SEO is something of a nebulous subject at times. It can be difficult to pin down exactly what is working for you and what is not. The main reason why you can’t always successfully determine your progress with optimizing your website is that there is too much information.
If you have been battling with information overload, this post will help you in two ways. First of all, we have narrowed down the most important statistics for you to monitor. What we cover here will give you your best indication of how you are progressing.
Secondly, the infographic below breaks down SEO into core concepts and statistics, all presented in bite-sized pieces. It is a great go-to as a general guide. Check it out below our tips.
But, before you get started, let’s check what statistics you should take more notice of.
Your Site’s Load Time
Count to three. That’s the three seconds you have for your site to load. If it takes any longer, Google research shows you could lose more than half of your visitors.
If you don’t address this issue, it will affect the bounce rate. Load times are one of the factors that search engines consider when ranking websites.
Bounce Rate
The number of people visiting your site is important, but the bounce rate is a better indicator of how your SEO strategy works. Next, to content quality and website speed, seotribunal.com lists bounce rate as one of the key ranking factors in any situation. This SEO factor shows how long people are staying on your site, and is a very important criteria for search engines to establish your site’s value.
A high bounce rate indicates that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. If your site is loading fast enough, a higher bounce rate could mean that people haven’t found what they were looking for.
This could mean that your site is ranking for the wrong words. If this is the case, people are clicking on the link expecting to find something else. Focus on using a variety of long-tailed keywords when creating the content.
The Sites That Are Backlinked To Yours
In the past, having as many sites linked to yours as possible was important. Now search engines rate the credibility of the sites that are linking to you. Google Search Console is a tool that can help you with checking how your backlinking works.
This service is free, so sign up and scan your site. The tool will show you which sites are linked to yours. You will need to establish whether those sites are worth being linked to, and the best way to do this is to visit them by yourself.
When you get to the site, check whether its content is of a good quality and whether it makes sense for it to link to you.
If you are suspicious about a site, you should nicely ask its webmaster to remove the link. If that doesn’t work, you can disavow the link.
Those are the three important things to check when it comes to SEO. If you don’t have too much time at your disposal to check other relevant SEO factors, you should make sure that you at least take care of your site’s load time, backlinks, and bounce rate.
Learn more SEO factors in the great infographic 72 Stats To Understand SEO in 2018