Introduction

If you run an online or e-commerce business, measuring the SEO traffic of your website is key to tracking the success of the marketing and campaign strategies you initiate. The more traffic you drive to your website, the more leads you generate.

And the more leads you generate, the more conversion rates successes you achieve. There are number of SEO optimization key performance indicators that you should know and measure periodically. This article addresses key SEO performance indicators that you should track. The list is not exhaustive, but we have focused on the key SEO metrics that we consider as essential to the success of your marketing and campaign activities.

 

1. Outbound and Inbound Links to Website

Click on any website in the blogosphere, and there is a better than average chance that the web page you land, will contain one or more links. Links are like wedding bands: they tie the page you are to another page. And like wedding bands, they stay tied together until unlink do you apart. Every time you click a link, you are directed from the page you are to another page within your website or completely to another website or webpage.

 

There are three (3) prominent types of links. You have the outbound links. You have the internal links. You have the inbound links. And this is not the end of the link-making affair. So, let’s flirt and dig a little deeper. Let’s get to know outbound links just a shade more.

 

1a. Outbound links

Outbound links are links you generate by linking some aspects of your content, like keywords, keyword phrases, terminologies, and definition of terms from your post to the webpage or website of someone else webpage or website. Outbound links are good for SEO optimization. However, not all outbound links are created equal; some are more equal than others. Choose your links carefully. Be sure the links you’re outbound-ing to are quality links so that it’s quality will rub off on your page.  

 

The two flavors of outbound links

Outbound links come in two (2) flavors. You have the nofollow links. And you have the dofollow links.

 

Dofollow links are the default links. They are the most common outbound links you will encounter. They are the links type you are more likely to generate. You don’t need to be a code-writing nerd to generate and use them. Just copy the URL of your destination page and paste on the word or phrase where you desire to direct your audience to. Dofollow links are good for SEO optimization.

 

Nofollow links are a different matter. They are not common and are even somewhat abnormal. Nofollow links have “rel=”nofollow” code embedded in them. This tells Google spider that you do not want it to crawl your destination page.

 

1b. Inbound links

Inbound links are the most difficult to attract, especially from influencers who are authorities in your industry. Through blood, sweat, and tears, they have “made their bones” and will not easily link to a content that does not resonate with their or to a page with no exemptional content value.

 

To get quality backlink you must initiate the process by posting quality articles on your website. Guest-blogging on websites with high PageRank is another technique. Posting comments in quality third party sites help, especially, if your post expresses a counter-argument to the position expressed by the blog owner. Your counter-argument must be genuinely researched, and authoritative. This amy draw attention to you as someone knowledgable on the subject of a post and may generate interest and visits to your website. This is good for both SEO optimization and SERP.

 

2. Traffic from Organic Search

Organic search or organic traffic is the opposite of paid search or paid traffic. Organic search is generated by Google or other search engines as a result of search queries from a visitor who entered a keyword or a set of keyword phrases that direct them to your post.

 

Being all over the map in your quest for optimizing your organic SEO optimization rank is unhelpful and per-per-click advertising is inorganic, and unsustainable in the long run as it increases your customer acquisition cost (CAC). There are some steps you can initiate to boost the traffic of your site organically. They include but are not limited to:

 

1. Know the buyer persona of your typical audience and write for that audience, and not for SEO optimization. With this in mind, avoid keyword stuffing, avoid generating low-quality contents that may increase your bounce rate.

 

2. Write regularly but do not write just for the sake of writing. Let your contents resonate with your audience. Quantity is important but quality trumps quantity. A 1000-word quality content is better than a 2000-word quantity that fails to address the interest of your site visitors.

 

3. Be active in the blogosphere by reading, writing, commenting, and linking to blogs in your segment, even if they are your competitors. Sometimes, express thoroughly researched counter-arguments or viewpoints that are contrary to the blog posts you read in the segment blogosphere of your market.

  

4. Be active in communities by posting answers to queries, even if your comment counters that of others. Write from a different perspective so that you stand out and thus attract attention.

