The importance of search engine optimization (SEO) cannot be overemphasized. SEO involves relevant keywords and link usage geared towards gaining more website traffic, leads, conversions, and sales. An SEO report could help you to determine whether your SEO and other online marketing efforts are effective.
But what are the critical things that you must check in an SEO report? What does a high or low SEO metric mean? Are these metrics the key factors that define your web presence? Read on to get the answers.
In this post, you’ll learn the important things you have to check in an SEO report.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is a strong SEO performance indicator. It gives you a quantifiable proof of the effectiveness of your content and other marketing strategies. Even if you are not targeting keywords, a month-over-month traffic increase through organic search means that you’ve improved rankings.
Through Google Analytics, you can see the total number of sessions and other traffic channels. You can also navigate to “Organic” to check all of the key website metrics you’ve gained through organic means. Also, you can present top SEO metrics in your SEO reports by downloading an SEO report template.
Here’s how you can track organic traffic using Google Analytics:
- Log into your Google Analytics dashboard.
- In the default audience overview, click on “Add Segment.”
- On the next screen, select “Organic Traffic” and hit ‘Apply.’
Traffic Sources
If your goal is to increase organic traffic to your website, then analyze the traffic details on the SEO report right from the start. What does it display? The ‘Source’ or ‘Medium’ section tells the specifics of the sources or channels of your traffic. It simply tells you where your traffic is coming from.
Here are some reasons for evaluating traffic sources.
- Traffic Source to Target: It helps you determine where you should be spending your time, effort, and money. For instance, if most of your traffic is coming from social media referrals, it means that your social media marketing strategies are working well. So, you must boost this aspect and modify or eliminate techniques which generate low traffic.
- Helps with Budgeting: Once you know where the majority of your traffic is coming from, you’ll be able to set the right budget for different online marketing strategies. For example, you can set 50 percent of your marketing budget for social media efforts, 30 percent for SEO, 20 percent for email marketing, and 10 percent for other online marketing strategies. With the help of an SEO report template, business owners have the convenience of generating and pulling out SEO reports that will help with faster business decision-making.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the percentage of online visitors who complete a desired goal. So what does a high conversion rate mean? It means that people love your offers, and it’s indicative of successful web design and marketing. On the other hand, a low conversion rate means exactly the opposite. 2 to 5 percent is a good conversion rate.
In Google Analytics, you can easily track organic conversions by setting up your conversion events or Goals, such as email signups, making a purchase, form submission, and phone calls. Once you’ve defined your goals, monitoring them in Google Analytics will be a lot easier.
It’s important to track the conversion rate for the following reasons:
- You’ll be able to gauge the performance of your apps and web pages.
- You’ll know what percentage of your visitors are engaging and completing the goals.
- You’ll track your return on investment or ROI by tracking how much each visitor or each click costs before becoming a sale.
- You’ll eliminate guesswork because you can improve your campaign according to your conversion rate and through A/B testing.
Keyword Rankings
One way to determine the effectiveness of your SEO campaign is by tracking keywords. Better rankings for a particular keyword often indicate improved overall rankings, especially for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are long keywords or phrases that are relatively more specific.
Referring Domains and New Backlinks
SEO performance is influenced and determined by backlinks. Given two web pages with the same bounce rate, content quality, time on site and other on-page metrics, the web page with more backlinks will undoubtedly win. While more backlinks don’t necessarily lead to better rankings, they indicate whether you’re moving in the right direction.
Page-Level Traffic
With traffic sources, you know where your website visitors are coming from. It’s also important to know where they are going. This is what page-level traffic is all about. This metric reports the trends and the people who want to see and click on your blog posts. This gives you organic traffic. Page-level traffic details help you to determine whether you need to improve something on your website, like your product web page, or if you need to publish content with more videos.
Bounce Rate and Time on Site
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your website within 10 seconds. On the other hand, the time on site is the duration a visitor spends on your website. It gives you an idea of whether your content attracts your visitors.
It’s shown in a research study that more than 24 percent of new websites created every month have more than 60 percent bounce rate after three months. If a website has over 60 percent bounce rate, it means that all the time, money, and effort put in a website is completely wasted.
For a landing page with plenty of outbound links, a high bounce rate is understandable. A web page with a few outbound or external links, and a high bounce rate and low time on site means that you need to tweak your content urgently. You might need to focus on core pages by providing rich content and using videos to grab your visitors’ attention.
Conclusion
Your website traffic, traffic sources, conversion rate, page-level traffic, bounce rate, and time-on-site rate are crucial in determining if your sales and marketing goals will be achieved. These are the vital aspects you need to check in an SEO report. By pulling out the right metrics to analyze, you’ll be able to make better decisions for your website and your business.
I’m a tech enthusiast, entrepreneur, digital marketer and professional blogger equipped with skills in Digital Marketing, SEO, SEM, SMM, and lead generation. My objective is to simplify technology for you through detailed guides and reviews. I discovered WordPress while setting up my first business site and instantly became enamored. When not crafting websites, making content, or helping clients enhance their online ventures, I usually take care of my health and spend time with family, and explore the world. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or read my complete biography.