How To Track the Effectiveness of Your SEO Campaigns

Launching your website and posting content does not mean you can put your SEO strategies to rest. With constantly evolving search engine algorithms, emerging SEO trends, and content creation trends, websites should not be static. It is crucial to track performance metrics to gauge the effectiveness of an SEO campaign and recalibrate if needed.

There are many ways to determine how well your SEO strategies are working. Here are the key metrics you need to track to evaluate your plan and its performance:

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic reaches your site because users simply type keywords on a search engine and click on your link. This segment of the audience is led naturally to your blog post or web page because your effective free keyword research and SEO strategy worked.

While most traffic is good, no matter how you get it, organic traffic is a critical metric. It means your site is ranking well on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

What are the other sources of traffic?

• Direct – unknown source; visitors just typed the web address on their browsers
• Email – links included in email marketing messages
• Paid search – traffic from paid ads displayed all over the internet
• Social media – links posted or shared on social media

How to check organic traffic: On the Google Analytics platform, you can find traffic details in the acquisition section. Click on “All Traffic” and then “Channels,” and you can calculate the percentage of organic traffic in comparison to all other sources. 

You know your SEO writing strategy is working when you continuously draw organic traffic. If not, you need to recalibrate your targeted keywords and other elements—a site audit can help you identify the problem.

2. Search/Keyword Rankings

The higher you rank on search engines, the more successful your SEO campaign is. The goal is to be the number one result; if not, at least appear on the first page. 

According to a report, 75% of internet users never go to the second page of search engine results. So, if your content is on the second or third, the possibility of drawing clicks is incredibly low. 

How to check search rankings: Two of the most popular tools for evaluating your search engine rankings are Ahrefs and Serpstat. 

Ahrefs is an SEO software that provides various tools for efficient keyword research, link building, and competitor analysis, among many others. To check search rankings, follow these steps:

• Sign up for an Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account.
• Complete site-ownership verification. 
• Go to Site Explorer.
• Enter your website. 
• Click Organic Keywords report. 

You can also specify a location, as Ahrefs can check your rank for any of your keywords in 243 countries. Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker also monitors the ranking progress of your keywords. This is great for tracking long-term performance and evaluating all the changes and adjustments you make. 

3. Search/SERP Visibility

This measures your content’s visibility on search engines. How prominently does your website appear on SERPs for a particular keyword? You can determine which keywords are performing well and which aren’t. 

This metric also considers keyword ranking as well as SERP elements, including featured snippets, image packs, and knowledge panels, among others. You can see a preview of how well your search-optimized content is doing before you can even track web visits. 

How to check search/SERP visibility: Semrush and Moz are two of many efficient SEO tools that easily track search and SERP visibility. 

On Semrush, you can do the following:

• Use the Position Tracking tool on the platform.
• Go to the Visibility index, where you will see a percentage: 0% means none of your keywords cracked the top 100 Google search engine results, and 100% means all keywords ranked first in SERPs. 
• Check the Overview tab for a closer look at keyword performance, and continue to strive to improve your visibility rankings. 

4. Backlinks

Backlinks point from one web page to another. Google considers backlinks as a vote of confidence between brands. 

However, not all votes are going to be good for your website. Differentiating between high-quality and low-quality links is crucial for good SEO performance. It is best to have fewer backlinks from authoritative businesses in your industry than dozens from link farms and other non-credible sources. 

How to check backlinks: Most all-in-one SEO platforms have backlink checkers, which determine the profile of websites that have linked to your page or site. Let’s use the Moz SEO software suite as an example for checking backlinks. 

Here is the process:

• Create a Moz account and go to Link Explorer. 
• Enter the website in the space provided. 
• Verify your email. 
• On Link Explored, filter the search results you want to see for your backlinks, e.g., exact page, root domain, and subdomain. 
• Enter your website. 
• Click on Followed to filter the Followed links. 
• A list of backlinks in descending order of Domain Authority will appear. Domain Authority is a metric that measures a website’s credibility from 1 to 100. The most authoritative sites score in the 90s. 

5. Click-Through Rate

A high click-through rate (CTR) demonstrates that your SEO campaign is working. This refers to the percentage of people who clicked on your content from the SERPs. 

CTR implies that your headline, meta description, and snippet are effective in gaining people’s attention. They clicked on your link because they believed that your content would provide value. 

How to check your click-through rate: On the Google Console, go to Performance Report and click on Search Results. You will see four boxes: Total Clicks, Total Impressions, Average CTR, and Average Position. The Average CTR will reflect your click-through rate performance. A good CTR depends on your industry and platform, but anything above 2% is generally good. 

Conclusion

How do you know if your SEO strategy is working or not? You need to monitor its performance using various metrics. The most critical factors to track are organic traffic, keyword rankings, search visibility, backlinks, and click-through rates. You can start with these metrics and take note of other indicators once you have improved performances in these five areas. 

Sources

Silva, Carlos (2023, June 23). SEO Results: How To Track and Measure SEO Performance. Semrush.com. https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-results/. Accessed 9 August 2023. 

Expert Commentator (2020, July 20). 10 KPIs To Track Your SEO Performance and Drive Better Results. SmartInsights.com. https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-optimisation-seo/10-kpis-track-seo-performance-drive-results/. Accessed 9 August 2023.

https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/14416/100-Awesome-Marketing-Stats-Charts-Graphs-Data.aspx