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Using Data To Measure Your SEO Impact

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

The ability to access analytical data in relation to your marketing efforts has truly revolutionised how we all do business online. 

As well as being able to track your website or social media stats, there are various tools such as SEMrush, Surfer SEO, Moz and Ahrefs that concentrate on the impact of your SEO efforts, while also pointing you in the right direction about any improvements that need to be made. 

In today’s post, we’ll be covering some of the top key terms that any SEO analytical tool will tell you about, along with what the results mean for your overall strategy. 

Organic Rankings

We’ll start with the big daddy of SEO, which is where your website ranks organically on search engines when users type in related terms. Given 75% of users won’t scroll past the first page of Google, ideally, your position number should be 10 or below, with position 1 meaning your website or webpage is ranking first organically. 

Aside from giving yourself a quick Google, SEO software will state where your website ranks as a whole compared with competitors. It’s also possible to check the rankings of individual pages too. 

It can take a while to climb the ranks, even if significant changes have been made to your website, such as implementing keywords into your landing pages and fixing any technical errors. Though, it’s certainly worth being patient if you’re doing all the right things, as your organic page ranking is arguably the most important aspect of any SEO strategy. 

Organic Impressions

Impressions are when your content appears on the screen of the user, and help give a good idea of your reach. Organic impressions are one to watch, seen as unlike with paid impressions, organic impressions are usually the result of a strong SEO game. 

Be sure to check your click-through rate, seen as impressions only mean someone viewed your content. The dream would be to have a high click-through rate coming off these impressions, though at least with a high number of organic impressions, half the battle has already been won. The trick now is to adjust your offering so that the intended purpose of the content can be fully realised.

Organic Traffic

It’s a simple fact that organic web traffic can’t really happen without SEO. Even an amazing social media effort doesn’t mean people will always click through to your content. Instead, targeting people through specific keywords on search engines is where most of your traffic will come from, with an emphasis on mobile-first web design

Before any SEO overhaul, an audit will take place that will measure the difference in organic traffic from where you started and a few weeks after the changes were implemented. 

During the process, an SEO specialist will look at all missed opportunities to bring in more organic traffic. Specifically, which keywords your content is missing on its landing pages, blog and page metadata. The reason is that SEO essentially is a giant navigational system for search engines, linking users with content that’s relevant to them. If used correctly, SEO will give search engines the clues it is looking for to present your website as a top offering, and when this happens your organic traffic will soar. 

Keyword Monthly Search Volume

Keyword monthly search volume (aka MSV) lists how many times on average a particular keyword gets entered into search engines each month. Comprehensive SEO software will state the geographical location of searches, along with the different ways the search query is phrased, so that content creators can align their SEO efforts. 

Checking the relevant searches to your content is an insightful way to measure your SEO impact because you can easily see whether you are picking up on these phrases or not. If you’re missing a large chunk of traffic then your efforts won’t be as impactful.

On the other side of the coin, low-hanging fruit keywords present a clever opportunity to pick up on niche phrases. For example, we could pitch our web design services simply as ‘web designers’ in our body content, h tags and metadata. That’s great, but it also has the issue of being a broad search term, meaning we’d be competing against millions of others all doing the same.

However, by using SEO terms such as ‘web designers Nottingham’, we’ve cut through to a local audience. As web designers anywhere from Singapore to New York are less likely to state they are from Nottingham, anyone searching specifically for a local web design company is more likely to find our site. Hence, keywords need to factor in search intent, rather than just search volume alone when measuring their success. 

Number Of Backlinks

Backlinks mean other websites are linking to your content, and search engines like this very much. Simply put, it boosts your domain authority, because it means users are finding your content to be relevant.

Acquiring backlinks isn’t an easy feat, and may involve guest or sponsored posts, especially if your website is newly established. The biggest compliment is when backlinks appear due to your SEO efforts, with websites linking to your content without prior engagement with them. 

Maybe you posted a helpful article or even have the best service in town. Either way, if links to your website are appearing on other people’s websites, your SEO efforts are certainly paying off since it means people had to find you in the first place. 

SEO Agency Nottingham

Is your SEO strategy in need of some tweaks to get your website ranking as highly as it should be? Every time your content doesn’t appear first on search engines your business could be losing vital custom. So let’s take a look at that for you. 

Imaginaire is a digital marketing agency in Nottingham. We specialise in web design, PPC lead generation and of course, SEO! There are many ways we can improve your current offerings, and we’ll even track your progress over time to ensure our efforts are truly having an impact on your business. 

Some of our services include on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO through the engineering, construction, jewellery, retail and luxury e-commerce sectors.. Whether you know exactly what your website is lacking, or if you’d like the opinion of our experts, we’re here to help. 

Simply book your free consultation and we’ll get to work on devising a strategy tailored to your business. If you’d like to find out more about what we can do for your business, drop us an emailr call us on 0115 971 8908 to find out more.

Rachael is a content executive with Imaginaire. With hands-on experience with all things marketing, she has the knowledge and know-how to explain and advise almost any topic you can think of!

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