 

5. Be niche sensitive and selective. See how you can carve out niche blog posts that are uncommonly unique.

  

6. Pay attention to both your meta title and your meta description. Make sure that they are reflections of the body of your blog content. This will reduce your bounce rate while enhancing the perception of yourself as an authority in your niche. With time and patience, your audience will perceive your website and posts as the right “go-to” site for valuable information.

 

7. SEO software by HubSpot and Aherf have established tools for SEO optimization. Use them.

 

8. Optimize your use of internal links by cross-referencing your current article with previous articles you have written on your website. However, avoid stuffing your content with links from your previous contents. There is no magic number for either a minimum or a maximum number of internal links you should use for each article you post on your site.

 

9. Link your blog to your other social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and WhatsApp Group page.

 

10. Extensively gather data from your site and use analytic tools, like Google Analytics to measure the performance of your site.

 

3. Conversion from Organic Search

Most visitors who browse the web have a purpose. They may be seeking information only. They may be seeking information with the intent to make a purchase. These visitors can be converted from visitors to leads by guiding them through the customer journey, from visitors to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), and then to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and finally to customers. A lead can be acquired inorganically or organically. The generic step for acquiring inorganic lead is usually by paid ads (for instance, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising). This can be expensive if you have to bid for certain keywords. Organic leads are usually acquired through the SEO optimization activities you initiate by your inbound marketing strategy.

 

Organic leads are much more sustainable than inorganic leads. Inorganic leads generated or acquired through PPC may fizzle out at the end of your advertising campaign because customers have become less trusting of paid ads. Organic leads have a higher conversion rate and are much more sustainable.

 

According to Christopher Hutchens of smartbug.com, the average conversion rate for organic leads generated from SEO inbound activities is about 14.6% compared to 1.7% from outbound inorganic marketing activities. Sales funnel conversion rate from visits to leads to call to action (CTA) varies from one industry to another, which according to Christopher Hutchens has an overall average of 16%. Some of the pertinent industry organic traffic conversion rate numbers are:

• Media:20%
• Marketing agencies: 20%
• Education: 18%
• Software, hardware and IT: 15%
• Retailing: 11%

 

As the figures above are industry averages, a number of factors determine whether your performance is below par, at par or above the listed averages. Let us examine some of these factors:

 

• Most visitors who browse, do so in search for a solution to their pain points. Let most of us, they rarely search beyond the first two or three pages of a SERP of their keywords. Therefore, the lower you rank on Google or Bing search engine, the lower the probability of being found on search engines. For instance, how many times have you browsed beyond the second or third page on Google search engine result page (SERP) before re-phrasing your search keywords or phrase?

 

• Expensive products and services have a lower conversion rate than inexpensive products and services. The same is true of specialty products that are of technical nature, or products that have lots of features and functionalities. This is because buyers’ remorse from making the wrong choice is higher for technically complex products and services that are expensive. In such cases, sales rep assistance delivered through chat or by email is vital in guiding a visitor along the sales journey.

 

• Content is the currency in inbound marketing. Your message must resonate with your visitor. Your content must not only be right but must address the concerns of a consumer of your content in both quality and quantity. You must optimize it for SEO, address the specific needs of your site visitor, arouse his or her interest. Your landing page and call to action (CTA) must be unambiguous, and for first time visitors, request for just the essential details, like name, email address and phone number from a visitor or a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

 

4. Domain Authority (DA)

In search engine result page (SERP), your domain name, which has a direct correlation with the age of your website is a key influencing determinant in the ranking of your Domain Authority (DA). And sequel to your website's domain name, the domain authority (DA) of your site is a key factor in your website’s page rank. DA metric ranks from 1 to 100. A new website is assigned a DA rank of 1. The older your domain name, the higher it's ranking, though age is not the sole determinant of a website DA page rank. The concept of DA was developed by SEO consulting firm moz.com, in sync with Google’s algorithm, PageRank.

