Improving a site’s SEO performance can sometimes be tricky business. Merchants can’t always depend upon movement in the SERPs to track the progress of various pages.
This is largely because pages can take weeks or months to begin their search engine assent after implementing on-site optimization tactics. Therefore, retailers require a more cohesive strategy for tracking SEO performance.
However, even with a tracking program in place, how do sellers go about creating a workflow for extracting actionable insights from the data produced in order to implement data-driven business decisions?
To pull actionable data from SEO metrics, it is vital not only to understand which parameters are necessary to track but how to read the data in a way that will produce a roadmap for enhanced eCommerce SEO performance.
Must-Track SEO Metrics
There are a variety of SEO metrics that are essential to track and analyze to effectively determine the viability of a brand’s search strategy. Most professional eCommerce SEO consultant services would recommend that merchants monitor vital data points such as:
Keyword Rankings
This data informs retailers on the keywords that searchers employ to surface individual web pages. It is essential to understand how users find a retailer’s store as this gives them more information on how to optimize their site for searches currently being conducted.
However, to acquire this info, merchants must integrate Google Analytics with Google Search Console.
After completing this step, sellers can access the Queries report by going to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries.
Organic Traffic
This metric marks the variation in the quantity of organic traffic that a page receives. It is crucial to monitor the fluctuation in this figure from day to day to gain a fuller understanding of how a page is performing in the SERPs.
If retailers see a decline in traffic, it is wise to diagnose the cause like they would after a Google rankings drop. Alternatively, if traffic increases, aim to establish what on- or off-site efforts led to the boost and seek to replicate that with other pages.
To access this information, go to Google Analytics and click Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels > Sessions column for Organic Search.
Organic Traffic by Conversions
While organic traffic is vital, businesses live and die by conversions. Therefore, retailers ought to monitor the quality of the organic traffic they are receiving by monitoring these folks’ conversion rates.
To access this data, go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels and view the conversion rate column for Organic Search.
Backlink Acquisition
The number of links pointing to a site is one of the most important elements of the multitude of Google ranking factors. Therefore, monitoring the changes in the number of links pointing to a website is vital for establishing SEO performance.
However, it is also critical to evaluate the quality of backlinks and linking root domains, as all links are not created equal.
To obtain this info, go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals.
Landing Page Bounce Rates
Bounce rates have a significant impact on SEO performance as Google uses this metric as an indicator of a page’s usefulness. For instance, if a searcher clicks through to a landing page and immediately bounces, Google perceives this to mean that the visitor did not find the page helpful. As a result, Google is likely to demote the page as it relates to the searched query.
To access this information in Google Analytics, click Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages and view the Bounce Rate column.
While all these data points are vital for determining the effectiveness of a site’s SEO blueprint, Google Analytics is not the only tool available for harvesting valuable SEO insights.
Using Google Tag Manager for Data Tracking
While Google Analytics provides retailers with a wealth of data for monitoring site performance, there are many on-site activities that the tool does not track.
Therefore, deploying Google Tag Manager can help merchants fill in the informational gaps, thereby expanding the insights they can harvest from consumer behaviors.
With Google Tag Manager, retailers can track:
Button Clicks
With Google Tag Manager, retailers can track any on-site click they desire, including:
- “Add to Cart” clicks
- Links to social profiles
- Subscribe buttons
- Download CTAs
By monitoring such activities, retailers can obtain a more comprehensive understanding of how visitors are interacting with their sites.
Video Views
User engagement, such as video views, informs sellers about how interested visitors are in their content, which is critical to understand for better SEO performance.
If merchants include embedded YouTube videos within their stores, Google Tag Manager can track how many people watch the content, for how long and when they stopped viewing.
Scroll Behavior
To help improve the user experience and time-on-site, retailers must understand how visitors are viewing their pages. Through Google Tag Manager, merchants can monitor user scroll patterns to see how much of a blog folks read, how much content of a landing page that lives below the fold is consumed and the scrolling activity of any other on-site destination.
This information is essential for optimizing content to produce more beneficial SEO outcomes.
Extracting Useful Insights
Analyzing the data that is generated through the platforms mentioned above is often a heady and complicated task. However, to develop actionable insights based on the information provided, retailers should look for specific trends that point to performance results that should be either replicated or resolved.
Some common trends that retailers might encounter include:
High Traffic, Low Conversions
If retailers see that individual pages are producing generous amounts of clicks, but are failing to convert those visitors, there is clearly a problem.
In such an instance, there is a decent chance that they are targeting the wrong keywords. In this scenario, searchers enter a query looking for a particular solution, be it information on a product or service.
If retailers are ranking pages for those terms, but do not provide the necessary materials to resolve the customer’s search, it will result in high traffic and low conversion.
For retailers who see this trend on their site, it is best to re-evaluate their eCommerce keyword strategy to align with their target audience’s needs more closely.
Above Average Bounce Rates
According to bounce rate analytics, the average bounce rate is 58 percent. Bounce rates on the high side would be those that fall in the 70th percentile or over.
In this scenario, retailers should certainly dig into the queries that a page is surfacing for and analyze its contents through that lens.
In such a situation, there are a variety of causes that could be driving the bounce rates. These would include:
- A bad user experience
- Speed issues
- Poor content
- Technical errors
Moreover, retailers may want to assess the page’s metadata to ensure it is reflective of what the user will find on the destination. If it is not, this could potentially be the culprit.
Top-Performing Pages
When implementing on-site strategies to increase a site’s SEO performance, it is vital to monitor each page altered to see which produce the most favorable outcomes.
To compare landing page performance, head to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. Any that show significant increases in beneficial behaviors such as extensive scrolling, time-on-site, conversions and the like should be studied to reproduce the efforts on similar destinations.
If merchants don’t track their SEO metrics, it is impossible to know what is working and what is failing. Therefore, understanding the most valuable SEO metrics to track and consistently analyzing them to produce more prosperous outcomes is a necessity for peak performance in the SERPs.
Be sure to monitor the data points outlined above and develop a standardized workflow for harvesting and interpreting these figures into actionable insights that will help the business drive more traffic and earn more sales
About the Author: Ronald Dod is the chief marketing officer and co-founder of Visiture, an end-to-end e-commerce marketing agency focused on helping online merchants acquire more customers through the use of search engines, social media platforms, marketplaces and their online storefronts. His passion is helping leading brands use data to make more effective decisions in order to drive new traffic and conversions.