There are now many key performance indicators or KPIs for short that are used for a wide variety of areas. For this reason, there are, of course, also for SEO key indicators, which should evaluate the achievement of goals. But which of them are fundamental and relevant? You can find out here.
What is SEO, KPIs?
KPIs are indicators that are used to determine whether and how well goals have been implemented and achieved. But be careful! Not every key figure is automatic to be regarded as a KPI. These are just the key metrics that make you successful. They are essential because, without a set KPI, you can not track and measure whether something has improved quantitatively. There are several directions in which KPIs can be set:
- Operative
- Strategically
- Technically
- Organizationally
- Financially
This makes it possible for you to define all events that happen on your website precisely, to define KPIs for them, and then to evaluate them. This helps you to control the performance more easily – keyword success control. This is how you uncover successes and failures and can adapt further measures accordingly.
What do you need SEO KPIs for, and how do you set them?
You always need KPIs if you want to assess the success of various measures. The procedure for setting the target values is relatively easy. In the first step, you consider your company vision and the associated company goals. With this, you can see what you want to achieve. Finally, you determine the key indicators that will help you assess these goals.
But control is not only a central area of application for KPIs. The evaluated numbers also have an informative effect and can help you with method control.
The best way to determine your key figures is to use the SMART method. It is structured as follows:
- Specific
- Be as specific and specific as possible. Avoid generalizations and avoid ambiguities.
- Measurable
- Use measurable quantities, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
- Achievable
- Ensure that your goals are also achievable. Set an incentive that encourages you to work towards the goals actively.
- Result-oriented
- The goals must be realizable – everything else leads to frustration.
- Time-bound
- Schedule your goals. A deadline helps you plan and ensures structured work.
However, KPIs must always be set individually, since the goals are never universal for multiple industries.
Implementation of KPIs
Once you have defined your KPIs, you should also ensure that they are taken into account and analyzed. At best, you can do this using an analytics system that prepares the numbers for you. However, the more individual and sophisticated your KPIs are defined, the more complicated this process becomes. In this case, standardized analyzes will no longer help you. Instead, you have to use the more complex customizing. Here you should, however, weigh up clearly whether the costs and the effort for your benefit are worthwhile. Otherwise, you should fall back on more straightforward, standardized KPIs.
These are the leading SEO KPIs
Various metrics are particularly important in SEO. You should look at these numbers. Nevertheless, it is essential that you also individualize here and, for example, go into a specific subpage of your domain.
Visibility index
Everyone who deals with SEO has heard of him: The Visibility Index, often abbreviated SI. This measurement number gives you a clear representation of the positioning within the search results and the value of your website. The best-known version of the visibility index belongs to the SEO tool Sistrix and others like Xovi or similar. Calculate this value for you. It is determined based on an extensive keyword data record that covers terms from a wide variety of subject areas. Not only are the most common search terms used, but it also ensures that current events are also included and weighted. ThereEach tool provider uses different data records as a basis, but there may be deviations. So at best, work always with a tool to be able to compare the values of your visibility index correctly. No matter which device you use, one thing remains the same: the cost is recalculated at regular intervals – this is usually once a week. The calculation is based on the following:
- The ranking of the monitored keywords
- The expected traffic from the positioning
- The anticipated traffic from the keyword itself
Organic traffic
Organic is the opposite of inorganic – logical. But what does that mean in terms of SEO? Traffic is any access by an internet user to your website. However, organic traffic only arises if the visitor does not get to your site via paid ads. Otherwise, this would be paid traffic and must be separated from the organic one. Otherwise, it would falsify your evaluations.
CTR
CTR is the abbreviation for the click-through rate. This base rate gives you the ratio of clicks on a search result to the sum of impressions on – how often the result was played out to the user with visual contact. To get a percentage, you have to multiply the whole thing by 100. With this KPI, you can check how effective your advertising campaigns are.
Bounce rate
Based on the bounce rate can analyze how many visitors your site leaves without accessing any bottom. This can be explained very quickly since only a single page view has occurred.
The bounce rate is crucial because you can use it to conclude the quality of your site. If, for example, there is a lack of content quality, the page does not load quickly enough, or the user even lands on a 404 page, this leads directly to the jump. It is different from lexica, OnePager, or the like. Here, the user typically receives the answer to his question within one page and therefore jumps to other pages without further clicks. It is, therefore, also interesting for you to know where the website visitors leave the page. In this context, the next measured value is also essential: the exit rate.
When evaluating the page quality, the Return to SERP time also helps you, i.e., the time between the page view and the return to the results page. You can also use that as an SEO KPI. You can use this to determine relatively quickly whether the visitor has left because he has not found what he is looking for or whether his question has been answered. You can analyze this time, for example, using the Google Tag Manager.
Exit rate
Caution, confusion! Unlike the bounce rate, the exit rate is the last page that the user visits are analyzed. It doesn’t matter whether five, ten, or more subdomains have been visited in between. As long as the visitor returns to the first page with which he started, this counts as a jump page. The total of the websites visited is only relevant for the bounce rate, but not for the exit rate. The exit rate allows you to determine whether one of your pages was the last one to be visited. Here you will find untapped optimization potential. It is different, of course, if the previous page completes an order process or something similar.
Length of stay – how long and where?
The length of stay is often given as an average time ( site ). It shows you how long users have stayed on your pages. You can analyze this for individual pages, but also your entire domain. The whole thing is essential about your content since it can provide you with conclusions about their quality. This is because users often get to your page via specific search queries. This means that they are looking for information. If your page doesn’t give the correct answer here, users will leave it pretty quickly. This also gives you an insight into the user-friendliness your side, as this also influences the length of stay. It is also unusual in this context where your users get stuck. So you can see which content interests them the most and what they like.
Top Viewed Pages
Like the pages that lead to the jump, the pages that are visited the most are also impressive. This is where it gets exciting because you can find out what you are doing right and why users find this page particularly useful.
Page load time
Page load time (. Engl page speed ) is self-explanatory really: It describes the time it takes, is charged to your site. Therefore, it is measured how long the time between the sent request and the complete construction of the page is. This is important because it has a substantial impact on the bounce rate and usability of your website. If the loading time is reduced, the nerves of the user will be strained, but in the worst case, the conversions will also be reduced.
Several factors affect the speed at which your page loads. However, you can not directly influence everyone. The bandwidth with which the visitor surfs is one example.
Nevertheless, there are, of course, clearly influenceable factors :
- Size and format of the images used
- Compression of CSS and JavaScript
- The server on which the website is located and the number of other websites that also run on this server
To test your own loading time, you can use the Google tool “Page Speed Insights.” Here you can analyze the speed for both desktop and mobile versions of your website.
Leads
Of course, the leads are also interesting – in other words, every contact you get because you use effective online marketing measures. In plain language: there is a potential customer behind every lead. In most cases, you will receive address data directly to be able to contact you. So here you can start to acquire new customers.
Conversions
The clicks and leads alone say little about the actual success of your website. Sure, it’s a nice-to-know, but you’re probably most interested in where something happened. That doesn’t always have to mean that your sales increase directly. A conversion can also be a newsletter registration, a download, a contact request, etc. It depends on how you define your transformations. A conversion always happens when you manage to convert people in your target group into actual prospects.
Conversion rate
In the course of the conversions, the conversion rate also becomes attractive. This gives you the exact ratio of visitors to transactions made. This value is again presented in percent.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several classic SEO KPIs that you can use to measure your success. Since these are the most frequently used key figures, you should use them to compare yourself with the direct competition. Nevertheless, you must not ignore individualized KPIs to get the perfect overview and derive the best possible future measures.
