Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important component of Website Marketing. Your SEO keyword reports will be a critical element in your success.
Organic traffic from major search engines is the difference between a successful content marketing campaign and one that does not yield a return on your investment.
Your SEO strategy is under pressure, so you need metrics and KPIs to measure your success. You will be able to achieve greater success by keeping track of your SEO metrics. As the saying goes, ” What you measure, you can manage”. Your progress will be constantly monitored, and you’ll know what steps to take to reach your goals.
SEO Performance Metrics
Target KeyWords — Your Keyword Research will reveal which keywords to target if you’re looking to attract people who can help you (prospects, partners, etc.).
Search Engine Rankings — Next, you’ll need ranking data in order to track your SEO efforts and their impact on keyword performance. You could also use a platform like Moz or SEMrush to track keywords and generate monthly reports.
Search traffic- You can monitor your website using Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other monitoring tools. These will tell you how many page views you have and the click-through rate (CTR) that you receive from search engine referrals. It is pointless to rank highly for keywords in search engines that don’t bring you traffic. It would be best if you also focused on the keywords and topics you are good at. There are many advanced tools available beyond Google Analytics. Mai Analytics, for example, allows you to view the post categories, posts’ age, and posts’ content length to compare how they affect your situation.
Technical Search Engine Optimization: As your site grows, you’ll find that certain things will need to be changed, redirected, or moved. This technically (sorry!) falls under “Technical Search Engine Optimization,” but do not let that name intimidate you, as it is simply ensuring your site can be crawled without sending bots into black holes or redirect loops.
Keyword Research Reports
When planning your SEO, you should start by performing keyword research. This means gathering your most desired keyword data in depth.
Ahrefs, Semrush, and other tools can help. SEMRush offers a trial version (you can register and analyze ten keywords a day for free), and Ahrefs offers a free Webmaster Tools plan as well as a limited free use of Keyword Tool.
I created my tools as I am a geek and have a specific workflow. These tools are used, as well as others that I have mentioned, to provide content-management services to our publisher network and creators.
You will need to look for the following information in your SEO Keyword Research Report.
Search volume This is an estimate by the tool of the number of searches performed for a specific keyword per month. Do not be discouraged if your phrase has a low search volume. The devices are only estimates, and a single article could rank for multiple related keywords, which can add up to a high volume.
Difficulty of Competition- What is the likelihood that you will rank for this phrase?
Google Ads, or PPC Value- The ad cost is the amount people bid to be found in Google Adwords. It is useful to know if people are paying for the top ranking of a particular keyword.
Search intent: Are people searching for products or services? This can mean the difference between someone looking for “how-to” articles and tutorials or DIY and “I want to buy” product pages.
It’s up to you how many keywords you want to use. I suggest you start by gathering more than you think is necessary and then prioritizing and narrowing them down according to their potential and relevance. Starting with too few will leave you scrambling for ideas.
Learn how to get more traffic, leads, and sales from Google. This WordPress SEO course will teach you how to create optimized content that Google appreciates so you can rank higher and convert more visitors into sales.
SEO Ranking Reports
You won’t get results overnight. SEO is a slow process. You will need to revisit your SEO efforts at some point to see how you perform in the SERPs.
The default ranking tracker in SEO dashboards is not always Google Search Console. The GSC tool will still be very helpful as it shows you which keywords you already appear for on the results pages.
It will also tell you what search phrases you accidentally appear for. These phrases can be used to create new content or optimize your website.
It is important to keep track of your keyword ranking and current position for each phrase you find very important. It is ideal to have a homemade or commercial SEO reporting tool that provides a graph showing your progress on each keyword.
Ahrefs or SEMRush both offer reports to track your SEO keyword rankings. You can also choose to receive automated alerts in your email if that is what you prefer.
It would be best if you were balancing the creation of new content with updating existing content and doing further SEO research.
Google Analytics for SEO
Dashboards and keyword reports for SEO are very useful, but what you need is to know whether your SEO efforts have paid off. Google Analytics and Google Search Console, as mentioned above, make a powerful combination (even though GA4 is currently a bit of a mess).
(Sidenote: Everyone we speak to believes GA4 is a mess. Our friends at Matomo, whose analytics tool we use in our Mai Analytics tool that we developed for the publisher network, agree. We can help you with GA4 if you contact us.
You will need to know the following when analyzing your SEO keyword
Bounce rate — Remember when we discussed search intention earlier? If your search terms do not match the intent of the searcher, then you will lose the majority of clicks.
Organic Search Referrals versus Social Media- While you can succeed WITHOUT SEO, it’s better to achieve success WITH SEO and other traffic sources. Take a keen eye on where you get your traffic from and which sources are growing.
First Visit and Landing Page — Your SEO efforts will hopefully increase first-time visitors. Email, social media, or remembering the website address are all ways to attract loyal repeat visitors. Even if it wasn’t your intention, the landing page is where readers land on their first visit. Likely, your landing page is not your homepage.
Conversion rate: You need to define your goals in your analytics. What commercial outcome would you consider a success? Most often, the work will be at least a purchase of a product, a download of a freebie, a filling out a form, or an opt-in to receive emails. It would be best if you optimized the path that people take to reach their goals from the landing pages.
