Which SEO metrics should our business be following in our Google Analytics account?

Introduction

It all too easy to hand every seo task over to your online marketing agency. As when you think about it, that’s what they are getting paid for, right?

Well, as a business owner, or someone who is managing the businesses marketing activities, it’s also crucial that you keep an eye on the businesses marketing metrics as well (We know we are stating the obvious here!).

Yet, with that said, you may well be shocked by just how many businesses just take their seo report at face value.

That’s to say, a quick opening of their e-mail received from the seo company, a few looks at the fancy line graphs, and pie charts that they have sent, and that’s all some business owners look at.

But at our agency we are different, we don’t like rubbish reports which really don’t provide much useful data.

Instead we monitor a few key metrics very closely, and we then report these clearly to each of our customers.

So, here’s what our business reports on:

Rankings

Now, when you appoint a new seo agency, the obvious task that you would like them to help you with is to improve your businesses rankings.

Yet, here’s a word to the wise, its worth making sure that they target the right keywords, and here’s why:

Keywords that have a low search volume

It’s all well and good ranking at the top of Google, on the first page for a term such as “we are one of the best dentists in so and so an area”- yet you must ask yourself who’s searching for that?

When in reality the real important terms are likely to be “cosmetic dentist + area” or “teeth whitening + area”.

So, what we are getting at here is some terms are more likely to generate your business, than some others.

So, make sure your seo company is targeting the keywords that are more likely to generate your business.

Long tail keywords

Now, it’s worth bearing this in mind also, sometimes ranking for the really important terms can be mighty difficult.

Just imagine for a second how hard it would be to launch a new car insurance brand, and then trying to get that business to rank high against all the established competition that’s out there.

So, your digital marketing agency, and your business should sit down and think of some terms that have a search volume, yet are not as difficult to try and rank for as the super competitive phrases, such as “car insurance”. This will help the business to get some visitors, while the seo company is going after the more important keywords.

So, you guessed it, it’s a balance between going after the important keywords, the ones that are most likely to drive more visitors to your website, and ensuring that in the meantime you are getting some people onto your business’s website via longtail keywords.

Use your businesses Google Search Console accounts to see where your business is ranking for certain terms.

Organic traffic

If you hire a local seo company, then most of the time what the business will want to do is improve where your business ranks organically.

If the seo business that you choose is really good, like we are, then they should also be looking to improve where your business ranks on the map listings as well.

These listings are sometimes called the “Google My Business listings”. Yet, returning to the point at hand, organic traffic is really important. The reason being is most of the business listings are organic business listings.

Say you were searching to find a local pet store for example, now the majority of the businesses that will be listed will be organic business listings.

To improve where your business ranks here, your seo agency must improve your business “ranking signals”.

That’s to ensure that your business strengthens its ranking signals. So that you can check how many visitors you are getting via your business’s organic listings, you should check your Google Analytics account on a regular basis.

Bounce rates

Imagine this, you are launching a new restaurant within a busy city, and tonight’s the opening night.

The doors are open, and your waiting to hand our champagne to each customer, yet people are entering the restaurant, then turning straight around and walking back out the door.

Well, its for certain that the business owner would know that something isn’t right. Immediately you would be asking questions like is it the décor right or is the menu wrong, or have you set the prices too high?

Well the same should be said about your website, and that’s why your business should be monitoring its bounce rate.

Now the bounce rate sounds pretty complicated, but its not, it just the percentage of visitors that have landed on your website, and then have pretty much decided that they want to leave straightaway.

Just as the restaurant is asking questions, so should you, for example you should be asking whether your website is slow to load, is the website easy to navigate, i.e is the menu easy to use.

If you have a high bounce rate, you should be looking at why, and reducing it in order to improve your businesses seo.

It’s all well and good having a website that looks impressive, yet if it doesn’t work easily, like loading quickly onto a smartphone, then you should look to make some changes with the help of your website designer.

Backlinks

Your seo agency should be checking your websites backlinks on a regular basis. If poor quality backlinks do accumulate, then this could mean that your website incurs a penalty, such as a Google Penguin penalty.

Such penalties can mean that the website suffers a drop-in rankings.

So, use your businesses Google Search Console account, previously known as the Web Master tools account. And then you can obtain your backlinks via an Excel document.

How we can help

Our digital marketing business offers high quality white hat seo, if you would like to obtain a quote, why not give us a ring?