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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) KPIs

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) KPIs help track and measure the effectiveness of the SEO manager and team in fulfilling their key responsibilities. These SEO KPIs are crucial to the overall success of the digital marketing strategy, as they focus on increasing website visibility, driving customer conversions, and improving sales performance. By monitoring metrics such as organic search traffic, keyword rankings, backlink quality, and website engagement, the SEO team can continuously optimize their efforts to ensure maximum ROI for the organization. Furthermore, the SEO KPIs also help to evaluate the team’s performance and identify areas for improvement in the SEO strategy.

SEO KPIs Reporting Dashboard

SEO On-Page Objectives

Understanding on-page SEO objectives or KPIs will help focus your efforts on developing successful on-page or website SEO strategies that make your company website attractive to your target audience, drive traffic to the site, increase customer conversions, and improve sales growth and sustainability metrics.

  • Improve the number of organic sessions – Measuring the percentage of organic traffic to the company’s website is one of the most important metrics to monitor; the more traffic, the greater the potential for customer sales. Measuring organic sessions over time is the strongest indicator that your SEO strategy is working.
  • Increase keyword ranking metrics – Keyword ranking is an indispensable KPI to measure because it directly correlates with SEO success. It measures the changes in your search engine rankings for competitive and targeted keywords, including long-tailed keywords. And it demonstrates the effectiveness of your company’s SEO strategy.

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  • Increase lead rate metrics – The lead rate measures the percentage of website visitors who are captured as leads when entering the top of the sales funnel. This metric indicates your company’s ability to attract the right audience as well as the efficiency at which your brand’s website turns visitors into leads.
  • Improve conversion rate metrics – The conversion rate is the ratio of visitors (or leads) who respond to the CTA (Call-To-Action) on the brand’s website. This CTA might be to sign up for an email newsletter or to purchase one or more products on the brand’s website. Visitors who perform this action are considered conversions.
  • Improve the bounce rate metric – The bounce rate measures how many people bounce off your website. If a visitor lands on your site’s home page and moves off immediately. A high bounce rate is a negative metric. Your aim is to keep the bounce rate as low as possible.
  • Improve the number of pages per session metric – The pages-per-session metric measures how many web pages a visitor to the brand’s website visits in one session. This metric aims to show how engaged your target audience is with your brand’s website.
  • Increase average session duration rate – The average session duration metric measures the total length of all sessions over time, in seconds, divided by the number of sessions for the period measured. The length of an individual session is the length of time that a visitor spends on your site.
  • Increase page load time metric – The web page load time metric measures the time (in seconds) it takes to download and display the web page’s content in the browser window. This web performance metric impacts user engagement. The longer a web page takes to load, the higher the bounce rate.
  • Improve top exit page metric – The top exit page metric measures the site’s outflow or exit. The exit page metric indicates both a positive and a negative trend. When the visitor has completed the site’s CTA, they will exit at the end of this process. Early exits require an analysis to determine the problem.
  • Improve crawl error metric – The Google web crawlers and indexing algorithms need to crawl through every web page on your site to assess its value and relevance. If there are crawl errors, Google’s algorithms cannot access all of your site’s content.

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SEO Off-Page Objectives

SEO off-page objectives or KPIs are designed to track and measure metrics related to off-page SEO strategies. Elements such as improving backlinks and referring domain metrics, Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking, search visibility, and the number of quality backlinks are critical aspects of the successful off-page SEO strategy.

  • Improve backlinks and referring domain metrics – Organic backlinks and referring domains are the two vital aspects of increasing your website’s ranking on the Google SERP. The backlinks and referring domains must come from high-quality sites; otherwise, Google might penalize your site. The higher the backlinks’ authority, the higher Google will rank your site.
    Improve search ranking metric – The higher your website ranks for brand-specific keywords, the greater the change of visitors navigating to your website, and converting to returning customers. The search ranking metric is a critical KPI because it is a direct connection to your brand’s success in the online space.

