When implementing an SEO strategy to help boost your business in the search engines, one of the most important components is to analyze your traffic to ascertain what is working, what is not, and how you can fix it to receive the maximum benefit. To insure the success of your SEO strategy and receive the full picture, you must consult with more than one source of information. Although some reports may be interesting, not all of them carry the same weight or provide you with the information you need to make effective changes.
Ranking Reports
Information from ranking reports can be misleading, since this is a measure of traffic volume and can fluctuate due to many factors, including the search engine providing you with the results. Without a supplemental long tail strategy, although you may attain your ranking goals, it may not impact your business goals. Check these manually, keeping in mind these reports reflect 10% or less of your total search volume.
Links – Quality Over Quantity
In this case, the more is not necessarily the better. It’s not the amount of links to a site you receive that counts, it’s the quality. You can monitor the amount of link activity, but it is by no means a definitive measurement of traffic or SEO success, but rather one piece of the puzzle.
Visitor Engagement
This is a great tool to analyze how much time people spend on your site, the bounce rate, and how many pages they view. A change or spike in any of these statistics can indicate a change in traffic, or a problem on the site that needs to be addressed immediately.
Non-Branded Traffic
The focus here should be on unique visitors and charted over a period of time. Evaluating the irrelevant traffic on your site will help you analyze what you may need to change to attract targeted traffic for more conversions, helping you meet your business goals.
Conversion Rate
Probably the most important report to review. Conversions equal sales, and that’s what puts money in your pocket. Measuring the conversions from organic traffic is imperative to a successful SEO strategy. Keep in mind, however, that the conversion rate can also include other statistics, such as widget or whitepaper downloads, “Contact me” requests, and completed forms, and adjust accordingly.
Although rankings play an important part in your overall SEO business strategy, it is by all means not the only tool to measure how you’re doing meeting your business goals. By referring to and analyzing more than one report, you receive a bigger and more descriptive picture of how your business is progressing and where you may need to make some changes. By consulting and analyzing more than one report, giving weight to the conversion rate and monitoring non-branded traffic, you’ll be able to tailor your SEO strategy for the best results.
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To optimise conversions you should employ a web analytics provider such as clicktale to show you how your customers enagage eith your site. From the results fo the aggregate behaviours, real time videos and heatmaps you can mend any deficiencies and make it easier for visitors to your site to become buyers.
Heat Maps haven’t heard that term in a while but great idea if your really looking for detailed information
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