Metrics to Gauge Success of SEO Campaigns

SEO agencies, Google Analytics reports, and friends with a little more knowledge than yourself will always have a range of data, statistics and insight to measure your SEO campaigns and tell you how a campaign is performing.
Ultimately, the wealth of information available helps to shape decisions and long-term strategies, but success can be measured very simply in just a few metrics, without the confusion of sifting through large amounts of information.
Before measuring success, ensure you agree targets as a strategy can be built to hit different milestones and ensure a website is on track to organic success.

Keyword Ranking – phrases and words

Exact match keywords and targeted keywords, keyword stuffing and over optimising every page title is now a thing of the past. More so, SEO is moving towards keyword phrase groups. For example, a software company may target CPM software as a product, but surrounding this would be software companies, SaaS and much more.
The idea is that Google’s RankBrain understands keyword associations, allowing for richer content. In turn, this creates the ability to target keyword groups to allow for variations of searches and changes in search trends.

Domain Authority, Trust Flow and Citation Flow

If building valuable links is part of your SEO strategy (and it should be!), then look at simple metrics of DA, trust flow and citation are a great insight to the success of your campaigns. If DA and Trust are on the up, you’re doing well. If citation is going up with them then great, if citation is going up on its own, then consider a change in strategy for links and referring domains offering a greater trust.

Leads/Conversions

Of course, the biggest sign of success for SEO is the increase in leads and conversions. Remember, SEO isn’t all about traffic. 10,000 visitors a day means nothing if they’re all the wrong type of visitor with no intention of converting.
Elements such as conversion rate optimization, site structure and working on site speed can all lead to an increase in conversions if a user experience is improved. Again, consider the benefits this has on your business long term. Getting the most from your current website is quick way to increase conversions, leads and immediate ROI.

Onsite Engagement

Long term, SEO can be measured in onsite engagement as well. Think about things like Bounce Rates and the percentage of new users. More new users can mean two things – if you’re overall traffic is going up then an increase in new users is great, if not, then potential you’re not getting return traffic.
Think about these types of statistics in relevance your business. Each has a different impact in context, but each also highlights what users are doing on your website and what this means for longer term business success and growth.