If you can measure a strategy, you can improve it.
SEO is an essential part of content strategy. It assists in ranking a page on Google, getting traffic to it, and generating sales. Each SEO campaign’s outcome depends on the business goals and marketing strategy. A data-driven approach focuses on methods that prioritize achieving lucrative and targeted search traffic by compiling qualitative and quantitative facts.
Measuring the results of your SEO campaign is critical for brand value and client retention. It helps you reconsider your priorities when movements are not getting relevant results. These outcomes can be measured by evaluating their impact on your company’s growth. Several key performance indicators (KPIs) measure a campaign’s effectiveness. This blog will discuss those KPIs and how you can use them to make data-driven decisions for your website.
What is a Search Engine Optimization Campaign?
Before dissecting the measurable metrics, you must understand an SEO campaign. It is an organized collective effort to improve visibility and ranking on different search engines using on-page and off-page optimization. These campaigns involve tactics such as link building, keyword research, SE audits, and content creation.
Unlike a full-fledged SEO strategy, a campaign is a short-term action plan to achieve a smaller goal. For example, increasing the rankings for a particular set of keywords within a specific time frame and a fixed budget. At the same time, an SEO strategy is a long-term plan containing all possible methods and techniques to improve the visibility of a website. It is a comprehensive plan that considers company goals, target audience, and competitive landscape to achieve success.
Start With the End Goal
Companies generally have multiple goals in mind for their website. However, there is always a specific goal to direct your search engine optimization efforts. For instance, some companies may want sales from their website, while others may aim to reach their target audience. Specific businesses only want to create brand awareness, while others want to collaborate with different brands on the platform.
An SEO agency can identify these goals by communicating with clients and asking questions. It will help you direct your campaign efforts in that direction specifically. Once a primary objective is established, you can create smaller benchmarks and steps to achieve your secondary goals on your way to our fundamental goal.
KPIs to Measure The Benchmarks of Your SEO Campaigns
Usually, there are three Key performance indicators to determine the effectiveness of an SEO campaign. You can measure them using different SEO tools:
Rankings
The ranking is the most crucial and standard key performance indicator. Therefore, ranking keywords in your content strategy can help you craft an SEO campaign that maximizes your website rankings. Web pages appearing on the first page of Google results take up to 92% of the total search traffic share.
High-ranking keywords can make it tough to rank on the SERPs since many big brands are also competing for these keywords. Suppose you are using 20 keywords, of which 6 are already ranking on the first page of the search engine. Ranking on the first page will require additional SEO efforts since tough competition exists. It indicates that these 5 keywords will not provide enough benefit to your content as compared to the other 14 keywords. Since there will be less competition for those keywords, ranking in the top three results will be easier.
These actions cannot be made possible without acquiring keyword ranking data to make informed strategic decisions. Using high-ranking keywords is not enough. A user needs to understand the concept and intent behind these keywords to see why they translate into a quality audience.
Traffic
Ranking on the first page is good until it brings no relevant quality traffic to your site. Therefore, it is necessary to quantify the traffic quality and volume. Traffic volume is usually measured by the number of site visits through organic searches. Traffic volume depends on the size of your consumer base. An SEO campaign that targets internet users nationwide will have a greater traffic volume than a campaign targeting local consumers.
Traffic quality is a trickier term measured using three metrics: Page per visit, bounce rate, and average visit duration. If a site has fewer page views per visit or the average time a user spends on a website is very low, then its traffic quality is not up to the mark.
Conversions
A visitor completing a specific task on a website, For example, filling out a form or buying a product, is called a conversion. It can be defined by particular goals. Such as an e-commerce website may consider a purchase as a conversion. At the same time, a blogging website can view newsletter signups as conversions.
Suppose a website’s SEO campaign is aimed at generating leads. Such site conversions can include a client asking for contact information, a quote, an appointment, or a call. It is also necessary to draw a line between organic search conversions versus off-site sources.
It is common sense that not every visitor will be ready to buy your product. However, don’t let these visits go in vain. These visits can convert into newsletter signups, social shares, eBook downloads, and email subscriptions. All these actions clearly indicate that they are interested in your brand. You can use these visitors as a quality traffic indicator by placing a conversion tracking system.
Takeaways
You can use different SEO tools, such as Google Analytics, to keep track of your SEO campaign. Calculate your site’s return on investment by evaluating the site’s ranking, click-through rate, bounce-back rate, traffic quality, and volume. These KPIs not only help you improve your campaigns but also assists in making data-driven decisions. An expert SEO company such as Lincoln SEO Services can help you to make a data-driven SEO campaign for your business. Their expert team has useful tools and experience to craft the best campaign to meet your primary business objectives.