How do you evaluate the success of your SEO performance? You measure it. Then you make some intelligent changes and measure it again to ensure it’s heading in the right direction.
KPIs are the indicators that you can use to determine the success, or otherwise, of your SEO performance. KPI’s are clearly defined, quantifiable measures that reflect the critical success factors (CSF) of a business. Typically, CSF should target those things that affect quality, cost, customer satisfaction, market share and increased revenues.
KPI’s should help companies understand how well they are performing in relation to their strategic goals and objectives, which means KPI’s need to be clearly linked back to objectives to enable stakeholders to determine if the organisation is on track.
Everyone knows it’s useful to track: What pages are viewed most, the average time on the site/page and bounce rates.
But remember, its far better to decide what is important to the business and measure those indicators, than measure data that is readily accessible but doesn’t provide any true value.
Typical examples of KPIs relevant to track a campaign’s performance can be:
- Sessions/visits – How much traffic is coming from each referral source?
- Leads – Total number of leads in a specified time frame.
- Sales Conversions – The percentage of visits or leads, which result in goal conversions.
- Revenue – For e-commerce site you would definitely want to know which traffic source is generating revenue.
- E-Commerce Conversion Rate – The percentage of visits which result in an e-commerce transaction.
Targeting these indicators, and monitoring them monthly, using KPI reports, and a graphically visual dashboard, will determine how on track the organisation is. And keeping goals at the forefront, and measuring how close you are to achievement, is the best way to ensure they are accomplished.
Karen Harding is Marketing Manager at Objective IT. Objective specialises in developing bespoke business intelligence software, which can be used to analyse KPIs and create business scorecards.