Introduction
The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be intimidating. There are so many metrics, rankings, and terms that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. That’s why I’ve decided to collect the top 10 KPIs—key performance indicators—that you should track on your website if you want to improve your ranking in search engines. These KPIs will help you identify areas where your website could use improvement and provide motivation for making those changes.
Average session duration.
Average session duration is the average time spent on a website by a user. This is an important metric for measuring user experience, as well as understanding how to improve it. If you’re not seeing an increase in average session duration, it may be because your site has too many exit points or non-essential elements that take users to other pages. These should be removed or optimized so that visitors stay on the page longer and view more content.
You can also use this metric to track your progress over time—if you see issues with page load time or bounce rates, use this data to inform what changes need to be made on your site in order to address them
Bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits to your website. It measures how many people arrive on a page, only to leave without clicking any other pages or taking an action (such as a purchase).
To calculate the bounce rate, divide the number of users who visit only one page by the total number of visits during a given time period:
(Bounces / Visits) x 100 = Bounce Rate%
Pages per session.
Pages per session. This is a simple metric, but it’s also a very important one. The pages per session measure is how long your visitors are staying on your site. It’s a good indicator of how well your content is engaging them, and therefore an indicator of how well that content is converting them into buyers or leads.
For example, if you have 100 visitors come to your website and 95 of them visit just one page before leaving (and 5 visits two pages), then the average number of pages visited by each visitor would be 1 page/visitor = 1x/visitor = 0.1 instead of the more typical 2-3x/visitor for most websites.
Number of new sessions.
The number of new sessions is an important KPI because it shows how many people are coming to your website. The number of sessions you have indicates how much traffic you’re getting, which is crucial for SEO. The more sessions you have, the more traffic will come in the future. This metric can help determine if there’s a need for changes on your site or if any content should be modified or removed altogether
Traffic channels.
The next step is to determine your traffic sources. If you are familiar with the basic types of website visitors, then this section should be easy for you. There are four main categories: direct, organic, paid and social media.
The first two types of visitors will already be familiar to you – they are search engine users who found your site via a query or following links from other web pages (referred to as “organic” traffic). The latter two categories involve people who have been referred to your website by someone else’s action or posts on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter (referred to as “referral” traffic). Finally, email marketing campaigns can also help boost your SEO by driving more traffic through links in emails sent out by companies like Mailchimp.
Time on site by traffic channel.
Time on site is a critical metric that measures the amount of time a visitor spends on your website. It’s an important indicator of how engaged they are with your content, which in turn can be used to determine their likelihood to buy from you.
This metric is also used by advertisers and publishers to determine which keywords are most effective at bringing traffic and leads, as well as which ads are most likely to convert into sales.
Keywords driving traffic to your site.
Keywords are a part of everything you do in SEO. Without them, you can’t even begin to optimize your content for search engines.
But what exactly are keywords? Well, a keyword is simply a word or phrase that people use when they’re searching for something online. When someone searches Google using the word “puppies,” they’re looking for websites about puppies—or at least websites containing information or products related to pups! And it’s up to you as an SEO expert (or aspiring one) to make sure that any website you work on has keywords included in its content that match what people might be searching for on Google and other search engines.
When optimizing your site’s pages with text and meta descriptions, remember: each page should have one main topic or theme associated with it (these tend not to change often). For example, if I had an article on my blog titled “How To Make Chocolate Cookies,” there would be no point in including keywords like “chocolate cake” or “fudge brownie.” Those words don’t apply here; my page is all about making chocolate cookies from scratch!
Total number of keywords for which you rank.
The total number of keywords for which you rank is the sum of all the unique keywords that are associated with your website. To get this number, you need to know two things:
- What is a unique keyword? A unique keyword is a single word or phrase that appears on your website in its own meta tag. This means that if there are multiple words or phrases on one page with the same meaning, they should be treated as separate keywords. For example, if you have pages about “dogs” and “cats”, then those two pages would each have their own set of meta tags containing “dogs” and “cats” respectively. So while there could be some overlap between those two pages (since they’re both talking about animals), each page would still need its own set of meta tags containing both terms.
- How do I extract these keywords from my site? There are several ways to do this but the easiest way is by downloading an HTML crawl report from Google Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools). Once downloaded, filter out any duplicate URLs or common misspellings before counting them up manually! You can also use 3rd party tools such as SEMRush
Number of new rankings for your top keywords each week.
This is a measure of how many new rankings you’ve achieved for your top keywords in the last week. If you’re not tracking this metric, then it’s easy to lose sight of how well your SEO efforts are paying off.
To measure this number:
- Go to Google Analytics and select “Organic Search” under the “Acquisition” tab.
- Look at the “Search Engine Optimization section,” then select “Keyword Positions” from its dropdown menu (or use Advanced Segments if you have access).
- Copy-paste your top 10 most important keywords into this report (you can do this by clicking on any one of them in GA and pressing CTRL + C). This will filter out all other traffic sources except organic search traffic so that we can see how frequently each keyword ranks across search engines like Google and Bing each week—a handy way of ensuring that we’re getting better over time!
Your rankings for each keyword every week (first page, second page, etc.).
Your rankings for each keyword every week (first page, second page, etc.).
This is a very important metric to track since it tells you how well you’re doing and allows you to make informed decisions. You can use the data to:
- See what keywords are bringing in traffic and conversions.
- Identify which keywords need more SEO work. For example, if one of your pages ranks number 30 for a particular keyword but doesn’t have much traffic or conversions from it, then this is a sign that it needs a boost in organic visibility.
- Make adjustments based on seasonal trends and other factors such as new product releases or competitors’ activities (e.g., making changes based on Google updates).
You can motivate yourself without being mean to yourself.
It’s important to be motivated without being mean to yourself. This means not beating yourself up when you don’t achieve what you want, but also not being too easy on yourself. You should be kind and gentle with yourself.
Conclusion
So there you have it: the top 10 KPIs for SEO. As you can see, there are many different ways to measure success in this field. The key is to find what works best for your business and then use this information as the basis for future efforts. No matter how many metrics you use or what they all mean, we hope that these tips will help get you started on finding success with search engine optimization!