Before making major decisions that can very well alter the entire course of your business, it is important to examine the data and other important factors that are accessible to you so that you can work out the most advantageous direction to head towards. In order to access this data, you will need to set up SEO KPIs, performance indicators for core areas of your business focus. To do so, follow these 5 steps:
1. Set Goals
Set goals on what you want measured when it comes to KPIs. Come up with marketing objectives to measure your success by, for example: increasing awareness online, encouraging customer conversions and more. The best goals to set would be goals that earn you more information in analytics. Prepare a multi channel funnel report that can keep track of last click or direct conversions through different methods of communication. This can help form a better understanding of your sales process, as well as the ability to determine if the traffic coming in is from the targeted demographic.
2. Baseline
Make sure you set a starting point (baseline) for what you want to measure as well. A good recommendation for doing so would be to make use of the data that was generated three months prior to determine and regularly compare the progression. Look out for any adverse deviations from your baseline and pay attention to any signs of decline so you can react accordingly.
3. ROI
Make use of analytic tools like Google Analytics to measure and keep track of ROI. You may not have to refer to it everyday but pick a regular duration to do so. Form a simple KPI chart with the help of Google analytics and Google Search Console. Make sure your site health is good with no warning notices or issues during the duration of your data tracking.
4. Strategise
Develop a marketing strategy and make use of it’s result to effectively measure your SEO performance. How do you want to measure success? How do you meet the goals you’ve set for your SEO progress? How long of a duration do you want your marketing strategy to last? What opportunities would yield the best results and what opportunities yield the least? What about your competition? Form a sales process, cycle and projected outline to keep yourself on track.
5. Focus
Set plans to focus on improving one SEO KPI at a time so as not to stretch your budget and manpower too thinly. It can take a while to experiment and come up with the right direction or measures to undertake so before you go ahead and tackle another one, make sure that your performance is already improving. Make use of KPI charts for your SEO strategy so as to redirect your marketing direction whenever necessary, based on data rather than blind guesses.
