Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As someone who has worked in search engine optimization (SEO) for nearly a decade, I know how important it is to track your metrics. While not all metrics are created equal, it's essential to stay on top of your online performance.
From my observations and practical experience, there are some SEO metrics that will really matter in 2024. Specifically, they can be divided into two categories: on-page and off-page. Either way, these metrics are essential to exponentially improve your SEO performance.
So, without further ado, here are the metrics I measure, monitor, and recommend for a highly effective SEO effort:
Related: 5 Things You Need to Know About SEO in 2024, According to the Experts
Keyword research and analysis
First, let me mention the importance of keyword research and analysis. It should be the foundation of any SEO strategy. However, choosing the right keywords can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
This is where using the right tools comes into play. If you have these tools at hand, you need to use them wisely. Whether you are creating a sales page or a blog post, you need to consider the user's search intent when looking for the right keywords.
A sales page with keywords with informational intent will fail. The same goes for blog posts with keywords with commercial intent. Match the right keywords to your specific content type. For example, commercial pages should contain keywords with commercial intent and blog posts should contain keywords with informational intent.
Once you've narrowed down your list of keywords and created and published your content, you'll need to track its performance. Analyzing your keyword data is essential to developing an SEO strategy. Measure aspects such as search engine rankings, keyword rankings, overall organic traffic, and other metrics to ensure you're moving in the right direction.
Page Speed ​​and Mobile Friendliness
Page speed has a big impact on SEO. Most online users get annoyed if a page takes more than 3 seconds to open after clicking on it. In this world of instant gratification, users want websites that load quickly and are easy to navigate. Want to know how to optimize your page speed performance? Here are some tips worth considering:
-
Compress images
-
Do not host videos locally
-
Use a quality hosting plan
-
Don't use too much animation
-
Minimize external resources
-
Minimize HTTP requests
-
Optimizing performance with Redis caching
-
Enable GZIP compression
-
Take advantage of faster mobile pages
-
Reduce the number of redirects
Related to page speed is making sure your website is mobile-friendly. Indeed, the world is becoming more and more mobile-first, and if your website doesn't load smoothly on mobile, you'll frustrate your users and lose them to your competitors. So, by employing these strategies, you can essentially keep your website loading speed down and improve user satisfaction while tracking this metric.
Related: 8 Ways to Speed ​​Up Your Website (And Why It Matters to Your Business)
Content quality and relevance
Measuring the quality and relevance of your content is hard. But it's important. There are a few metrics I always look at in this area, including:
-
traffic jam
-
Bounce rate
-
Residence time
-
Social Share
-
Backlinks (see below for more details)
-
conversion
-
Revenue and/or return on investment
Looking at these metrics holistically, you can see if your content is resonating with your target audience. Another aspect I consider in this regard is not only publishing new content but also updating old articles to ensure that your website or your client's website performs at its best in a particular period. Remember that SEO is a long-term endeavor. SEO is an ongoing process and requires consistent and dedicated efforts for overall success.
Link Building and Authority
Now, we come to the pinnacle of SEO: link building. Many in the industry say that getting backlinks to your website from other authority websites ensures trust in the quality of your online presence. However, some backlinks are good and some are bad. That's why the key metrics to monitor regarding your backlink profile should include:
There are many different strategies on how to build high-quality backlinks. However, I recommend several subcategories of outreach such as the skyscraper approach, resource link exchanges, guest posting, etc. Ultimately, you want your online presence to stand out. And to achieve this, you need to demonstrate credibility, authority, and above all else, trustworthiness.
Conversion Rates and User Experience
Measuring conversion rate requires some analytical approach. Simply put, it's a numbers game. But measuring user experience goes beyond numbers and into the realm of quality. Both of these metrics are important for SEO. While conversion rate can be easily measured by the number of new customers your business acquires, user experience can be measured using the following approaches:
Ultimately, if you want to enhance your SEO efforts to drive conversions through a great user experience, you need to implement A/B testing and run different experiments to ensure your approach is as refined as possible.
Related: User experience is the most important unmeasured metric
So there you have it, friends: all the SEO metrics that matter in 2024. To be a successful entrepreneur, we can’t overemphasize the importance of tracking and optimizing your SEO metrics. After all, if you have an online presence, you need to build, nurture, and grow it to reap the benefits.
With this in mind, if you haven’t already started tracking these metrics, it’s important to do so while combining measuring them with the right SEO strategies and approaches – the benefits to your business and online presence will be incredible.