In this video, I’m going to be talking about Search Engine Optimization. Also known as SEO and how you can measure your website’s SEO performance. 

Measurinag your SEO performance is how you’re going to know if your search engine optimization techniques are working. This video is going to take you through some of the tools. I recommend using. Some metrics I recommend you look at. I will also show you how you can evaluate the impact of SEO on your business’s website. 

Search engine optimization can seem like a big mystery to a lot of small business owners who’ve never used it before. It generates leads and drives conversions. It does take some time and know-how. Because of this, 70 percent of small companies don’t even have an SEO strategy in place. 

This creates a huge opportunity for growth. If you’re willing to put in the time it takes to learn how to harness the power of ranking in search results and converting traffic into sales. You can take your performance monitoring seriously. You will definitely grow your business. 

Let’s demystify search engine optimization and turn you into a performance-oriented online business. Here’s what you need to know to measure your SEO performance correctly and convert traffic into sales. 

It’s easy to get frustrated in something that’s a little technical if you don’t understand the basics. I’m going to update you on what online performance monitoring is. How you can keep track of a particular platform channel or application. Using the various tools that collect ongoing data for you to analyze and interpret. Data over time can reveal considerable insights and can help you improve many aspects of your SEO. 

Search engine optimization relates directly to your business website and the techniques you use to monitor traffic flow and website conversion. Because after all, the basic formula for online success is:

WEBSITE TRAFFIC + WEBSITE CONVERSIONS = WEBSITE SALES.

It’s the job of search engine optimization to attract traffic or potential customers to your website. Then your web design, your content, and marketing messages will convert people who visit your website into buyers. 

How well you can do this will determine how much you sell and how fast your business grows. That’s online performance monitoring

 So you’re going to need a search engine results page and or you need to track the search engine results. Also your website conversions.

I’m going to cut through a little bit of the clutter and complexity and narrow it down to three steps you can take. To look at the tools that work the metrics that matter and the strategies that succeed. But remember search engine optimization is a long-term strategy. These three steps are just going to get you started on your road to online performance monitoring.

The first step is to use the right tool. There are literally hundreds of search engine optimization tools out there.

The one you should start with, because it’s free first of all, and it’s always a good thing that things are free. If you’re still kind of cutting your teeth on what to look at and understanding the data. Google Search Console is a 100 % free SEO tool that’s going to help you get your search engine marketing in order. 

It was designed by Google. and it will help you understand how the search engine sees your website. It gives you valuable performance data on your content, your design, and, even your visitors. If you go to search.google.com you can set up your account and connect your business website to start gathering data. 

The second step is to use the right metrics. Once you have the data coming in. What do you do with it? When you have your website analytics for your business website. You need to determine which search metrics will matter most. Then isolate them as key performance indicators or KPIs. 

For this step, you select metrics that relate directly to your business outcomes. Not vanity metrics like how many people you know are looking. There are lots of different ways you can look at the data. Vanity metrics is going to probably boost your ego. But it’s not going to give you any direct information about how well your strategies are working. 

Here are the main SEO performance metrics that I recommend you track and analyze as you get started in search engine optimization. The first is Total Impressions. Second, Average Click-Through Rate or CTR. Then the third is Average Position.

Total Impressions. This is the number of times your website appears in search results. It’s by no means an accurate metric but it does provide vital context. It answers the question, are people seeing your website in their search results? Now if your website is fairly new. You’re probably not going to have a lot of impressions. Because it’s going to take a while for you to start to attract traffic and get conversions. But this is the metric that you can watch as things progress and evolve. To see how things are happening and at which rate they are happening.

If your impressions start going up. Your keywords are ranking. Progress is being made because more people are likely to see your link in their search engine results. Then that means things are working. You can continue to optimize your website to continually see that rise in this metric.

 The Average Click-Through Rate or CTR shows your average. The number of people who are enticed enough to click your link. After they see your website in their search result. It answers the question, is your content getting more clicks over time? You can look at the number of clicks. Then use them to optimize your page metadata for specific time periods.

Metadata includes the title of your page. The description of your page that shows up in the search results. 

Good search engine optimization is about creating compelling titles and a persuasive description. So that when you do rank. Visitors choose to click on your search results. Then that’s how you’re going to start snagging organic traffic.

Average Position shows your ranking position over time. It gives your average position. This answers the question, for which search terms is my website ranking?

When you go into google search console you’re going to see a query section. You’ll see which keywords are ranking. Along with the clicks, the impressions, and the click-through rate. 

This is essential information for improving how you rank for specific terms on specific pages. That way you can again start optimizing your average position within those search results. 

Then as your content gets more and more known. It’s going to start appearing higher in the search results. Which again will just keep that momentum going. Use this metric to optimize single search queries or terms on your website one at a time. 

You’ll learn how it works. What’s effective in your niche and what makes your content more valuable. Just achieve some progress with one page or one term and then roll out the rest. 

The third step is to Choose The Right Strategy. As you can see by the metrics I’ve talked about. They do lend themselves to quality content creation that will eventually drive sales. More traffic and more clicks mean more opportunity to sell.

Google search console can tell you some of the SEO performance stories. But it does need to be used with your website analytics data and that’s google analytics if you’re using it. Again there are hundreds of options. But Google Analytics is free and it works very well with Google Search Console, as you can imagine.

These metrics will influence the strategies that impact your Organic Traffic Flow. The strategies that improve Average Clicks and Click-Through Rates. The strategies that Increase Impressions and the strategies that Improve Average Rank Positions.

I do want you to remember. None of the data that either google search console or google analytics is providing is a hundred percent accurate. 

It’s only to be used as a guide to keep improving. Because SEO is a long term strategy. Even their massive algorithms and all of their data tracking. Is still going to have to take into consideration some wiggle room.

If you use these metrics correctly and you figure out how to rank force your selected keyword terms better. Also, understand how search engine intent works with engaging content. You can learn what causes a flood of organic traffic to your business website at any moment in time.

I hope this has been helpful as kind of a starter course in search engine optimization and provides you some incentive to get started with your SEO performance monitoring. Because it’s a massive opportunity for growth. It will only benefit you and your business to understand how all of this works.

If you have any questions after you’ve watched this video please reach out to me at https://alishamcfarland.com. 

Thank you so much for watching and have a wonderful day!