When a business is looking to promote their product, providing their audience with an online platform should be obvious. However, your website in its raw state can only go so far on its own, and so hiring the services of an SEO agency should also be obvious. A few years ago, SEO was enough to get you ahead of your competition. Today, it is only enough to get you on the same playing field. You will need to measure the effectiveness of the SEO to make sure you are not missing out on opportunities, though you may not be sure how to.
SEO Agencies
Naturally, upon developing your website and employing all of your marketing efforts, SEO should be among the things you consider. Having an SEO agency provides you with expert SEO efforts will be crucial to make your website make it to the first page. Their main task is to optimize your keyword rankings.
A popular misconception includes throwing in as many keywords as possible. However, you should have no more than one primary keyword attached to one, and sometimes two pages. This allows the SEO strength to become concentrated. Secondary keywords, however, can be many, and they will match popular phrases and the information on your website.
An SEO agency will perform many other tasks that will work to strengthen your website. They can include checking navigation and UX factors, removing duplicated content, creating quality content and working in the aesthetic of your page. Make sure they offer these essential services, alongside other things.
The planning stage will initially take 0-2 months. This period will include considering your specific goals, internal resources and the strategist that will best help you achieve those aims. In the blog post “How Long Does SEO Take? A Complete Overview of Your SEO Timeline” it says that the planning will include setting a budget, assigning team roles and responsibilities, researching your targeted long-tail keywords and auditing your existing site content for value, user-friendliness and technical efficiency. Timelines may differ between one company and another, and it will depend on your business and its size.
An SEO agency will typically send you an accurate monthly report. It can be delivered by email, or reported through a phone call. It is important that there is a perfect understanding of the progress being made, and transparency in communicating the results.
Track SEO Performance
The way an SEO’s performance is tracked is by using measuring metrics. These metrics will analyze the success of your efforts, and tell you if the strategy is working. The metrics that will help you measure performance are:
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Traffic
An SEO’s entire purpose is to deliver your website more visitors. As such, measuring your traffic will give you a cohesive understanding of the strategy’s performance. However, it is not as easy as counting the overall number of visitors. Although, that is still important. There are several search engines that are being used, and part of your analysis will include breaking down the traffic by the search engine. This will provide you with the insight to adapt to the different search engines. However, many of the visitors will come across your page by typing the address, or through a link from another website. You will need to separate both types of traffic. You should also be able to distinguish the organic search traffic. This is when someone searches for something, and picks your page from the search results. All of this information combined will be able to inform you of your SEO’s performance.
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Time on Page
You will need to track the time each visitor spends on your page. Some can be passing through, while others will stay. Analyzing the time-on-page will indicate the quality of user experience being offered. However, it will depend on the page, since some pages will have a short ‘time on page’, such as the homepage. But if your product is clothing, you should expect the visitor to be spending more than a few minutes shopping. Using time on page will help you understand if the strategy is working, as it will show you the page content results. If it is not working the way it should, you can begin reconsidering your strategy. Though, you will need to check if you are getting the visitors you want.
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Keyword Ranking
An important part of tracking progress includes comparing your site to other site’s rankings when a specific keyword is searched for. If your ranking remains unchanged, then it will be obvious that your strategy needs changing. You will need to know the relevant keywords in order to utilize this metric effectively. Look at your primary and secondary keywords. Then, just know where you started, and where you are standing now. Look to act in correspondence with the results.
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Mobile Compatibility
More people are doing their searches off their mobile devices. Making sure your website is compatible with these other devices will mean that you do not have to miss out on the opportunities you could be getting from mobile phone users. Make sure your page is user-friendly across all platforms. Also, Google has updates that are specific to mobile devices, which involves supporting the user experience.
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Conversions
Conversion rates are perfect indicators for the success of your SEO. They will tell you how many of your visitors turned into customers. Check this information against different phrases and search terms. By doing so, you will learn which keyword has the highest returns.
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Bounce Rate
When a visitor enters your site, but then leaves before taking any further action, they will be included in the bounce rate. A high bounce rate will negatively impact your ranking. To avoid that, provide your visitors with an eye-catching web page. What you show on your page will depend on your business.
Checking if your SEO strategy is working will be crucial to the progress of your operations. The information you gather will allow you to understand if anything needs changing. If it does, you can simply reshape your plan to better suit your needs. So focus on your keyword implementation, and do not forget about the other things. And remember to plan before you apply SEO.
