23 Feb 4 Signs of a Successful SEO Strategy 

You’ve outsourced your business’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), but how do you know if it’s actually working? In this post, we’re going to outline exactly what should be measured, and why, so you’ll be better able to answer the question of whether or not your SEO is working for your business. 

Do keep in mind that the benefits of SEO don’t happen overnight. So if you’re feeling anxious that you’re not seeing results right away, rest assured that slow and steady certainly does win the race when it comes to a good SEO strategy. 

#1: Your Organic Traffic is Increasing 

What is organic traffic? When someone submits a query on a search engine like Google, finds a link to your website in the search results (not a paid ad at the top of the results listing), and then clicks on it, this is called organic traffic. 

The fruits of a great SEO strategy can be summed up in one word: growth. When you start to see organic traffic growth over time (including new sessions and returning sessions), this is a great sign of a successful SEO strategy. 

If you were to look at your Google Analytics and compare your web traffic stats over the past 12 months or so, the graph should show a definite upward trend.  

Keep in mind that every industry has seasonal fluctuations, and these should be taken into consideration when looking at your overall website traffic. A good way to factor this in is to compare your performance year on year. 

#2: Your Keyword Rankings Are Steadily Increasing

What are keyword rankings? Every time someone types in a query into the Google search bar, Google’s algorithm determines which sites and pages are the most relevant to the user’s search intent and then provides results in order. 

With improved keyword rankings, your site will be viewed by more people and thus will earn more organic traffic. And the more traffic you send through your website, the more business you’re likely to receive.  

If you rank at number one, you can expect to get almost 30% of the search traffic from desktop users and almost 25% of the search traffic from mobile users. The second position drops all the way down to about 15%.

Keyword rankings are a constant battle for the number one spot on search engines. This means that the on-site optimisation work never ends! Your rankings for certain keywords are likely to fluctuate too. In general, a good SEO strategy will ensure you are fairly consistent with an upward trend in rankings. 

#3: Your Conversion Rate is Increasing 

What is a conversion rate? This is the percentage of website visitors that complete a conversion (or goal).  

A good sign that your SEO is working is when you start to receive the right kind of traffic, and are attracting visitors who are likely to become customers. There’s no point in gaining a lot of traffic to your site, if these users are not, in fact, looking for your business and therefore are not going to convert to a sale.

Conversions can be a tricky territory as it depends on how you define a conversion. For example, conversions for e-commerce websites would include selling products. Conversions for professional services might be contact form submissions. Regardless of what you consider to be a conversion, it should be a measurable event that can be tied to your revenue.  

#4: You Have a Good Bounce Rate

What is a bounce rate? It’s the metric that shows the percentage of visitors who leave your site after looking at only one page. You want this number to be as low as possible.

If your SEO is working well, you should see a favourable bounce rate, which will indicate how accurate the page is targeted toward visitors who are interested in the content or your business. 

If your bounce rate is high, it can also indicate an issue with the design of the web page that is too frustrating for a visitor to use, and the user ends up leaving.

Bounce rates can vary from page to page, but in general, your homepage and service pages should be low, ideally less than 30%. The average can be up to 60%, and anything over 70% is considered high. 

Fine-tuning Results

A good SEO strategy is always a work in progress. It takes constant fine-tuning with tweaks here and there in order to see the best results. If you feel your current SEO strategy isn’t working and you’re not seeing favourable results, we’re experts at Online Marketing for Business and we’d be happy to put an action plan in place to up your SEO game.