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  • Improve search visibility metric – The search visibility metric is used to calculate how visible a website is on the Google SERP. If this metric is low, then your website is not ranked high enough on the SERP for a particular keyword. Armed with information, you’ll be able to adjust your site’s SEO strategy.
  • Increase the number of quality links – Measuring the number of quality backlinks is a fundamental SEO metric for content marketers and SEO experts. High-quality backlinks are now amongst the most important ranking factors. Therefore, your SEO strategy should involve acquiring high-quality organic backlinks.

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SEO Manager Objectives

SEO manager objectives or KPIs are designed to track and measure the SEO manager’s ability to supervise an SEO team and implement an SEO strategy that increases brand visibility, improves customer conversions and sales numbers, and adds value to the business by driving growth and sustainability.

  • Create effective Search Engine Optimization strategies – This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to create effective Search Engine Optimization strategies. An effective SEO strategy is crucial to increasing brand visibility, driving customer conversions and sales metrics, and increasing the company’s top and bottom lines.
  • Oversee and supervise a team of SEO experts – This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to oversee and supervise a team of SEO experts. SEO is a critical aspect of any successful digital marketing campaign: the better the SEO manager’s supervision skills, the more successful the SEO strategies.

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  • Lead the research for SEO-friendly keywords – This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to lead the research for SEO-friendly keywords. The higher the manager’s ability to assist the SEO team with finding the right keywords that drive the SEO strategy, the more successful the SEO strategies’ outcomes.
  • Monitor technical SEO issues and help fix them – The most common SEO issues like no HTTPS security, a website that isn’t correctly indexed, and no XML sitemaps are often straightforward to correct but are often ignored. This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to monitor technical SEO issues and fix them.
  • Optimize the content of landing pages, blogs, and websites – The optimization of landing pages, blogs, and website content based on SEO best practices is crucial to a successful SEO strategy. This KPI tracks and measures the SEO team’s ability to optimize landing pages, blog posts, and website content to drive sales and growth and to increase company revenue.
  • Direct and coordinate content teams in off-page SEO tasks like link-building and commenting on forums – Implementing an off-page SEO strategy is as essential as the on-page strategy. They are two halves of the same coin. This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to direct and coordinate content teams in off-page SEO tasks like link-building and comment on forums.
  • Analyze the insights and report on all SEO aspects including traffic, views, clicks, and rankings – Regular and accurate analysis of the insights and report on all SEO aspects, including traffic, views, clicks, and rankings, is a critical part of the successful SEO and digital marketing strategy. This KPI tracks and measures the SEO manager’s ability to accurately analyze every aspect of the SEO strategy.
  • Collaborate with the social media team during the SEO marketing campaigns – A robust digital marketing campaign consists of a multi-pronged attack, including on-page and off-page SEO and social media marketing. It is essential to collaborate with the social media team during the SEO marketing campaign. This KPI tracks and measures how well the SEO team collaborates with the social media team.
  • Stay up to date regarding SEO and marketing standards – SEO and digital marketing standards and best practices are fluid and can change rapidly as digital technology and best practices change. It is essential to stay up to date regarding SEO and marketing standards. This KPI tracks the extent to which the SEO manager stays abreast of these changes.

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These KPIs provide the foundation for the measurement of the SEO team’s job role efficiencies. They are essential benchmarks designed to monitor month-to-month performance amongst the SEO team, spearheaded by the SEO manager, ensuring consistency and reliability in the overall digital marketing strategy.

The SEO team’s successes form a vital part of ensuring organizational success. On the other hand, if the SEO manager and team are unable to design and implement a robust SEO strategy, the company’s ability to meet its digital marketing policies will be reduced. And this will play a fundamental role in reducing the company’s brand visibility, voice, and ultimately its value in that its target audience will not convert into returning customers, resulting in decreased sales numbers, and reduced top and bottom lines.

These SEO KPIs are divided up into three result areas, SEO on-page objectives, SEO off-page objectives, and SEO management objectives, all designed to individually measure the three most essential elements of the SEO strategy, driving growth and sustainability.

Benefits of AssessTEAM cloud-based employee evaluation form for your SEO team.

  • Use on all smart devices
  • Include custom KPIs
  • Keep historic trends
  • Include eSignatures
  • 360-degree feedback
  • Unlimited customization
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