Top 10 SEO Metrics to Track

DigitalSEO Land Top10SEOMetricsto Track in2023

SEOmetricsareasetofdatapoints thathelpmeasureandtrackthe performanceofawebsite'sSEO strategy.Thesemetricscaninclude thingslikeorganictraffic,keyword rankings,backlinks,bouncerate,and more.

SEOmetricsprovideinsightsintoa website'sperformanceinsearch enginesandhelpidentifyareasfor improvement.Trackingthesemetrics regularlyallowswebsiteownersto makedata-drivendecisions,optimize theirSEOstrategies,andultimately drivem i d enue.

Total Clicks

ThemaingoalofSEOistoincrease trafficfromGoogle,andthebestwayto monitorthisisthroughthe"Total Clicks"metricintheGoogleSearch Console.Whileothermetricslike impressionsandaverageclickthroughrate(CTR)arehelpful,butthey arenotasimportantastotalclicks. Totalclicksshouldbethemainfocusof anSEOstrategybecauseifthisnumber isincreasing,itmeansthattheSEO effortsareworking.Ifthenumberof totalclicksisnotincreasing,itmaybe timetoadjusttheSEOstrategy.

CoreWeb Vitals

Google'sCoreWebVitalsisamethodused byGoogletoassessawebsite'soveralluser experience,whichisbecomingincreasingly importantforrankingsites.Whiletraditional rankingfactorssuchasbacklinksand keywordoptimizationarestillimportant, Googlealsoprioritizesuserexperience signalstoensurethatsitesareuser-friendly.

Google'sAI-basedRankBrainalgorithm allowsthemtomeasureuserinteraction withthewebsite,makinguserengagement metricsalargerpartofthealgorithm. Therefore,itisrecommendedtopayclose attentiontotheCoreWebVitalsreportto optimizeuserexperienceandimprove rankings.

Referring Domains

Thenumberofreferringdomainsisan importantfactorforrankinghigherin Googleorganicsearch,notjustthetotal numberofbacklinks.

Referringdomainsrefertothenumberof differentsitesthatlinktoawebpage, whiletotalbacklinksrefertotheoverall numberoflinks.ThisisbecauseGoogle placeslessweightonbacklinksfromthe samesite.

Organic Traffic

Organictraffic,whichmeasurestheamount oftrafficawebsitegetsfromGoogleorganic, canbeeasilyfoundinGoogleAnalytics.

While"Totalclicks"and"Organictraffic" essentiallymeasurethesamething,theydo itindifferentways.

Totalclicksonlymeasuretrafficfrom Google,whileorganictraffictakesinto accountallsearchengines,includingBing. Whiletheymeasuretrafficslightly differently,theoveralltrendusuallylinesup. Itisrecommendedtolookatbothmetricsas apositivetrendinbothcanbeagoodsign forSEOefforts.

User Experience Metrics

WhileCoreWebVitalsisanimportantmetricto measurepageloadingspeedandsite performance,itdoesn'ttellthewholeuser experiencestory.Twootherkeyuserexperience signalsthatGoogleusesintheiralgorithmare thebouncerateanddwelltime,whichcaneasily bemeasuredandimprovedusingGoogle Analytics.

Dwelltimereferstotheamountoftimeusers spendonawebsiteafterlandingonit,while bouncerateindicatesthepercentageofusers wholeaveawebsiteafterviewingonlyonepage. Bothofthesemetricsareimportantinmeasuring theuserexperienceandshouldbeconsidered alongsideCoreWebVitals.Ahighaverage sessiondurationandlowbounceratearepositive indicatorsofawebsite'suserexperience.

Traffic Cost

It'simportanttonotlosesightoftheultimate goalofSEO,whichistogenerateapositive ROIforthebusiness.Whilemetricssuchas referringdomains,bouncerate,andorganic trafficareimportant,theydonotanswerthe keyquestionofwhetherSEOeffortsare drivingbusinessgrowth.

Rankingfirstforakeywordthatdoesn't generatesalesorincreasingsearchtraffic whileconversionratesremainstagnantare examplesofpitfallstoavoid.Togaugethe effectivenessofSEOefforts,it'sessentialto alsoconsiderontheSEOtrafficcost,which estimatesthevalueoforganictrafficin termsofitsequivalentcostinGoogleAds.

Indexed Pages

The"indexedpages"SEOmetricis underrated,whichreferstothe numberofpagesfromasitethat Googlehasindexed.

Thenumberofindexedpagescanbe estimatedbyusingthe "site:yoursite.com"operatorinGoogle searchoramoreaccuratenumber canbefoundintheCoveragereportof GoogleSearchConsole.

Average CTR

AverageCTRisthepercentageof peoplethatseeyoursiteinGoogle searchresultsandclickonit.Ahigher CTRcanleadtomoretrafficandcan alsoimpactyourrankinginGoogle's algorithm.

TheidealCTRvariesdependingon yourrankingandcompetitionwith otherSERPfeatures.Youcancontrol yourtitleandmetadescriptiontagsto makeyourresultmoreenticingto searchersandimproveyourCTR.

Keyword Rankings

Therearetwomainwaystotrack keywordrankings:usingaranktrackingtoolorcheckingorganic keywordreportsinSEOtoolslike Semrush.

Theproblemwithranktrackingtoolsis thattheyonlytrackthespecific keywordsthatareentered,whereas anorganickeywordreporttracksall thekeywordsthatthesiteranksfor, givingamorethoroughoverview.

Coverage Errors

Coverageerrorsandcrawlissuescan negativelyaffectasite'srankings.It maynotbepossibletoeliminate theseerrorsentirely.

Butmonitoringtheseerrorsthrough theGoogleSearchConsoletoavoid problemsishighlyadvisable.