on search engines in Google’s Search Console. This will tell you what search terms are driving traffic to your website, which pages use these terms and where they rank in search results. Which means you will be able to track which pages are performing, which aren’t and which need to be optimised for less competitive keywords.
So there you have it. A few key SEO metrics that reflect revenue growth and prove online value. And the bottom line? While measuring ROI may be easy enough to calculate, measuring online performance rarely is.
To find out more about improving your SEO efforts or measuring your online performance, speak to us today.