7 Ways to Measure Your Search Engine Optimization

by Justin Palmer


Now that Google seems to be artificially adjusting the PageRank of certain
sites, we have one more reason to ignore it as a useful SEO key performance
indicator. So what should we use to measure the success of our SEO projects?
Below, I've listed the 7 SEO KPI's that I track for my sites.



  1. Unique keywords: By tracking the number of unique keywords your site is
    found for, you'll see a global, birds eye view of how well your site is doing
    with the long tails. Sure, you want to be found for the important, high volume
    terms as well, but a healthy site will rank organically for a great diversity of
    keywords.

  2. Organic Visits Per Page: Every page on your site should target a few
    keywords and draw in traffic for those terms. In other words, what percent of
    your total unique pages are doing a good job of bringing traffic? If you have
    1000 pages, and only 200 unique keyword visits, you've got some issues that need
    to be addressed.

  3. Conversion Rate Per Keyword: It's extremely important to know which
    keywords outperform others. As a search marketer, your time is very limited.
    Therefore, you must focus on the terms which return decent ROI.

  4. Pages Indexed: The number of pages your site indexed has indexed by Google
    and Yahoo can give you a rough metric of your site's crawl-ability. If you find
    that the number of actual pages you have is much greater than the number of
    indexed pages, you may have issues with navigation or duplicate content. To view
    your indexed pages, simply use the "site:" command on Google or Yahoo (e.g. site:www.yoursite.com).

  5. Yahoo Backlinks: Unlike Google, Yahoo actually shows you the approximate
    number of back links pointing to your site by using the link: command.

  6. Google Backlinks: Unfortunately, the Google link: command is worthless. In
    order to see an approximate, although likely outdated count of your external
    links, login to your Google Webmaster Central account.

  7. SERP Rankings for High Volume Keywords: Because web users are becoming
    more sophisticated and less predictable in their searching habits, I would
    caution about worrying too much about high volume keywords. However, it's still
    important to monitor these keyword positions. SEO software such as WebCEO or
    WebPositionGold are great timesaver tools.


There are many other on-site SEO metrics, such as keyword density, that might
be helpful if you are targeting Yahoo or MSN. However, with the dominance of
Google and the relative emphasis they place on on-page factors, I rarely
consider these.



About the author

Justin Palmer is the founder of Palmer Web Marketing, which offers SEO evaluations and Do SEO yourself plans. Justin is also the director of internet marketing for C28.com, which sells Bible verse shirts and Scripture wear.