 

Domain authority and other SEO metrics in SEO Optimization

You must also implement strategies for attracting high-quality inbound links, use keyword-specific metrics in your content, measure your CTR as Google spider uses a combination of these metrics in SEO ranking. According to Russ Jones, founder of moz.com, you must keep in mind that……

 

“…..Domain Authority is a comparative metric. DA means very little on its own. When looked at through the lens of a competitive set, against competitor domains, DA is a very powerful metric......  That said, don’t get too distracted by DA on its own. Marketers still need to keep an eye on other metrics, such as Page Authority, rankings, CTR, keyword-specific metrics, and local search best practices, to maximize their website’s ranking capabilities (italics added).”

 

That said, here are a few other factors you must pay attention to:

• Audit your backlink or inbound links for quality traffic by using Google Webmaster tools. Or use moz.com or Link Explorer as a tool for auditing the Page Authority and the Domain Authority of inbound links to your site.

 

• Good links will enhance your DA and move your website up the DA ranking. To do this, you must write compelling contents and institute other sundry strategies that will draw attention to the quality of your site and the contents you put out.

 

• Another factor that can boost your website DA ranking is the internal links you generate between pages in your website. The more you link internally between quality contents, the higher your DA ranking.

 

5. Google PageRank

PageRank is one of the metrics for ranking the authority of a page by Google. The ranking is based in part by the authority of the inbound links to a page. Not all inbound links have the same authority. Website A may have 4 more links than website B, but if the quality of the inbound links to website B is more authoritative than those of website A, then Google will assign a higher ranking to website B.

 

Hear Google in their own words:

“PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites (italics added)”

 

PageRank is one of many factors that determine the ranking of a page in Google search engine. It was among the earliest and almost the first few factors used for page website ranking. Though it is still important, its weight now pails compared to other factors. Google’s PageRank patent expires on September 14, 2019.

 

6. Conversion Rate Per Keyword

Conversion is a pre-determined action you expect a visitor to your online ad to take. The action could be to sign up for a newsletter, email list, or the download of a trial demo of your software. Once this action is completed, it is counted as a conversion.

 

A keyword is a word or a phrase that you want associated with what you do. What you do could be the provision of services or the sale of products. And the word or phrase you associate with your products or services are defined as your product or service keyword or keyword phrase (s). For instance, "fresh coffee aroma" could search as a keyword phrase for Starbucks. and "high definition" is a good keyword phrase for a flatscreen TV vendor.

 

Conversion rate per keyword is the number of times your chosen keyword or keyword phrase is associated with your products or services. Suppose, out of 1000 impressions, your chosen keyword or phrase is clicked and the action you desire was taken 200 out of 1000 times, then your conversion rate per keyword is 200/1000 or 20 percent.

 

7. Number of Unique Keywords that Drive Traffic

Unique keywords are activity-specific. However, many keywords can be phrased and used to target a specific audience. For instance, the word “data” is a keyword that is not unique. It generated 12.34 billion results in my browser. However, “Data-Driven Marketing” is a keyword phrase. It generated 374 million matching keyword phrases in my browser. As this example demonstrates, keyword phrases produce better SERP than single keywords. On the average keywords that are three word-phrases or more produce over fifty-eight percent better search results.

 

When individuals browse, to optimize search results, keyword phrases are normally used to help narrow down the search results. When writing content, select a few keyword phrases that are inconsonant with the title of your article and incorporate than in the body of your post; however, avoid keyword stuffing, as it pollutes the content of your page and Google algorithm can tell when content is stuffed with keywords.

 

In Conclusion

SEO optimization is one tough nut to crack. It is hard work. It is grueling. It is time-consuming. It is laborious. You need tons of patience. Organic SEO optimization should be your key to sustainable ranking. However, you must know the SEO key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure periodically so as to know what SEO metrics to focus on and what improvements to institute.

 

AND FINALLY..... 

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See you in the next forthnight.

Best wishes.

 

Osita Patrick

Chief Content Officer

Retail Store Management LLC

 

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