SEO Management begins and ends with data and the interpretation of that data. In Internet parlance, we generally call this analytics – the analysis of data that leads us to conclusions about our business and helps us plan the way forward.
Search Engine Optimization firms, like Terrakon, take a measurement of the Analytics of a site at the beginning of a project, so that they can determine the effectiveness of their SEO efforts. This measurement, called the baseline, is the benchmark by which the SEO Management program is measured.
Six Analytics (or Data Points) To Measure At Baseline
Firstly, it is important to note that since we are talking about SEO Management, that the analytics that are considered are narrowed down to the search engine traffic (e.g. excluding Referral and Direct traffic.)
Number of Indexed Pages
At the outset of an SEO program a determination about the “crawlability” of the website needs to be made.
In other words, are search engines (such as Google) having any difficulty determining the content of your website?
A measurement needs to be made of the number of pages that have been crawled and indexed by the major search engines. That measurement needs to be checked from month to month to ensure that web pages are not being dropped from the index.
Number of Inbound Links
Links are an important determinant of your search engine rankings. One of the goals of a search engine optimization campaign is to increase the number of inbound links to the website.
Average Time On Site
This data point can help determine the level of engagement of site visitors. If one of the activities of the SEO campaign is to create new content for the website, there should be an overall upward trend in the Average Time On Site.
Average Page Views
Average Page Views is another clue to the level of engagement on the website.
Average Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that are entering and then immediately exiting any given page. The obvious goal is the decrease this trend over the course of time.
Goal Conversions
The king of all metrics — the conversion. This may be the filling out of a lead form, email newsletter sign-up, a donation or a sale. In the end, this is the metric that matters most while the others only exist to help us increase these conversions.
What questions do you have about metrics and web analytics? Leave them in the comments or contact us any time!
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