PART 1 OF 10
Why do we need to measure SEO efforts?
As you may have gathered, SEO can be a difficult marketing channel to fully understand. To ensure that you and any stakeholders you report to, appreciate the value of SEO, it’s important to measure the success of your efforts. This can help to justify the use of budget or time, and get more business buy-in, to increase SEO spend and accelerate success.
PART 2 OF 10
What is an SEO Report?
SEO reports give your clients, managers, and stakeholders an overview of how a website is performing in search engines. A good SEO report shows the progress of the campaign, including key commercial metrics that the business uses to define success, such as sales and revenue. The report should show this progress daily, weekly, monthly or yearly depending on the business. It should also provide insight into issues and opportunities, and offers recommendations for the next few months. Producing a clear and simple report aligned to business objectives is important to communicate the value of SEO. This guide will help you understand what to include in your SEO reporting and how to build the perfect report.
PART 3 OF 10
Why create a report?
We know SEO can be seen as a bit of a mystery to some clients or bosses. A visual and easy to read report is your chance to showcase successes and justify your value.
Like with any marketing channel, you need to know your return on investment. This means analysing the data and tying your efforts back to revenue. A good SEO report allows you to see how organic traffic is contributing to the client’s business goals and conversions. This can then be used to get more budget for your channel or increase a project’s scope.
DO I NEED TO CREATE A DASHBOARD OR A REPORT?
SEO Dashboards and reports are similar in that they are both used to communicate data and information about a campaign or project. Generally, dashboards are used as a quick real-time overview, often of day-to-day metrics and broader trends. A report, on the other hand, is usually delivered monthly or quarterly. It gives a more detailed analysis of the data, including commentary on what work has been done, and plans for future growth.
Your report or dashboard needs to be adapted to fit the audience. If it is being shared with the rest of your SEO team you will probably go into more technical detail, but if it is for the board or C-level management you may present data only related to ROI or business goals. Talk to your audience in a language they understand.
PART 4 OF 10
What to report on and track for SEO?
START WITH THE END COAL IN MIND
SEO Dashboards and reports are similar in that they are both used to communicate data and information about a campaign or project. Generally, dashboards are used as a quick real-time overview, often of day-to-day metrics and broader trends. A report, on the other hand, is usually delivered monthly or quarterly. It gives a more detailed analysis of the data, including commentary on what work has been done, and plans for future growth.
Your report or dashboard needs to be adapted to fit the audience. If it is being shared with the rest of your SEO team you will probably go into more technical detail, but if it is for the board or C-level management you may present data only related to ROI or business goals. Talk to your audience in a language they understand.
Examples
ECOMMERCE
End goal
Achieve 2,000 online sales and £20,000 in revenue
Additional measures
- Drive 100,000 sessions to the website
- Achieve 2% visit to sale conversion rate
- Achieve AOV of £10
RESTAURANT
End goal
Achieve £120,000 in revenue
Additional measures
- Drive 30,000 table bookings through the website
- Drive 10,000 tables booking through Google My Business page
BUILDING COMPANY
End goal
Achieve £100,000 revenue from 10 large clients
Additional measures
- Drive 1,000 new business leads through the website
- Convert 1% to £10k plus projects
GOAL-SETTING TIPS
You’ve probably heard of the SMART way set objectives. This approach also applies to SEO. Specifically, here are our top tips to set your SEO goals.
- Make them measurable. If you can’t track a KPI, you can’t improve it.
- Be specific. Don’t let vague industry marketing jargon water down your goals.
- Timely. Set a timeline for achieving your goals and reforecast if needed.
- Share your goals: Studies have shown that writing down and sharing your goals with others boosts your chances of achieving them.
PART 5 OF 10
SEO metrics you could report on
Once you know who your report is for, you need to decide what KPIs to track and present. Let’s explore some of the useful metrics you might want to measure.
1. COMMERCIAL SEO METRICS
- Organic goal completions: Monitor and report how SEO has contributed to achieving the goals you’ve set-up for your website. This could be leads, subscriptions or anything else you deem valuable.
- Organic goal completions: If you operate an ecommerce site, how much revenue is being driven organically? How does it compare to your other channels?
- Conversion rate: Conversion rate is a percentage and looks at how much of your unique traffic is completing your goals. The aim is to drive and convert more relevant traffic through SEO, thus seeing your conversion rate increasing overtime.
2. ORGANIC TRAFFIC
The main reason for investing in SEO is to get more traffic through search engines. How many people are reaching your site through organic search? Google Analytics and Google Search Console data can help you understand this.
When using Google Analytics, always remember to segment or filter by “organic” to avoid other channels skewing the data.
- Traffic over time: How has your organic traffic volume changed over time? Is it increasing monthly and yearly?
- New users: How many new potential customers is organic search driving to your website? Are they converting to leads or customers?
- Site content: Which pages are performing the best and worst?
- Organic visitors by device type: We know that generally the majority of traffic is driven by mobile today. What’s the device split on your website? Are you doing enough to optimise your mobile experience?
- Non-branded traffic: Are you increasing traffic from generic queries not including your brand name?
- Click-through rate: Indicates whether your title and meta description entices users to click-through to your site
3. ENGAGEMENT METRICS
- Organic goal completions: Monitor and report how SEO has contributed to achieving the goals you’ve set-up for your website. This could be leads, subscriptions or anything else you deem valuable.
- Organic goal completions: If you operate an ecommerce site, how much revenue is being driven organically? How does it compare to your other channels?
- Conversion rate: Conversion rate is a percentage and looks at how much of your unique traffic is completing your goals. The aim is to drive and convert more relevant traffic through SEO, thus seeing your conversion rate increasing overtime.
THE COMPLETE GUIDE
In this series we’ll show you to create a comprehensive SEO strategy, tackling core ranking factors across all aspects of SEO. We’ll help you build a tailor-made strategy that’s right for your business and build the confidence you need to push your business to the next level.
ON PAGE SEO
Chapter one
OFF-SITE SEO
Chapter two
TECHNICAL SE0
Chapter three
ANALYSIS
Chapter four
Want to know more about how SEO can help your business?
Reach out to one of our team to find out we can help you achieve your goals.
Make an enquiry
LETS GET YOU STARTED
What can we help you with? (Choose up to 3)