SEO Reporting

SEO Reporting is the cornerstone of accountability. Marketing without measure equals public relations. At Perfectly Optimized we are all about the reports and the numbers. It is important to state upfront we understand that only conversions and new business matter. Reports and metrics only back up those real-life results, and offer accountability.

The things we track

1. Branded Search
2. Traffic Metrics
3. Traffic Sources
4. Top Pages
5. Organic Competition
6. Competition Keywords
7. Your Keywords
8. Competition Positions
9. Bounce rate
10. Session Time
11. Traffic ROI
12. Branded Search
13. Backlinks
14. Contact Form Submissions

Keyword Footprint

Your keyword footprint equals the total number of keywords that your website returns for. The goal is to have as many keywords as possible that are relevant to conversions and new business. SEO work helps increase the number of keywords returning to your website. This in turn gives more chances for organic traffic. On our keyword research page, we cover more specifics of the keyword types we collect and track. As a rule, we want this number as large as possible. One caveat would be to ensure keywords that are relevant. If you rank for non-relevant works you’ll see high traffic, but realize low conversions. Knowing where to make adjustments is why consistent reporting is important.

Keyword Distribution

As your keyword footprint increases in terms, they all won’t be on page 1, starting out. If you were recently found for a term it oftentimes is far down in the rankings and needs to float higher. We like to see where the bulk of your keywords exists in the context of the position. Some terms may have a high volume and exist on page 2. Crafting meaningful content designed to increase your association with that term may push it to page 1. It also shows us how your keywords move like a herd through the positions. As time goes on we want the bulk to transfer from lower to higher rankings. Tracking distributions show very clearly the combined movements and positions of your keywords.

Keyword Positions

Keyword distributions show us how many keywords exist per page rank. Keyword Positions show us which page and specific keywords live on. More specifically, which page and which search features return them? Examples would be image search, video search, map pack, or rich snippet return. It is important to understand your location may impact a ranking or position, as well as a device such as mobile versus desktop.

Keyword positions are a metric most clients are very interested in. We get it, you know your industry and which terms will bring you new business. Most often clients are correct about this intuition and know the terms that equal profit. The competition also understands this and fights for the same dollar. So while keyword position is very, very important, it is still only a piece of the larger puzzle. This is another reason why proper keyword research is so important. Skewed results occur when tracking the wrong keywords. Whether good or bad, the whole point of reporting is to give all a clear picture. Skewed results, in all cases, are not desired.

Branded Search

Branded search shows how much traffic finds you for keywords that have your company name in them. This is in contrast to traffic finding you based on the strength and relevance of your pages. This is a simple metric that shows us the distribution between the power of your name, and the power of your pages. As SEO providers we like to see a high distribution of non-branded traffic. In reality, an appropriate balance between both is good.

Traffic Metrics

Traffic is important, as no organic conversions can happen without it. It is important to keep in mind there are several different types of traffic. We track how many total users, returning users, and new users you gain.

Traffic Sources

Tracking traffic sources gives us an idea of the online entities that bring you, potential customers. If you have any paid ads, for example, this activity is easily seen. As SEO providers we want to like your primary traffic source to be Google and search engines. It goes without saying you want to cultivate all sources possible. But with SEO, your best ROI is through organic results.

Top Pages

Tracking your top pages gives an idea of the URLs users enjoys most in reality. We find this is often different from what business owners think their best pages are. When determining top pages, you want to enhance and expand. First, we want to enhance the current pages with more content, and a call to action. Second, we want to expand on the topic within that page. The topics of top pages point to topics users find valuable. Expanding into a section and subsections on that topic will increase your rankings and user engagement.

Organic Competition

Organic competition is any website that steals clicks from you. This is a primary factor in the amount of SEO work that you may need. If you have no online competition, then Google should naturally find you are the authority. You should be on page 1 with what you do without much effort if any. But, in industries with high margins, there is always high competition. The competition that threatens your clicks is what we are most interested in tracking. These competitors may or may not be the same as the physical ones known to you in your area. They may also not even be in the same state or the same country. In some cases, they don’t even offer the same products and services. But in all these cases these other websites steal clicks that should go to you. Those are who we track, the ones that steal your business.

Competition Keywords

Knowing the keywords your competition returns for is paramount. It shows us the terms Google is rewarding and gives us an idea as to the difficulty to rank for a given term. This is where a Keyword Gap analysis becomes important. It illustrates the terms you are unique for, you commonly share, or terms you are not found for at all. Based on how these terms relate to converting traffic determines which of these terms we seek to optimize you for.

Your Keywords

We track your keywords right along with your competitors. This shows us exactly where you are gaining, losing, or needing to catch up. Which keywords we track for you is a by-product of Keyword Research, which you can read about here.

Competition Positions

We must know the positions of your competition and how they relate to you. This metric changes over time and these changes can oftentimes be seen on a weekly basis. When it comes to tracking positions with your competitors the goal is either to get ahead or to stay ahead.

Bounce rate

The bounce rate is going away with Google. A clean way to look at bounce rate is in terms of engagement. I high bounce rate, actually means low engagement. A low bounce rate means high engagement. Google is now introducing the new idea of a simple, Engagement Rate. While some argue this is a cleaner way of looking at the same thing, while it is, the bounce rate was well-established in the industry and was very useful to determine first-page effectiveness. Either way, whether we call it Bounce Rate or Engagement Rate, the engagement of users hitting your first page is a clean and important metric to track.

Session Time

Another form of an Engagement Metric is, session time gives us an idea of how long the user stays on your site. There is no correct answer to this, except for a “good session time” is the one that equals conversions. Keep in mind, your site has a purpose, and you want to guide the user through the maze with minimal effort and a focused ending. Therefore, having a high session time may not always be desired. A high session time could mean users are confused and there is a usability issue. Low session times could be a good thing. If you are selling through eCommerce, and you have high sales and low session time, that typically implies users are quickly finding and purchasing your product. Goal achieved! Session time is only meaningful in the context of your specific operation and what you want your users to accomplish.

Traffic ROI

This ROI is a measure of first knowing how many keywords Google will return you for. These keywords will bring an average amount of monthly traffic. The Traffic ROI is how much it would cost you to purchase that traffic through Google Adwords for the keywords you rank for. In other words, it is a measure of how much it would cost you to buy the online results you experience, versus earning them organically.  While only conversions and the growth of our client’s bottom line is the goal, we like to compare our fees to this number. If we are lower, then you at least know SEO is a better investment than paid advertising. This is not to mention that SEO efforts can last for many years, whereas purchasing traffic through ads lasts as long as the ad is paid for.

Backlinks

Who links to your website? While one of the oldest ranking factors on the web, it is still one of the biggest. It is also one of the hardest and Google uses this to help determine the value of websites. While there has been recent concern about “toxic backlinks”, it is our experience this is extremely rare, and Google typically seems to ignore it.  Otherwise, you want high-ranking sites linking back to you without a link to them. Do this with many different high-ranking sites and you’ll find a natural elevation in your results. We track these links so you can be armed with the knowledge of which websites to encourage to link to you.

Contact Form Submissions

With all of our websites, contact form submissions are always stored in the website’s database. In this way converting leads doesn’t ever have to be lost in email. This preservation policy makes it easy to see how many times someone has contacted you. Not always, but in most cases, a contact form submission of some kind is usually a conversion factor. It means new business. We make sure your website tracks all submissions so actual converting user engagement can be clearly seen.