Measuring SEO Performance

Neil Vaughan Silver
Social Media Marketing at Freelance

20 January 2011 12:13pm

Hi

I have been given the task of improving our sites search performance, and he want's to see results at the end of each month to show of the work is going, what is the best approach?

I was thinking of taking a screenshot of our existing google analytics data such as visitors and current position for search terms in Google before I start the SEO work and then at the end of each month show a comparison of how it has improved?

Any thoughts on this approach and should I be looking at other KPIs also? Boss has not given me any he just wants to get to the top of google.

Also if there are any sample measuring seo performance reports that anybody would like to share I would appreciate it.
Matt Clarke MSc
Ecommerce Director at Monocore

25 January 2011 14:19pm

I'd recommend using Google Webmaster Tools for this job, rather than GA. What you report probably depends on what your SEO strategy is based upon, though.
If you're using the link building method then you ought to look at the "Your most linked content" report. I'd just print it off each month and save a copy. It will show you how many links (internal and external) you have to each page and from how many domains. If your link building is working, the numbers should increase with time.
The other report of interest is the "search queries" report in the main dashboard. This shows your average ranking for the top 50 keyword phrases, and how much they've changed. It also shows how many impressions your pages received in search results and how many clicks. Both of those should increase, and you will hopefully see an increase in your recorded rank for the terms you're targeting with your SEO strategy.
Chloë Thomas Silver
Managing Director at indiumonline

27 January 2011 14:40pm

Hi Anonymous,

I think you first need to work out what the real objectives of the activity are. Is it about sales? or about enquiries? or traffic volume? (or something else) - essentially why does the boss want to be in the first position.

Once you know that you know what stats to present - plus the uniquitous search engine position report (where the site is for the chosen keywords on the search engines).

To track traffic / enquirers / sales etc Google Analytics is great. And by using the custom reporting, segments, and filters you should be able to generate a report that is automatically sent to you (and the boss if you like) each month (or week).

Hope that helps - feel free to get in contact if you want more info.

Chloe
Ashley Friedlein Staff
CEO at Econsultancy

02 February 2011 10:19am

As the others have said, it depends on your objectives. However, 'getting to the top of Google' is a *very poor* objective and classic 'boss thinking'.

For starters Google's results are different depending on the user, his/her profile, location etc. etc. so 'top' is a very relative term. Top for whom?

And 'top' for what keywords or phrases? Some you probably shouldn't be chasing, some you'll have no hope of getting to the top on. So you need to choose your battles very carefully.

We gave up looking at rankings about 5 years ago. We look at the both the volume and value of traffic from natural search and use Google Analytics for this. For example, we know that from a commerce point of view (i.e. excluding any ad revenue value we get from a visit) we make, on average, 31p from an SEO-referred visit. Our objectives are clearly to increase both the volume of traffic/sales and increase the average value per visit by improving conversion rates, average basket value etc.
Richard Greenwood
SEO Manager at Flight Centre

09 February 2011 07:40am

Agree very much with Ashley that 'getting to the top of Google' is a bad way to be thinking. I'm also a little worried about the expectations you will be seeing big changes in the first month. It is worth setting your bosses expectations that SEO is a slow process and often takes 2-3 months before significant results are seen.

Start by thinking about the goal you really want to achieve. Is it more sales on an online store, more enquiries and so on. Pick the measure that will be a true measure of success. You will soon find ranking on a popular term that doesn't convert is not very helpful.

Look through Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics to see what is performing for you at the moment and then do some keyword research to find terms you think are highly relevant and likely to convert.

As far as tracking the results then you can use Analytics at any time and use the date picker to see changes in traffic. Click 'Traffic Sources' and then Google organic to see organic Google traffic for dates of your choice.

I'm also tracking ranks for highest priority terms using a handy online tool called Rank Ranger which checks all the search engines each day. SEO is slow so you only need to keep an eye on them every couple of weeks but nice to have the historical daily record.

Hope that helps.
Donal Langan
SEO Director at Easyroommate Ltd

22 February 2011 17:53pm

Agreed with most of the above, as to what to track yes it is dependent on what the site intent is, but some obvious pointers which highlight SEO improvement are:

Unpaid Search Traffic
Bounce Rate
Page Depth of visit
Pages Indexed by Search Engine
Variety of Keywords driving traffic to the site
Keyword Rankings

As pointed out above do try to work out what the purpose of the site is, then you can set up proper funnel and conversion tracking.
Jon Edward Santillan Silver
SEO Manager at Abu Dhabi Media Company

24 April 2011 10:31am

Agreed with everyone that SEO is not just about ranking. It's about what you want to achieve at the end of the day.

So what ARE the metrics of measuring SEO success?

SEODojo made an interesting post about SEO KPI/Benchmark that you can look it here;
http://www.huomah.com/Conversions/Web-Analytics/SEO-Benchmarks-and-KPI.html