Semalt: How To Measure The Effectiveness Of SEO With An SEO Tool?

Any serious SEO agency must learn to measure the effectiveness of SEO and the overall SEO process. Because this is very important for making the right decisions for a winning marketing strategy! 

Positioning is a process and it consists of several important factors that must be planned, analyzed, measured and effectively adapted to the user's needs. 

In today's guide, we will learn a lot about the essential factors you need to consider when measuring the effectiveness of SEO. In addition, we will discover the qualifying tool that can help you professionally accomplish this task.

Few e-commerce companies or websites offering certain services can count on visible effects in sales traffic without implemented positioning activities.

Positioning many businesses is necessary to stand out from the ever-increasing competition that promotes their business online. Website positioning is a series of individual activities, so it is important to measure their effectiveness and efficiency. This allows you to analyze what is working well and what needs to be improved. In the long run, the goal is to achieve long-term and sustainable results, a high position on the TOP 10 keywords and an increase in the number of new customers who will complete the buying process.

All Internet marketing activities can be measured with specialized tools. These data make it possible to determine whether the expected effect has been achieved and whether the implemented strategy has been successful. The concept of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is important here, through which the most important objectives for the customer are determined and on which it is worthwhile to focus.

The term Key Performance Indicator (KPI) covers specific objectives that are then monitored. The KPI allows you to reduce the volume of data processed to only the most important and key ones for a given company. This makes it easier to work on the successive implementation of the strategy, measure and achieve the set objectives, and quickly check which ones need to be improved. The KPI, if well chosen, also allows prioritizing activities and grouping them accordingly.

What is the link between KPIs and SEO? We can also determine the key positioning effectiveness indicator. Here, the most important KPI will be the number of clicks. These important positioning factors are measured with the help of analytical tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. There is no one right way to launch an SEO campaign; you need to adapt the methods to the specifics of the services in a given sector. That's why it's so important to analyze and measure SEO activities and identify which ones work best and bring significant gains. The most important thing is to know what is wrong with the page (in terms of positioning) or what results are not satisfactory (position, traffic, CTR, conversion) and how to improve them. Moreover, in SEO, the basic measures of activity are:

Setting KPIs and measuring the effects of related positioning activities can be analyzed with the help of analytical tools. They collect data on key phrases, bounce rates, conversions and overall website traffic. It is important to remember that positioning is a process largely based on data analysis and optimization of results.

This tool measures the behaviour of Internet users on a given website and makes it possible to determine, among other things the:

Thanks to Google Analytics, you can check the subpages on which the user browsed the website and the duration of each session. This tool is an indispensable part of any SEO campaign, without which it would be difficult to measure the effects of positioning. The implementation of Google Analytics is important mainly for e-commerce, as it can be used to determine not only user behaviour and changes resulting from SEO, but also to monitor sales. The above data enables user-oriented website optimization of a specific target group.

In Google Analytics, you can measure the data for each month and compile it to determine how the positioning has influenced the traffic.

In Google Search Console, the "Effectiveness" and "Search Analysis" tabs will be useful to measure the effects of positioning. This tool also allows you to compare data from previous months. In addition, in Google Search Console, you can check:

In GSC you can filter key phrases, which certainly makes the analysis easier. Google Search Console is a tool that identifies errors, shows how the website is seen by Google, so you can check and correct the shortcomings.

This is a multi-functional tool developed by Semalt experts that allows a comprehensive search of websites in terms of individual sub-page positions. In addition, this tool allows the verification of the popularity of specific keyphrases, comparisons with competing websites, as well as testing the accuracy of the incoming link profile.

With this tool, you can perform a complete audit of your site in a short time. This is a very important factor when you want to measure the performance of your site. Moreover, with the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, you can easily check the estimated website traffic, its potential value, and also audit the website for any irregularities.

By performing this audit thoroughly you can discover external links, also called inbound links or backlinks, which are anchored on proven and reliable external websites. You will see if these links are directed to the homepage and subpages. Links affect the position of the phrases that generate traffic. With the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, you can measure the trend by estimation.

With the help of the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, you can monitor the keyphrases and that of your competitors. It also allows you to compare the positioned page with the competing page. A useful tool such as the SEO Dedicated Dashboard allows "Website Analysis" and "Keywords and Traffic", through which you can check the main phrases to which the website is visible. 

It is worth focusing on this analysis tool when implementing positioning activities and then measuring the effects of SEO.

Measuring the effectiveness of SEO only makes sense after some time from the moment of starting cooperation (usually about 3 months) - this applies to new websites positioned from scratch. Some industries have seasonal increases, which depend on the profile of their activities, so you should not worry about visible decreases, for example, in Google Analytics, which occur in the off-season.

To measure SEO effectiveness, you need to focus on a few basic activities, such as:

You need to analyze whether the selected phrases generate traffic. It is very important to choose the key phrases in a way that they are relevant to the industry and the sub-pages. Maybe the initial keyword analysis was done incorrectly and the selected phrases (even if they are popular) do not answer the user's question that redirected them to a given page, subpage or blog content. Remember that a user who is misled because the keyword does not match the content of the site and the products it provides will quickly leave the site or the online store. It is to avoid these disturbances on your site that we suggest you treat the keyword research with a proper tool such as the SEO Dedicated Dashboard.

Website activity is linked to well-chosen phrases (also long-tail) and queries that generate organic traffic. In addition, effective link building is another aspect that influences the fact that new users come to the store or the website.

Conversion optimization is also an important element in measuring the effectiveness of SEO. This influences the fact that the user enters the website, but there is no further action on their part. For example, with tools that display heat maps among other things, you can see in real times which elements of the page are converting and which are not. What needs to be improved to turn a user into a customer who will complete the buying process? Conversion is an important part of what needs to be measured. What counts is the number of clicks on the important elements made available on the site and banners, the time spent by the user on the site, the sub-pages, articles and products that interested him the most. Conversion also occurs when the user fills out the form, subscribes to the newsletter or creates a user account.

Bounce rate is recorded when the user entered the website, but did not click on other sub-pages and products, but left the website. Here, it is very important to study and track the bounce rate in Google Analytics. This information will indicate if it is caused by poor optimization.

Bounce rate should also be seen in the individual user experience (UX), which may find the website small, intuitive and non-functional. The appearance of the site, the readability of the elements, the simplified interface and the category tree are the elements that make the user more likely to stay on the site. This is why an SXO audit is increasingly performed, which is a combination of SEO and UX activities. Its objective is to optimize the website not for Google ranking factors, but for the expectations of the user who is part of the target group.

We are at the end of this series of information on how to measure the effectiveness of SEO. Indeed, it is important to designate and then analyze the activities carried out and measure the effectiveness of SEO, to modify what needs to be improved and to add elements that affect the visibility of the site on the Web.

In addition, measuring the effectiveness of SEO will allow us to better understand the behaviour of the user who visits the site, to consider which elements cause a decrease and which contribute to an increase in traffic.

The positioning of online stores or websites, taking into account SXO, cannot be done without a defined plan, strategy or a specific target group to which we target content and products. When implementing changes, we must not forget the user experience and the construction of the website according to his / her preferences.